Opening up Openness to Experience: A Four-Factor Model and Relations to Creative Achievement in the Arts and Sciences Scott Barry Kaufman Openness to experience is the broadest personality domain of the Big Five, including a mix of traits relating to intellectual curiosity, intellectual interests, perceived intelligence, imagination, creativity, artistic and aesthetic interests, emotional and fantasy richness, and unconventionality. Likewise, creative […]
Study Alerts
STUDY ALERT: Creative Thought as Blind Variation and Selective Retention: Why Creativity is Inversely Related to Sightedness
Creative Thought as Blind Variation and Selective Retention: Why Creativity is Inversely Related to Sightedness Dean Keith Simonton Campbell (1960) proposed the theory that creativity required blind variation and selective retention (BVSR). More than a half century has transpired without any resolution of the controversy over the theory’s validity. This inability to reach consensus […]
STUDY ALERT: Intelligence differentially related to neural effort in task-positive and task-negative brain networks
Intelligence is differentially related to neural effort in the task-positive and the task-negative brain network Ulrike Basten, Christine Stelzel, & Christian J. Fiebach Previous studies on individual differences in intelligence and brain activation during cognitive processing focused on brain regions where activation increases with task demands (task-positive network, TPN). Our study additionally considers brain regions […]
STUDY ALERT: Arts and Crafts: Critical to Economic Innovation
Arts and Crafts: Critical to Economic Innovation Rex LaMore, Robert Root-Bernstein, Michele Root-Bernstein, John H. Schweitzer, James L. Lawton, Eileen Roraback, Amber Peruski, Megan VanDyke and Laleah Fernandez Governments, schools, and other nonprofit organizations are engaged in critical budget decisions that may affect our economic development success. The assumption is that arts and crafts […]
STUDY ALERT: Thin slices of creativity: Using single-word utterances to assess creative cognition
Thin slices of creativity: Using single-word utterances to assess creative cognition Ranjani Prabhakaran, Adam E. Green, & Jeremy R. Gray We investigated the hypothesis that individual differences in creative cognition can be manifest even in brief responses, such as single-word utterances. Participants (n = 193) were instructed to say a verb upon seeing a noun […]
STUDY ALERT: The making of Darth Vader: Parent–child care and the Dark Triad
The making of Darth Vader: Parent–child care and the Dark Triad Peter K. Jonason, Minna Lyons, & Emily Bethell Does the quality of the relationship one has with their parents influence the development of ‘‘dark’’ per- sonality traits? We examined (N = 352) the Dark Triad traits (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, and Machia- vellianism) and their […]
STUDY ALERT: The dark side of Facebook: Semantic representations of status updates predict the Dark Triad of personality
The dark side of Facebook: Semantic representations of status updates predict the Dark Triad of personality Danilo Garcia & Sverker Sikström Using Latent Semantic Analysis, we quantified the semantic representations of Facebook status updates of 304 individuals in order to predict self-reported personality. We focused on, besides Neuroticism and Extraversion, the Dark Triad of personality: […]
STUDY ALERT: “Can You Tell Me How to Get to Carnegie Hall?”: A review of The Complexity of Greatness: Beyond Talent or Practice
“Can You Tell Me How to Get to Carnegie Hall?”: A review of The Complexity of Greatness: Beyond Talent or Practice Reviewed by Peter Suedfeld As New Yorkers and musicians know, the punch line of the titular joke is, “Practice, practice, practice.” That is one answer to the apparently perennial question of whether high accomplishment is the result […]
STUDY ALERT: Emotional intelligence as a unique predictor of individual differences in humour styles and humour appreciation
Emotional intelligence as a unique predictor of individual differences in humour styles and humour appreciation Gilles E. Gignac, Alexia Karatamoglou, Sabrina Wee, Gabriela Palacios A small amount of research to-date has examined the association between emotional intelligence (EI) and humour styles, however, none of this research has controlled for the effects of personality and […]
STUDY ALERT: Who cares when nobody is watching? Psychopathic traits and empathy in prosocial behaviors + BONUS
Who cares when nobody is watching? Psychopathic traits and empathy in prosocial behaviors Bradley A. White Prosocial behaviors are voluntary acts intended to benefit others. Lack of empathy is a core feature of psychopathy, a constellation of personality traits that includes callousness, egocentricity, and antisociality. While psychopathy is often associated with antisocial behavior, its relation […]
STUDY ALERT: Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind
Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind David Comer Kidd* and Emanuele Castano* Understanding others’ mental states is a crucial skill that enables the complex social relationships that characterize human societies. Yet little research has investigated what fosters this skill, which is known as Theory of Mind (ToM), in adults. We present five experiments […]
STUDY ALERT: The Dark Triad: Beyond a ‘male’ mating strategy
The Dark Triad: Beyond a ‘male’ mating strategy Gregory Louis Carter a,⇑, Anne C. Campbell a, Steven Muncer b The Dark Triad (DT: sub-clinical narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy) is argued to facilitate a male short-term mating strategy. The trait constellation in women and its potential adaptive benefits has received less attention. We examined the […]