Who has an Artistic Temperament? Relationships Between Creativity and Temperament Among Artists and Bank Officers

In contrast to vast literature devoted to the relationships between creativity and personality, relatively few studies addressed the question of the creativity–temperament link. Temperament is conceptualized as the biologically rooted, mostly inborn, foundations for personality and other individual traits. Sixty artists and 60 bank officers participated in this study. Their psychometric creativity was measured with Urban and Jellen's (1986 Urban , K. K. , & Jellen , H. G. ( 1986 ). Assessing creative potential via drawing production: The Test for Creative Thinking—Drawing Production (TCT—DP) . In A. J. Cropley , K. K. Urban , H. Wagner & W. Wieczerkowski (Eds.), Giftedness: A continuing worldwide challenge (pp. 163 – 169 ). New York , NY : Trillium Press . [Google Scholar]) Test for Creative Thinking—Drawing Production (TCT—DP) and an experimental task that required word categorization. Temperamental traits were measured with Strelau's Formal Characteristics of Behavior—Temperament Inventory (FCB—TI, 1997 Strelau , J. , Zawadzki , B. , & Piotrowska , A. ( 1997 ). Modele temperamentu nawiązujące do teorii aktywacji i ich implikacje dla inteligencji [Models of temperament pertaining to the activation theory and their implications for intelligence] . Studia Psychologiczne , 35 , 165 – 201 . [Google Scholar]). It appeared that creativity was positively correlated with the temperamental trait of activity, and negatively with emotional reactivity, but only within the group of artists. Bank officers, who were generally less creative than artists, showed no relationships between creativity and temperament. These findings are interpreted in terms of the role of activity and emotional reactivity in development and expression of one's creative potential.