Creating Through Deviancy or Adjustment? The Link between Personality Profile Normativeness and Creativity

Does deviancy or adjustment predict creativity? To address this question, we tested the association between personality profile normativeness (similarity between one's personality profile and the average profile—a proxy for the deviancy–adjustment continuum) and creativity across four different samples (total N = 348 768). We used a wide range of creativity measures, including self-reported, informant-reported, behavioural, and occupational creativity, as well as several essential statistical controls (i.e., demographics, socio-economic background, intelligence, and life satisfaction). Furthermore, we employed both cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, including samples of college students and representative adult populations. We found that people who had more normative personality profiles were more creative. However, this association only held within modality (i.e. when both personality and creativity were either self-reported or informant-reported). We did not find robust associations between personality profile normativeness and laboratory-based behavioural measures of creativity, occupational creativity, or creative achievements. We discuss alternative explanations for the observed adjustment–creativity link, specifically, implicit theories of creativity and person perception biases (halo effects). Notably, the findings did not support the idea that deviancy breeds creativity, suggesting that the famed ‘mad genius’ hypothesis might not hold among the general population.