Relationship between Temperament and Creativity
A Review of Literature
In seeking to establish the relationship between temperament and creativity, it would be prudent to define both temperament and creativity. However, in so doing, it should be noted that neither term has an assigned definition. Temperament, in the words of Necka and Hlawacz (2013), could be “conceptualized as the biologically rooted, mostly inborn, foundations for personality and other individual traits” (183). Hilda and Sneha (2017) on the other hand define temperament as “an individual's characteristic level of emotional excitability or intensity” (803). As the authors further point out, an individual’s temperament becomes apparent awhile after birth, i.e. several weeks after birth. When it comes to creativity, the focus is on the individual’s ability to formulate ideas that could be deemed original. Thus, creativity has also got to do with creation, innovation, and imagination. A more concise definition of creativity would come in handy in this case. According to Parkhurst (as cited in Batey and Furnham, 2006), creativity could be defined as “the ability or quality displayed when solving hereto unsolved problems, when developing novel solutions to problems others have solved differently, or when developing original and novel (at least to the originator) products” (359). These are the definitions of creativity and temperament that will be adopted in this text. It is important to note that in this discussion, personality and temperance will be used synonymously.
Various studies have been conducted in the past in an attempt to chart the relationship between personality and creativity. In one such study, it was found out that creativity can be predicted and explained via certain personality traits (Batey and Furnham, 2006). It should, however, be noted that as Batey and Furnham (2006) further point out, creativity still remains an elusive concept as far as developing its full understanding...
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