Identification of Personality and Cognitive Indicators of Creative Potential

In this study, we explore the relationships between select cognitive assessments of creativity, self-assessment of creativity, personality traits, and a series of “real-world” creative challenges. A group of 105 students received the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT), the Alternative Uses Test (ALT), the Remote Associates Test (RAT) and a newly developed personality test, the Innovation Quest Tool Characteristics Checklist (IQTCC). The selfassessment of creativity showed a very strong statistically significant positive correlation with the IQTCC Creativity Scale. When comparing these assessments to the “real-world” creative outcomes, an individual’s creative personality traits are a better predictor than cognitive tests of their abilities with an everyday creative task such as creating a new type of cookie. There was no obvious relationship between any of the assessments and a client-based creativity task invoking the possibility that different underlying individual difference characteristics relate to creativity as compared to innovation.