Creativity Research Journal

ISSN: 1040-0419 (Print) 1532-6934 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hcrj20

A New Measure for the Assessment of

Appreciation for Creative Personality

Emanuel Jauk, Lisa Eberhardt, Corinna Koschmieder, Jennifer Diedrich,

Jürgen Pretsch, Mathias Benedek & Aljoscha C. Neubauer

To cite this article: Emanuel Jauk, Lisa Eberhardt, Corinna Koschmieder, Jennifer Diedrich,
Jürgen Pretsch, Mathias Benedek & Aljoscha C. Neubauer (2019) A New Measure for the
Assessment of Appreciation for Creative Personality, Creativity Research Journal, 31:2, 149-163,
DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2019.1606622

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2019.1606622

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CREATIVITY RESEARCH JOURNAL, 31(2), 149–163, 2019
© 2019 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
ISSN: 1040-0419 print/1532-6934 online
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2019.1606622

A New Measure for the Assessment of Appreciation

for Creative Personality
Emanuel Jauk
University of Graz and Technische Universität Dresden

Lisa Eberhardt and Corinna Koschmieder

University of Graz

Jennifer Diedrich
University of Graz and Technical University of Munich

Jürgen Pretsch, Mathias Benedek , and Aljoscha C. Neubauer

University of Graz

This article introduces a new scale for the assessment of Appreciation for Creative Personality
(ACP). The ACP scale is a brief 13-item forced-choice measure that assesses interindividual
differences in the preference for interacting with creative people. ACP is considered an important
factor of creative climate at the level of interpersonal interaction. Individuals who score high on
ACP are thought to foster a creative climate in that they value creative traits in others. In two
studies, the psychometric characteristics of the ACP scale were probed. The scale showed a clear
unidimensional structure with evidence of good reliability and convergent, discriminant, and
criterion validity. The ACP was substantially related to Big Five openness to experience, but
predicted relevant criteria over and above openness, supporting the conceptual distinction between
ACP and openness. In dyadic data analyses, participants’ openness to experience was significantly
associated with their parents’ ACP, which shows that the ACP scale captured shared interpersonal
variance. Moreover, parental ACP indirectly predicted participants’ everyday creative activities via
the path of openness. These findings suggest that the ACP scale is a useful tool for the study of
social-environmental climate for creativity from an interpersonal perspective.

Everybody values creativity, but does everybody appreciate
creative people? They can be nonconforming, eccentric, and
rebellious, and possibly not always easy to live with. Yet,
creative people can only flourish in conducive environments.
Different influential models of creativity emphasize the
Address correspondence to Emanuel Jauk, Clinical Psychology and
Behavioral Neuroscience, Technische Universität Dresden, Chemnitzer
Straße 46, Dresden 01187, Germany. E-mail: emanuel.jauk@tu-dresden.de
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found
online at www.tandfonline.com/HCRJ.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creati
vecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work
is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
importance of environmental factors for the individual devel-
opment and expression of creative potential (e.g., Eysenck,
1995; Guilford, 1950; Hennessey & Amabile, 2010; Rhodes,
1961). Calls have been made to emphasize social and cultural
factors in the study of creative environments (e.g., Glăveanu,
2010), which can show considerable variation and affect
creative outcomes (Chua, Roth, & Lemoine, 2015; Florida,
2002). Though elaborate models on conducive conditions for
creativity have been developed for particular contexts such as
organizational (Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby, & Herron,
1996; Anderson & West, 1998; Ekvall, 1996), educational
(e.g., Beghetto, 2010), or family settings (Kwaśniewska,
Gralewski, Witkowska, Kostrzewska, & Lebuda, 2018),
there is to date no context-independent account to the assess-
ment of these conditions. Here, a scale is introduced that
150 JAUK ET AL.
assesses appreciation for creative personality as an interper-
sonal, social-environmental factor for creativity.
All creative endeavors are embedded in a social context.
The creative individual interacts with other people – be them
colleagues, bosses, teachers, or family – who can vary in
their appreciation for the creative personality. The immedi-
ate social-environmental conditions for creativity are usually
referred to as climate for creativity (Hunter, Bedell, &
Mumford, 2007). The acceptance of creative ideas, endea-
vors, and – ultimately – creative individuals is a key factor to
understanding how beneficial or obstructive certain social
surroundings are for the development or expression of crea-
tivity (MacKinnon, 1978). Though most people display posi-
tive attitudes towards creativity when being explicitly asked,
creative ideas are not always viewed in a positive light
(Mueller, Melwani, & Goncalo, 2012). The extent of appre-
ciation by people in their closest surrounding can impact the
creative individual dramatically, which is for instance well-
document in the family context (Miller & Gerard, 1979;
Simonton, 1984; see also Kwaśniewska et al., 2018). Thus,
from an interpersonal perspective, appreciation for creative
personality by important others can be considered a relevant
social factor for people in various creative contexts, and
make up a building block for the study of creative climate.
Previous research on creative climate focused on the orga-
nizational, educational, and family contexts. In the follow-
ing, theoretical models and research from these three
contexts will be reviewed. It will be highlighted that inter-
personal factors are being ascribed a central role for creative
climate in different models and contexts, which motivated
the construction of the Appreciation for Creative Personality
scale. Finally, the construction and validation rationale of the
scale will be presented.
In the workplace, a positive climate for creativity, as
perceived by the creative person, is an important predictor
of creative performance across different criteria, samples,
and settings (Hunter et al., 2007). For instance, in
Amabile’s KEYS model for creativity in organizations,
the interpersonal factors encouragement of creativity (orga-
nizational/supervisory/work group), or autonomy/freedom
were found to be important predictors of creative perfor-
mance (Amabile et al., 1996). In a similar vein, the inter-
personal factors participative safety and support for
innovation were considered central determinants of creativ-
ity in West and colleagues research (e.g., Anderson & West,
1998). Similarly, the nine-factor model by Ekvall (e.g.,
Ekvall, 1996) emphasizes different interpersonal factors
such as idea support (“ideas and suggestions are received
in an attentive and supportive way by bosses and work-
mates”, p. 107), trust (“the emotional safety in relation-
ships”, p. 107), or playfulness (“the spontaneity and ease
that is displayed”, p. 108) as predictors of workplace crea-
tivity. Though all of these models also encompass context-
specific factors that concern characteristics such as the
organizational structure or specifics of the task, they have
in common that they ascribe interpersonal aspects a central
role for the flourishing of creative endeavors. In particular,
all of these models highlight the crucial role of a safe
surrounding which encourages individual spontaneity and
creativity.
In the educational context, different scholars have repeat-
edly stressed the importance of a valuing climate for crea-
tivity (Beghetto, 2010; Cropley & Urban, 2002; Guilford,
1950). Ideally, such a climate would promote students’
intrinsic motivation, creative self-efficacy, and intellectual
risk taking, while avoiding common fallacies, such as con-
vergent teaching, or misconceptions of what creativity actu-
ally is (i.e., expecting too much; Beghetto, 2010).
Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Empirical investi-
gations showed that prospective teachers, for instance, prefer
expected ideas over unexpected ideas (Beghetto, 2007). It
has been observed early that there is a discrepancy between
the desirable qualities of creative individuals and teachers’
views of the “ideal pupil”, which is conceived as compliant
and conforming (Torrance, 1963). About 50 years later, in
a similar vein, “creative” students were still viewed as less
agreeable and conscientious than “good” students
(Karwowski, 2010). Most strikingly, it was found that tea-
chers prefer uncreative students, even though they explicitly
endorse creativity as an educational goal (Westby &
Dawson, 1995). This points to an important discrepancy
between explicit cognitive attitudes towards creativity, and
rather implicit affect-laden preferences for actually interact-
ing with creative individuals. Or, as Runco (2007) put it:
“No doubt they [teachers] do respect creativity, in the
abstract, but not when faced with a classroom with 30
energetic children” (p. 172). The consequences of an anti-
creative school climate can be drastic for the individual, as it
was found that individual creativity can even increase the
odds of school dropout (Kim & Hull, 2012).
Most recently, a measure of creative climate was also
developed for the family context (Kwaśniewska et al.,
2018). The scale comprises four theoretically derived fac-
tors, namely Encouragement to Experience Novelty and
Variety (“I try to suggest to my child unconventional
ways to solve problems”, p. 19), Encouragement of
Nonconformism (“I am glad that my child has been taught
not to break any rules”, p. 19; reverse-coded), Support of
Perseverance in Creative Efforts (“I try to show my child
different sides of the same situation”, p. 19), and
Encouragement to Fantasize (“I encourage my child to
fantasize”, p. 19). In a large sample of mothers, these
factors were found to be moderately to strongly associated
with the Big Five dimension of openness to experience, but
less so with any other Big Five dimension. Notably, the
four factors devised by the authors largely parallel those of
the organizational models presented above, and also the
factors that are thought to promote creativity in the

classroom. They encompass an attitude that promotes
autonomy and, at the same time, safety for creative endea-
vors. These are believed to establish a climate that is con-
ducive to the child’s creative development. Though the
scale shows evidence of good validity in terms of a match
with existing theories on the factors promoting creativity,
there is yet no direct evidence whether parental creative
climate actually goes along with higher creativity in their
children.
Taken together, the findings presented above suggest
that research from different contexts (organizational, edu-
cation, family) converges in that it assumes the existence of
interpersonal factors, which promote the flourishing of
creativity in the individual. Though expressed in different
vocabularies, these factors describe the necessity of a safe
and accepting interpersonal climate for the expression of
creative ideas, and a tolerance for spontaneity, unconven-
tionality, and nonconformity, which are inherent to the
creative personality (Andreas, Zech, Coyle, &
Rindermann, 2016; Batey & Furnahm, 2008; Eysenck,
1995; Feist, 1998). While most previous research focused
on self-perceptions of climate for creativity, here, an inter-
personal perspective to the study of creative climate was
adopted: The Appreciation for Creative Personality scale
was designed for assessing important others (such as
bosses, teachers, or parents) in the surrounding of the
creative individual. In this, the approach taken here is
similar to that of Kwaśniewska et al. (2018), but not spe-
cific to parenting behavior. Rather, appreciation for creative
personality is conceptualized as a context-independent indi-
vidual difference variable.
Here, the development and analysis of a new scale for
Appreciation for Creative Personality (ACP) is reported.
The scale was originally developed in the course of
a larger project on the selection of prospective teachers in
Austria (see Koschmieder, Weissenbacher, Pretsch, &
Neubauer, 2018), but is not limited to the educational con-
text, and thus applicable to a wide range of contexts. The
ACP aims to assess the personal preference for social
contact with creative individuals. It is an affect-laden mea-
sure of personality, which is known to impact perceptions
of climate for creativity (Karwowski, 2011) and is different
from explicit attitudes, which can be biased by social desir-
ability (particularly in the educational context; Runco,
2007; Westby & Dawson, 1995). Since the measure was
constructed for the use in an admission test context, the
latent constructs should not be readily transparent to test-
takers in order to prevent faking. All of these goals moti-
vated the development of the new ACP scale.
Items were devised through adaptation from similar
inventories and theoretical considerations. These items
reflect many of the factors reviewed above for the organi-
zational, educational, and family contexts. In 13 forced-
choice items, test-takers are requested to indicate their
CREATIVITY RESEARCH JOURNAL 151
personal preference for interacting with individuals who
display prototypically creative vs. less creative characteris-
tics (see method for details). Evidence of reliability and
validity of the ACP scale was tested in two independent
samples.
In study 1, general psychometric characteristics (relia-
bility and dimensionality) of the scale were assessed and its
convergent, discriminant, and criterion validity were
probed. Given the similarity of ACP with Big Five open-
ness to experience (which includes the conceptually related
facet openness to ideas), the new scale was expected to
correlate substantially with openness in terms of convergent
validity, but should show criterion validity over and above
openness. In terms of discriminant validity, the ACP scale –
conceptualized as an affect-laden measure of personality –
should be relatively independent from the cognitive ability
to recognize creative ideas (Benedek et al., 2016; see
method for description). Finally, the ACP scale’s criterion
validity was probed using criteria from the context of
creative education (see method for details). It was tested
whether the ACP scale can predict relevant creative educa-
tion criteria above and beyond openness and further related
variables, assuming conceptual specificity in terms of
appreciating creative personality in others. Study 1 hence
undertook a test of the psychometric characteristics as well
as convergent, discriminant, and criterion validity of the
ACP scale.
Study 2 probed whether the ACP scale – intended as an
interpersonal measure of social-environmental climate for
creativity – can actually capture interpersonal variance. For
this, dyads composed of participants and one of their par-
ents were sampled. Parents were chosen (rather than
bosses, teachers, or other conceivable groups) as they
represent significant others for the sample under study
(see Study 2). It was investigated whether parental ACP
actually impacts their children’s personality, creative poten-
tial, and real-life creative behavior. For this, the model of
real-life creative behavior proposed by Jauk, Benedek, and
Neubauer (2014) was adopted as a theoretical framework
(see also Jauk, 2019). The model explains engagement in
creative activities by variation in openness and cognitive
creative potential (divergent thinking ability). The direct
and indirect effects of parental ACP on their children’s
openness, divergent thinking ability, and real-life creative
activity were tested. It was assumed that parental ACP
would impact participants’ personality (particularly open-
ness, the arguably most distinctive personality characteris-
tic of creativity individuals; Batey, Chamorro-Premuzic, &
Furnham, 2010; Dollinger, Urban, & James, 2004) in the
first place, which would then influence their engagement in
creative activities (Jauk et al., 2014). Study 2 thus under-
took an empirical test of the ACP’s capability to catch
shared between-person variance as an interpersonal mea-
sure of social-environmental creative climate.
152 JAUK ET AL.
STUDY 1: SCALE DEVELOPMENT
Method
Participants and procedure
Data were collected at the University of Graz between
December 2015 and January 2016. Complete data were
available from 224 individuals (146 women; mean age
22.26 [SD = 4.29] years) who took part in an online survey
administered via Limesurvey (www.limesurvey.org).
Participants had at least 12 years of schooling or a similar
professional education. They gave written informed consent
and took part on a voluntary basis. Students of psychology
(86.2%) received course credits in exchange for their parti-
cipation. The study was approved by the ethics committee
of the University of Graz.
Measures
For initial item selection of the ACP scale, a pool of 37
items devised from existing self-report inventories (see next
section) was used. All items were administered twice, using
a regular instruction and a fake-good instruction (“now,
please answer the questions in a way that leaves a good
impression when applying for a job in the educational
sector. Your answers do not need to reflect your actual
personality.”). Moreover, the items were presented in
forced-choice and rating scale response format. While
both were found to show good psychometric characteris-
tics, subsequent analyses focus on the forced-choice format,
which seemed particularly suited for the admission context.
As convergent and discriminant validity measures, the
German HEXACO-60 personality inventory (Ashton &
Lee, 2009) and the German Big Five Inventory (BFI;
John & Srivastava, 1999) as well as the previously estab-
lished creativity evaluation test (CET; Benedek et al., 2016)
were used. In contrast to the ACP scale probed here, the
CET assesses the cognitive ability to accurately evaluate
the creativity of ideas. Specifically, participants’ task in the
CET is to classify answers from a divergent thinking task
(for instance, alternate uses for a hat) as common (“using
a hat for collecting donations”), inappropriate (“using a hat
as cooking pot”), or creative (“using a hat as a Frisbee”). It
was expected that the ACP, conceptualized as an affect-
laden measure of personality, would be largely independent
from the CET, as the cognitive ability for creativity evalua-
tion was found to draw more upon cognitive than person-
ality factors (Benedek et al., 2016). The CET was thus
included as a discriminant validity measure.
For criterion validity assessment in the context of crea-
tive education (CE), two specifically constructed short
scales were used. The first scale, in the following referred
to as CE vignette, comprised vignettes of more and less
creative children that were contrasted in six forced-choice
format items.1 In contrast to the ACP scale, the CE vignette
scale specifically focused on the educational context:
Participants were to imagine being a teacher and indicate
which child they would prefer to teach. Item difficulties
were between p = .23 and p = .92; SDs ranged from 0.27 to
0.50. The internal consistency of the six-item scale was
α = .60 and did not change by exclusion of any single
item (including the easiest one with p = .92). The corrected
item-scale-correlations ranged from r = .20 to r = .44.
The second measure, in the following referred to as CE
attitude, consisted of seven five-point rating scale items that
explicitly assessed preference for creative education (e.g.,
teaching a creative pupil, teaching a creative subject, dis-
cussing ideas and theories with pupils…). Item difficulties
ranged from p = .49 to p = .81; SDs of these were between
0.84 and 1.39 (rating scale metric). The measure displayed
an internal consistency of α = .77; exclusion of items would
have lowered scale reliability. Corrected item-scale-
correlations ranged from r = .29 to r = .67. The correlation
between the CE vignette and CE attitude scales was r = .63,
p < .001 (see Table 2), which provides evidence for their
convergent validity. Taken together, the CE criterion scales
differ from the ACP in that they are context-specific and
rely on explicit and overt assessment of the latent construct
(only CE attitude). In the validation study reported here, the
CE scales were thus used to test whether the context-
independent ACP scale displays evidence of validity in
the educational context (assessment of prospective tea-
chers) and across different response and measurement for-
mats (explicit and overt).
Lastly, a creative attitude scale was administered. The
scale has previously been constructed in the course of the
project and is already implemented in the admission test for
prospective teachers in Austria (why the characteristics of
this scale cannot be disclosed here).
Item generation
The items of the ACP reflect short descriptions of creative
persons, based on theoretical and empirical characteriza-
tions of the creative personality (e.g., Batey & Furnham,
2006, 2008; Eysenck, 1995; Feist, 1998). We generated or
modified items based on existing self-report measures,
which encompassed the openness subscale from the Big
Five Aspects Scale (BFAS; DeYoung, Quilty, & Peterson,
2007), the Runco Ideational Behavior Scale (RIBS; Runco,
Plucker, & Lim, 2001), the Creative Attitude Survey
(Schaefer, 1991), and the Everyday Creativity Self-
1
The forced-choice format was chosen instead of a rating scale format
to eliminate the general preference for teaching children. An example item
is: “An ambitious and diligent child, who always follows the teacher’s
instructions, but does not usually come up with own ideas” vs. “An active
and rebellious child, who does not always follow the teacher’s instruc-
tions, but has many own ideas”.
 CREATIVITY RESEARCH JOURNAL 153

Concept Scale (Ivcevic, 2014; see also Patston, Cropley, TABLE 1

Marrone, & Kaufman, 2017). Item-level statistics of the Appreciation for Creative Personality
(ACP) scale (study 1)
For the initial item selection pool, 37 items were derived
in the following manner: The core content, for instance Regular instruction Fake-Good-Instruction
“my ideas are often considered ‘impractical’ or even
Item No. p (SD) ri-s rCE_v rCE_a p (SD)
‘wild’” (from the RIBS; Runco et al., 2001, p. 399), was
put in the third person “his/her ideas are often considered 1 .64 (.48) .38 .36 .27 .53 (.50) .61 .12 .15
‘impractical’ or even ‘wild’” (item no. 2). For the forced- 2 .43 (.50) .49 .38 .31 .26 (.44) .50 .19 .18
choice format, then, a reverse-coded alternative was con- 3 .61 (.49) .41 .28 .42 .66 (.48) .51 .15 .17
4 .74 (.44) .27 .28 .32 .77 (.42) .39 .13 .14
structed in the same manner (“his/her suggestions are
5 .49 (.50) .38 .29 .32 .54 (.50) .48 .16 .14
usually established ones, which have worked before.”). In 6 .71 (.46) .36 .30 .33 .59 (.49) .47 .18 .14
cases where the core content appeared highly socially 7 .57 (.50) .59 .40 .40 .39 (.49) .54 .19 .20
desirable (for instance “enjoys the beauty of nature”; 8 .67 (.47) .54 .30 .38 .59 (.49) .55 .19 .22
adapted from the BFAS openness scale; DeYoung et al., 9 .60 (.49) .61 .39 .33 .47 (.50) .59 .17 .11
10 .63 (.48) .21 .21 .17 .58 (.49) .43 .17 .09
2007), a less desirable aspect was added (“often stops his/
11 .39 (.49) .32 .21 .22 .47 (.50) .50 .15 .17
her car to photograph nature and is occasionally late 12 .74 (.44) .23 .11 .16 .63 (.49) .51 .14 .13
because of it”; item no. 1) to achieve balanced item 13 .79 (.41) .33 .20 .14 .63 (.48) .50 .18 .13
difficulty.2
Note. Correlations above .17, .13, and .11 are significant at p < .01,
The final set of 13 items (following item selection; see
p < .05, and p < .10, respectively. The item content can be found in Table A2.
results section) including instructions to participants is pro-
vided in the Appendix (Tables A1 and A2). Participants’
task in the ACP is to indicate with whom of the two
described persons they would prefer to have contact with. scale’s internal consistency. The scale skewness
The ACP is available in a validated German version. For (z = −1.68) did not deviate from normality at p < .01, the
research purposes, an English translation (translated by two scale kurtosis (z = −2.70; p < .01) indicated a slightly
professionals), which is not yet validated, is also provided. platykurtic distribution. A principal components analysis
For scoring the ACP, the forced-choice response alterna- yielded four components with eigenvalues > 1 which
tives A and B are assigned 0 and 1 points; three items need accounted for 53.14% of variance; the first component
to be recoded first (see Tables A1 and A2). A total score is alone accounted for 27.87%. Velicer’s (1976) original and
obtained by averaging across all 13 items. revised (Velicer, Eaton, & Fava, 2000) MAP test indicated
a one-factor solution. This solution was confirmed by
a confirmatory factor analysis for dichotomous indicators
(WLSMV) which showed excellent fit to the data (χ2
RESULTS (65) = 75.48, p = .18; CFI = 0.99; WRMR = 0.77).
Figure 1 depicts the confirmatory factor analysis model.
Item selection, internal consistency, and factor
structure
Out of the initial pool of 37 items, 13 Items that best met Validity evidence
a combination of several criteria were selected: (1) item
Table 2 provides correlations between the ACP scale and
difficulty between .20 < pi < .80, (2) maximal correlation
with both CE criterion variables (vignette and attitude) convergent, discriminant, and criterion validity measures.
under (2a) regular instruction and (2b) fake-good instruc- Among the HEXACO personality dimensions, the ACP
scale displayed a high correlation with openness (conver-
tion, and (3) maximal discriminatory power (item-scale-
correlation). Table 1 displays item characteristics and cri- gent validity) and low correlations with honesty-humility as
terion correlations. The 13-item-scale displayed an internal well as extraversion. A similar pattern of results emerged
for the BFI (except honesty-humility, which is not covered
consistency of α = .77 which can be deemed acceptable.
Exclusion of any single item would have lowered the by the Big Five). Additional facet-level analyses using the
HEXACO showed that the ACP’s factor-level correlation
with openness generalized to all openness facets (aesthetic
2
While these items include two latent traits (in this case, openness to appreciation: r = .30, p < .001; inquisitiveness: r = .36,
aesthetics, and tardiness), which could be considered problematic in stan- p < .001; creativity: r = .41, p < .001; unconventionality:
dard psychometric testing, the item content of the ACP does not refer to r = .54, p < .001). The factor-level correlation of honesty-
the test-taker, but to a prototypically creative person. As creative person-
ality is a multidimensional construct including also less desirable traits,
humility was driven by the subscales greed avoidance
this seems adequate here. Importantly, test-takers’ ACP can still be uni- (r = .32, p < .001), the correlation of extraversion by social
dimensional (see results section). boldness (r = .18, p < .01). As expected, the ACP scale
154 JAUK ET AL.

TABLE 2
Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations of study 1 variables

M (SD) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Appreciation for Creative Pers.

ACP (1) 0.62 (0.24) .12 .56 .56 .11 .18 −.08 .17 .13 .03 .54 −.13 .14 .07 .02 .57
ACP fake good (2) 0.55 (0.29) .27 .25 −.04 .05 −.05 .14 .04 −.01 .05 −.08 .10 .03 −.02 .05
Study validity measures
CE Vignette (3) 3.54 (0.38) .63 .11 .23 −.12 .14 .06 −.02 .33 −.10 .13 .03 .04 .45
CE Attitude (4) 3.32 (0.65) .02 .22 −.11 .16 .08 .05 .42 −.14 .15 .04 .08 .62
Creativity Evaluation Test (5) 75.17 (8.77) .00 .15 −.08 −.07 .08 .03 .05 −.10 .05 .08 −.01
HEXACO Dimensions
Honesty-Humility (6) 3.51 (0.68) .09 .03 .27 .10 .20 −.01 .04 .36 .09 .16
Emotionality (7) 3.33 (0.71) −.33 .02 .01 −.04 .67 −.23 .24 −.07 −.15
Extraversion (8) 3.49 (0.70) .06 .07 .04 −.58 .86 .17 .32 .18
Agreeableness (9) 3.20 (0.58) −.02 .13 −.23 −.01 .69 −.03 .09
Conscientiousness (10) 3.59 (0.68) .07 .04 .07 .10 .79 .19
Openness to Experience (11) 3.57 (0.64) .01 .05 .02 .01 .73
Big Five Dimensions
Neuroticism (12) 2.88 (0.80) −.43 −.15 −.16 −.12
Extraversion (13) 3.43 (0.82) .14 .33 .16
Agreeableness (14) 3.65 (0.55) .12 −.03
Conscientiousness (15) 3.54 (0.67) .17
Openness to Experience (16) 3.61 (0.69)

Note. N = 224 for all variables. Correlations significant at p < .05 are printed in bold type. ACP = Appreciation for Creative Personality. CE = creative
education.

displayed a low and insignificant (p = .11) association with
the CET (discriminant validity). Criterion correlations with
the CE variables were generally high (note, however, that
these were included as item selection criteria; see above).
Next, the incremental criterion validity of the ACP scale
on the CE criteria over and above the HEXACO personality
dimensions and the CET was investigated. For the CE vign-
ette criterion, hierarchical multiple regression models
showed that honesty-humility and openness were significant
predictors, but extraversion was no longer significant when
considered simultaneously (see Table 3; model 1). The CET
could also explain additional variance as long as the ACP
was not considered (model 2). In the final model, the ACP
outperformed openness in predicting CE vignettes (model 3).
The CE attitude criterion was predicted by openness and
conscientiousness in model 1. Again, the CET could explain
incremental variance (model 2). Finally, all these variables
and the ACP conjointly predicted CE attitude in model 3.
Faking
Under fake-good instruction, itemwise criterion correla-
tions were reduced, but still mostly different from zero
(see Table 1). The ACP displayed somewhat higher internal
consistency (α = .85) under fake-good instruction than
under regular instruction. There was no correlation between
the ACP under fake-good and regular instruction condi-
tions. Interestingly, the scale mean under fake-good
instruction (see Table 2) was slightly lower (t223 = 2.92,
p < .01), not higher. Table 2 displays scale-level validity
information. The ACP displayed some indication of criter-
ion validity under fake-good instruction in terms of mod-
erate correlations with the CE criteria. It was also related to
HEXACO extraversion under fake-good instruction.
DISCUSSION
Study 1 probed the psychometric properties of the new ACP
scale. The short scale turned out to meet high psychometric
standards in terms of internal consistency, unidimensionality,
and validity. As expected for convergent and discriminant
validity, the ACP was correlated mainly with the personality
dimension of openness (and all of its facets) and was inde-
pendent of the cognitive ability to recognize creative ideas
(CET). This means that ACP was related to, but still distinct
from the personality dimension of openness, and also differ-
ent from the cognitive ability to evaluate creativity (discri-
minant validity evidence). Both of these results confirm the
hypothesized nature of ACP as an affect-laden measure of
personality that is related to yet separable from own creativ-
ity-related traits (openness) and the cognitive ability to
recognize creativity in others. Of relevance to the use in
the assessment context, faking analyses indicated that the
latent construct was not readily transparent to test-takers as
scores did not increase, and the scale retained some of its
 CREATIVITY RESEARCH JOURNAL 155

ACP_1
ecologically valid context, study 2 investigated the scale’s
.53
validity in parent-child-dyads.
ACP_2 .75

ACP_3 .56
STUDY 2: SCALE VALIDATION
ACP_4 .40
The main aim of study 2 was to validate the ACP using
data not only from the participants themselves, but also
ACP_5 .54
from important others from their social environment. For
.59
this, participants’ parents’ ACP scores were used, as par-
ACP_6
Appreciation ents are arguably the most influential others during younger
.83 for age (student sample). It was investigated whether partici-
ACP_7
pants’ personality, creative potential, and real-life creative
Creative
.74 behavior are correlated with their parents’ ACP scores. For
ACP_8 Personality this, the model of Jauk et al. (2014) was adopted as
.89 a conceptual framework, in which the engagement in crea-
ACP_9 tive activities is explained by openness and creative poten-
.32 tial. In particular, this model suggests that openness, a key
ACP_10 personality variable for creativity (Batey et al., 2010;
.47
Dollinger et al., 2004), lowers the behavioral threshold
ACP_11 (Feist & Barron, 2003) for the exertion of creative activ-
.36
ities, which makes openness a potential mediating factor
ACP_12 .54 between parental ACP and participants’ real-life creative
activity. Thus, a mediation model corresponding to the one
ACP_13 presented in Jauk et al. (2014) was tested.

FIGURE 1 Confirmatory factor analysis model of the Appreciation for

Creative Personality scale (study 1). See study 1 results for model fit
information. METHOD

Participants and procedure

validity even under fake-good-instruction (which can be
considered a worst-case scenario).
Most importantly, the ACP predicted relevant criteria
over and above openness to experience, despite its sub-
stantial correlation with openness. This makes the ACP
a useful tool for the study of creative climate at individual
level: Individuals scoring higher on the ACP displayed
a higher preference for teaching creative children (CE
vignette) and endorsed creative education on an explicit
level (CE attitude). The criterion validity of the ACP was
higher for the CE vignette than for the CE attitude criter-
ion. This might be attributed to common method variance
among the ACP and the CE vignette criterion, as both
used a forced-choice response format. However, this is
only true for the multiple regression model (see Table 3),
but not for the zero-order correlations (see Table 2). Thus,
an alternative explanation might be that the CE attitude
criterion, as compared to the CE vignette criterion, could
be more readily explained by the personality variables
included in the regression model.
As a potential limitation, study 1 demonstrated criterion
validity only with respect to fictitious vignettes and attitude
ratings. To further probe the validity of the ACP scale in an
Study 2 used an independent sample of participants and
their parents. Data were gathered between November and
December 2016 in computer-based individual or small
group test sessions. Participants were approached by stu-
dents of the University of Graz. Participants were asked to
nominate one of their parents (if possible, the one they had
had more and closer contact with) to take part in a short
survey. They were asked to convey parents’ email
addresses; parents were then sent a link to an online survey
(via Limesurvey; as in study 1).
The final sample consisted of 190 datasets including data
from participants (114 women) and one of their parents
(father or mother). The mean age was 21.95 years
(SD = 4.40). Similar as in study 1, 96.80% of participants
had at least 12 years of schooling or a similar professional
education; 83.70% self-identified as students. Parent data
stemmed mostly from participants’ mothers (148 datasets,
or 77.90%). The mean age was 52.61 (SD = 5.40) years,
97.40% of parents had at least 12 years of schooling or
a similar professional education; 88.90% of parents
reported current employment. The study was approved by
the ethics committee of the University of Graz.
156 JAUK ET AL.

TABLE 3
Hierarchical multiple regression models for the prediction of creative education criteria (study 1)

CE Vignette CE Attitude

Model 1 β p β p

Honesty-Humility .20 < .001 −.02 .71

Emotionality −.09 .20 −.01 .85
Extraversion .10 .12 .02 .81
Agreeableness −.04 .58 −.10 .11
Conscientiousness −.07 .29 .19 < .001
Openness to Experience .30 < .001 .40 < .001
Δ R2adj = .17, p < .001 Δ R2adj = .21, p < .001

Model 2

Honesty-Humility .20 < .001 −.02 .71

Emotionality −.10 .12 −.04 .56
Extraversion .11 .10 .02 .73
Agreeableness −.03 .69 −.09 .16
Conscientiousness −.08 .22 .17 .01
Openness to Experience .29 < .001 .40 < .001
Creativity Evaluation Test .13 .04 .18 < .001
Δ R2 adj = .02, p = .04 Δ R2adj = .03, p = .04

Model 3

Honesty-Humility .16 .01 −.04 .50

Emotionality −.08 .16 −.03 .67
Extraversion .04 .53 −.02 .77
Agreeableness −.05 .40 −.10 .10
Conscientiousness −.06 .29 .18 < .001
Openness to Experience .04 .55 .26 < .001
Creativity Evaluation Test .07 .22 .15 .01
ACP .49 .00 .28 < .001
Δ R2adj = .16, p = .00 Δ R2adj = .05, p = .00

Note. CE = Creative education. ACP = Appreciation for Creative Personality (ACP).

Measures Intelligence was assessed using three scales (verbal,

numerical, and figural) of the German Intelligence
Participants completed a German version of the Big Five
Structure Analysis (Intelligenzstrukturanalyse; Institut für
Aspects Scales (BFAS; DeYoung et al., 2007). The BFAS
Test- und Begabungsfoschung (ITB), & Gittler, 1998).
differentiate two aspects within each broad personality
The three scales were z-standardized and averaged to
dimension. With respect to the broad openness dimension,
form a measure of general intelligence.
these are openness and intellect. While openness is more
Finally, real-life creative activities and achievements
strongly related to cognitive processes underlying creativ-
were assessed using the Inventory of Creative Activities
ity, intellect is more tied to intelligence-related demands
and Achievements (ICAA; Diedrich et al., 2018). The
(Nusbaum & Silvia, 2011).
ICAA measures creative activities, defined in terms of
Creative potential was assessed using three divergent
everyday creative engagement, and creative achievement,
thinking tasks: alternate uses (find creative uses for a car
defined as socially recognized creative accomplishments,
tire), figure completion (imagine creative drawings starting
across eight domains: literature, music, creative cooking,
from a square), and instances (what can be open). Time-on-
arts & crafts, sports, visual arts, performing arts, and
task was three minutes for each task. Divergent thinking
science & engineering. The achievements scale of the
tasks were scored with respect to ideational fluency (num-
ber of ideas) and originality (rated originality of ideas; three
trained raters). The average rating of all ideas generated 3
As an alternative score, max3 scoring, an adaptation of the top3
during the three minutes on each task was used as an scoring method (Benedek, Mühlmann, Jauk, & Neubauer, 2013; Silvia,
indicator of ideational originality.3 Interrater-reliability of 2011) in which the three ideas with the highest ratings are averaged to an
indicator of divergent thinking ability, was also probed. Average scoring
the originality scores were .78, .70, and .72 for the alternate
and max3 scoring did not differ with respect to the effects of interest in
uses, figure completion, and instances tasks. this study.
 CREATIVITY RESEARCH JOURNAL 157

ICAA is similar to the Creative Achievement Questionnaire
(CAQ; Carson, Peterson, & Higgins, 2005) and is particu-
larly suited to capture variation in accomplished samples.
The activities scale captures variation in everyday creativity
and can be used in nonprofessional samples (Diedrich et al.,
2018). The following analyses, thus, focus on the prediction
of creative activities. These may be studied either in
a domain-general way (i.e., to investigate the factors deter-
mining any kind of creative activity, across domains; see
also Jauk et al., 2014) or in a domain-specific way
(Diedrich et al., 2018). Here, a domain-general model is
presented first, and domain-specific results are reported in
a complementary analysis (see results).
Participants’ parents completed the ACP scale, as
described in study 1. The reliability of the 13-item scale
was α = .74, similar to study 1. Figure 2 displays the factor
structure, which is also similar to study 1.
RESULTS
Dyadic parent-participant correlations
Table 4 shows the associations between the study variables.
Parents’ ACP significantly correlated with their childrens’
openness to experience, but not any other personality
dimension. Closer inspection revealed that this correlation
was due to the openness aspect (r = .22, p < .01), not the
intellect aspect (r = .05, p = .46). Parents’ ACP was
independent of their childrens’ divergent thinking ability
(fluency and originality) or intelligence. Divergent thinking
and intelligence correlated in an expected manner. There
was no direct association between parents’ ACP and parti-
cipants’ creative activities or achievements as measured by
the ICAA. Associations between latent constructs are
reported in the following.
Mediation model
Based on the findings presented above and previous models
of creativity (e.g., Jauk et al., 2014), a latent variable
mediation model was set up to test whether parents’ ACP
might predict creative activities via the openness or intel-
lect aspects from the BFAS. Specifically, it was assumed
that openness would act as a personality mediator between
social-environmental climate (here: parental ACP) and the
exertion of creative activities, as openness is thought to
lower the behavioral threshold for engaging in creative
activities (Feist & Barron, 2003; see also Jauk et al., 2014).
The ACP scale was modeled itemwise using WLSMV
for dichotomous indicators, as in study 1. Openness and
intellect were also modeled itemwise; the ICAA activities
scale was modeled using two item parcels in exact accor-
dance with Jauk et al. (2014). The model showed good fit to
the data (χ2(555) = 740.49, p = .00; CFI = 0.81;
WRMR = 1.08); though the χ2 test was significant, the
ratio of χ2/df was well below 2 (Byrne, 1989). All factor
loadings were significant at p < .001; loadings of the ACP
were generally of similar magnitude to those obtained in
study 1 (see Figure 2). The residual correlation between
openness and intellect captures the shared variance among

parents … .28 - .65 participants

ACP_1
.45

ACP_2 .67 BFAS

Openness
ACP_3 .65

ACP_4 .46 .28 .41

resopen

ACP_5 .41

ACP_6
.63
Appreciation .38 .75 Act.
.68 for .01 Creative Parcel 1
ACP_7 .92
Creative Activities Act.
.60 Parcel 2
ACP_8 Personality
.74
ACP_9 .07 .00
.20
resintell
ACP_10
.53
ACP_11
.56
BFAS
ACP_12 .60 Intellect
ACP_13

… .44 - .78

FIGURE 2 Latent mediation model (study 2). See study 2 results for model fit information. Coefficients significant at p < .05 are displayed in bold type in
the structural model part. All factor loadings are significant at p < .001 except ACP_10, which is significant at p < .05 (single factor loadings of openness and
intellect are not displayed). ACP = Appreciation for Creative Personality. BFAS = Big Five Aspects Scale. resopen = residual term openness, resintell
= residual term intellect. ICAA = Inventory of Creative Activities and Achievements.
158 JAUK ET AL.

TABLE 4
Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations of study 2 variables

M (SD) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Appreciation for Creative Pers. (parents)

ACP (1) 0.56 (0.23) −.04 −.01 .08 −.07 .17 .09 .13 .08 .12 .03

Big Five Dimensions (participants)

Neuroticism (2) 2.80 (0.65) −.30 −.17 −.25 −.16 −.20 −.15 .03 .07 −.07
Extraversion (3) 3.60 (0.49) .21 .24 .45 .06 −.02 .03 .14 .22
Agreeableness (4) 4.01 (0.42) .08 .24 −.01 .12 .01 .15 .09
Conscientiousness (5) 3.13 (0.50) .04 .03 −.15 −.03 −.06 −.03
Openness/Intellect (6) 3.77 (0.52) .30 .23 .25 .31 .42
Cognitive Abilities (participants)
General Intelligence (7) 0.00 (0.73) .31 .19 .10 .22
Divergent Thinking Originality (8) 0.82 (0.20) .05 −.09 .20
Divergent Thinking Fluency (9) 8.54 (3.19) .13 .12
Real-Life Creative Behavior (participants)
Creative Activities (10) 65.49 (27.01) .53
Creative Achievements (11) 51.53 (35.50)

Note. N = 190 for all variables. ACP = Appreciation for Creative Personality. The first row presents dyadic correlations between participants’ personality
and their parents’ ACP scores. See method study 2 for more detailed information. Bold indicates significance at p < .05.

both variables, which are regarded as aspects of a higher
order openness factor (DeYoung et al., 2007), controlling
for ACP.
Figure 2 shows the latent mediation model parameter
estimates. Parents’ ACP had a significant effect on partici-
pants’ openness (β = .28; p < .01), but not intellect (β = .07;
p = .43). Participants’ openness, in turn, was significantly
associated with their amount of creative activities (β = .41;
p < .001). Intellect was not associated with creative activities
(β = .00; p = .99). The direct effect of ACP on creative
activities was not significant (β = .01; p = .95), but there was
a significant indirect effect via openness (β = .11; p = .01).
As an additional exploratory analysis, a domain-specific
model in which parents’ ACP was related to participants’
openness and intellect, as well as the eight ICAA subscales
(see Table 5), was investigated. Modeling of the ACP and
openness/intellect personality dimensions corresponds
exactly to the model reported above. The ICAA subscales
were entered as manifest criterion variables in order to
avoid overparameterization of the model. The model con-
verged to an admissible solution and showed similar fit to
the data as the model reported above (χ2(732) = 938.02,
p = .00; CFI = 0.81; WRMR = 1.03). Table 5 displays the
coefficient estimates for the effects of openness and intel-
lect on the ICAA subscales, as well as the direct and
indirect effect of ACP on the subscales. All ICAA sub-
scales except sports and science & engineering were sig-
nificantly related to openness; literature and science &
engineering were significantly related to intellect. As in
the domain-general model presented above, the ACP did
not display direct effects on any of the ICAA subscales, but
did show significant indirect effects via openness on
creative activities in the domains literature, music, arts &
crafts, visual arts, and performing arts.
DISCUSSION
Study 2 showed that there is a significant association
between parents’ ACP and participants’ openness. This
result was specific to openness rather than any other per-
sonality aspect, including intellect. This shows that the
ACP scale could capture shared variance between indivi-
duals, making it a candidate tool for the study of the social-
environmental climate for creativity from an interpersonal
perspective. Moreover, the latent mediation model showed
that parents’ ACP affected participants’ exertion of creative
activities, indirectly, via the path of openness. This means
that parental ACP, in terms of a social-environmental factor
for creative climate, selectively impacted the personality
dimension of openness, which, in turn, had an effect on
the engagement in creative activities. The mediation effect
is of moderate size but quite notable given that it represents
covariation across parent-child dyads. Complemental
domain-specific analyses showed that parental ACP selec-
tively supported the exertion of creative activities in arts-
related domains, but not in creative cooking, sports, or
science & engineering. While this yields evidence for the
criterion validity of ACP in the arts, the missing correlation
with science & engineering could be seen as a limiting
factor (see limitations section for discussion).
While parental ACP was associated with participants’
personality and, indirectly, behavioral tendencies (creative
activities), the ACP did not affect any cognitive measures

Domain-specific model for the prediction of participants’ creative activity by means of openness and intellect, their parents’ ACP, and the
indirect effects of parents’ ACP via participants’ openness and intellect
Literature Music Arts & Crafts
Openness .36 .43 .43
Intellect .21 −.05 −.12
ACP direct −.02 −.02 .02
ACP via Openness .10 .12 .12
ACP via Intellect .02 −.04 −.01
Note. Standardized regression weights are displayed. Coefficients marked in bold are significant at p < .05. ACP = Appreciation for Creative Personality.
such as creative potential or general intelligence. This indi-
cates that ACP is specifically related to personality traits
rather than cognitive abilities, which might be fostered by
other factors.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
Many contemporary models of creativity emphasize the
role of a valuing social environment in terms of a positive
climate for the development and expression of human crea-
tivity. Yet, to date, there is no context-independent measure
that allows for the quantification of the social-
environmental climate for creativity on an individual
level. Here, the construction and validation of a new mea-
sure for the assessment of Appreciation for Creative
Personality, the ACP scale, were reported. The scale allows
for the quantification of social-environmental conditions for
creative individuals from an interpersonal perspective.
The ACP scale is a concise, one-dimensional measure of
appreciation for creative personality that meets high psy-
chometric standards. Validity analyses indicated that the
scale, as expected, correlated highly with the Big Five
trait openness to experience (convergent validity). Yet, it
cannot be reduced to openness, as it displayed incremental
criterion validity in the prediction of relevant criteria (pre-
ference for creative education). This means that, while open
people are generally also open to social interactions with
creative people, ACP can be useful to predict creativity-
related outcomes (CE criteria in study 1) over and above
openness. Besides openness, the scale also displayed small
correlations with honesty-humility and extraversion. Closer
inspection revealed that the correlation with extraversion
could be explained by the social boldness facet. Individuals
scoring higher on social boldness might be more at ease
facing the nonconforming aspects of creative individuals.
The correlation with honesty-humility was due to the facet
greed avoidance, which circumscribes a low interest in
acquiring wealth, luxury, and social status (Lee & Ashton,
2004). It seems plausible that a low interest in these mate-
rialistic goals also implies valuing intellectual and creative
CREATIVITY RESEARCH JOURNAL 159
TABLE 5
Creative Cooking Sports Visual Arts Performing Arts Science & Engineering
.21 .05 .37 .38 −.10
−.06 .01 −.07 −.10 .23
.07 −.04 −.04 .03 .02
.06 .02 .10 .10 −.03
.00 .00 −.01 −.01 .02
endeavors. However, further research is needed to clarify
this link.
The ACP scale was largely independent (discriminant
validity) of the cognitive ability to recognize creative ideas
as measured by the previously published CET (Benedek
et al., 2016). This supports the conceptualization of ACP as
an affect-laden measure of preference for interacting with
creative people, which is different from the cognitive abil-
ity to recognize creative products or people. Yet, both
variables simultaneously predicted creative education atti-
tude (see Table 3). This indicates that both measures cap-
ture distinct and relevant portions of variance in creative
education attitude that are more related to personality and
ability aspects, respectively. This pattern of results suggests
that ACP and CET scales are best used together in contexts
where both aspects are relevant, such as in the educational
or also in the organizational context. In both of these
contexts, teachers or bosses are not only required to
appreciate creativity on the personality level, but also to
correctly recognize creative ideas or individuals as such.
Under fake-good instruction, the ACP largely lost its
validity, although there was still some evidence for criterion
validity (see Table 1). These correlations, however, should
not be overrated, as they were part of the item selection
process (see study 1 methods) and would possibly not
replicate in an independent sample. More importantly, how-
ever, itemwise faking analyses indicated that the latent
construct is not readily apparent to test-takers, as some
item means increased, while others decreased under fake-
good instruction (see Table 1). This notion is further sup-
ported by qualitative information from test-takers during
the pilot phase, who were unable to identify the latent
construct. This makes the ACP a useful tool that is not
limited to research purposes but is also suited for the
diagnostic context in terms of low susceptibility to socially
desirable responding.
Taken together, the ACP differs from existing measures
of creative climate in two ways: First, it takes an interper-
sonal approach to the study of creative climate by directly
assessing individuals from the social surrounding of the
creative individual. This is what differentiates the ACP
from organizational measures of creative climate, such as
160 JAUK ET AL.
Amabile and colleagues’ KEYS (Amabile et al., 1996) or
conceptually similar inventories (Anderson & West, 1998;
Ekvall, 1996). Second, the ACP was designed as a context-
independent measure that targets the level of personality
traits rather than attitudes in a specific context. As such, the
ACP is different from Kwaśniewska et al. (2018) recently
published Climate for Creativity in Parent-Child
Relationship Questionnaire. The scale presented here aims
to assess ACP as a personality trait in a behaviorally
anchored manner (“indicate with whom of them you
would prefer to have contact with”; see Table A2). This
makes the ACP not only a versatile instrument that can be
used in different contexts, but also goes along with a low
susceptibility to socially desirable responding (as it is of
relevance for instance in the educational context; Runco,
2007; Westby & Dawson, 1995)
Study 2 found that – in parent-child dyads – parents’ ACP
predicted their childrens’ openness, and, in turn, everyday
creative activities. While openness can be conceived an impor-
tant personality prerequisite for creative activity (Jauk et al.,
2014), the findings reported here add to previous literature in
that they provide evidence for an indirect effect from parents’
ACP to their childrens’ creative activities via the path of open-
ness. This yields an interesting insight into the putative devel-
opmental conditions for creative behavior, which might be
indirectly promoted by parents who are accepting and suppor-
tive towards their creative children (Kwaśniewska et al., 2018).
It was also found that, while parents’ ACP impacted their
childrens’ openness, there was no association with intellect,
which demonstrates the specificity of the effect and conforms to
prior research (Nusbaum & Silvia, 2011). However, personality
demands may vary between different fields of creative endea-
vor (Kaufman et al., 2016), and complementary domain-
specific analysis indicated that the results obtained here might
only be valid for artistic creativity (see limitations).
Taken together, the correlation between parents’ ACP and
their childrens’ personality shows that the ACP scale can
capture covariance between a target person and individuals
from their respective social environment. This opens many
possibilities to the use of the ACP scale as a measure of
creative climate, such as for instance the quantification of
ACP in organizations, schools, or families. The ACP scores
of single individuals or groups of individuals might then be
related to creative outcome variables in other groups of
individuals (for instance employees, pupils, or children).
Limitations
Though the ACP scale displayed good psychometric prop-
erties in the studies reported here, there are some limita-
tions to the measure. First, the scale is rather short. While
this allows for an economic assessment of the main con-
struct, it does not allow to disentangle more fine-grained
facets, which might emerge when the construct was
measured with a longer and more nuanced scale (e.g.,
Kwaśniewska et al., 2018). However, as long as a single
score is needed, as it was the case in the admission test
context, the short scale seems well suited. Moreover, while
appreciation of creative personality arguably represents
a fundamental aspect of the social climate for creativity at
the interpersonal level, a more comprehensive assessment
may consider further factors such as trust, or the readiness
to support and cooperate with creative people.
Although the parent-participant correlation between ACP
and openness obtained in study 2 is encouraging, the data are
of cross-sectional nature and thus cannot speak to causality. It
cannot be inferred that parents’ ACP causally influences their
offsprings’ openness. It could also be the case that parents
who have open and creative children develop higher ACP
(i.e., adjust their preference for creative personality in accor-
dance to their childrens’ traits). Though the former causal path
may presumably be stronger than the latter, the issue must
remain subject to future studies. Also, common genetic factors
could account for part of the shared variance. Future studies
should thus validate the ACP also in the organizational or
educational context, where common genetic variance is not an
issue. Importantly, irrespective of the causal nature of the
findings reported here, the data demonstrate that the ACP
can successfully capture interindividual covariance, which
renders it a useful tool for the study of social environments
for creativity.
Due to time restrictions and practicability, no personality
traits apart from ACP were assessed in participants’ parents
in study 2. Above all, it would have been interesting to
include Big Five openness to investigate incremental valid-
ity of the ACP. However, incremental validity of the ACP
beyond openness could be established in study 1. Future
research could directly examine the incremental validity of
the ACP above and beyond Big Five traits in interpersonal
datasets. Such studies could be carried out in organizations,
schools, or families, and might help to unveil important
aspects of the social-environmental climate for the devel-
opment and expression of creativity.
Lastly, further research is needed on the validity of the
ACP in different domains; particularly in the arts and
sciences, which go along with different demands for crea-
tive personality (e.g., Kaufman et al., 2016). The subscale
analyses of the ICAA showed that parental ACP is asso-
ciated with their children’s creative activities in the arts, but
not in science & engineering. This can be seen as
a potential limitation of the ACP scale to capture apprecia-
tion for the personality of people interested in scientific
creativity. It has to be noted, though, that common mea-
sures of everyday creativity also tend to show a broader
coverage of various artistic domains, maybe due to their
higher prevalence in non-professional samples (Diedrich
et al., 2018). This renders the comparison between arts
and sciences unbalanced in this study. Future studies

could use in the ACP in dedicated artistic and scientific
professionals.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We express our special thanks to Hannah Wolf and Magda
Gerhold for translating the scale into English. This work
was supported by the HRSM Fund from the Austrian
Federal Ministry of Science, Research, and Economy as
part of the Project PädagogInnenbildung Neu –
Development and Implementation of a common selection
procedure for teacher students.
FUNDING
This work was supported by the HRSM Fund from the
Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research, and
Economy as part of the Project PädagogInnenbildung
Neu–Development and Implementation of a common selec-
tion procedure for teacher students. The authors acknowl-
edge the financial support by the University of Graz.
ORCID
Emanuel Jauk http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3267-1688
Jennifer Diedrich http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7058-293X
Mathias Benedek http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6258-4476
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TABLE A1.
Appreciation for creative personality scale (German)

Item
No. Response Alternative A Response Alternative B

1* Bleibt bei weiteren Autofahrten öfter stehen, um die Natur zu Wenn sie mit dem Auto unterwegs ist, versucht sie möglichst schnell an ihr Ziel zu
fotografieren, und kommt daher manchmal zu spät. kommen und hat keine Zeit die Umgebung zu bewundern, auch wenn die Natur
noch so schön ist.
2* Ihre Ideen werden oft als „unpraktisch“ oder sogar „gewagt“ Ihre Vorschläge sind meist bewährte, die schon früher gut funktioniert haben.
bezeichnet.
3 Sie mochte in der Schule gerne Sportunterricht, weil es da Kunst war eines ihrer Lieblingsfächer in der Schule.
immer klare Spielregeln gab.
4* Bewundert KünstlerInnen und SchriftstellerInnen gleich wie ÄrzteInnen und JuristInnen leisten ihrer Meinung nach wichtigere Arbeit als
ÄrztInnen und JuristInnen. KünstlerInnen und SchriftstellerInnen.
5 Zeichnet nur Bilder von echten Personen oder Objekten gerne. Zeichnet nur abstrakte Bilder gerne.
6 Ist nett und ruhig, hat aber nicht so viele Ideen. Ist lebhaft und voll von Ideen und tut daher oft nicht das, was andere erwarten.
7 Normalerweise tut sie Dinge auf akzeptierte Weise. Normalerweise versucht sie, sich neue Wege einfallen zu lassen, etwas zu tun.
8 Beschäftigt sich lieber mit Fakten. Beschäftigt sich lieber mit Ideen und Theorien.
9 Ist die Art von Person, die es bevorzugt, alltägliche Probleme Ist die Art von Person, die es bevorzugt, alltägliche Probleme auf
auf bewährtem Weg zu lösen. außergewöhnlichem Weg zu lösen.
10 Die erste Idee, die man für die Lösung eines Problems hat, ist Braucht in der Regel lange für die Lösung von Problemen, weil sie sich eine
ihrer Meinung nach fast immer die richtige. Vielzahl möglicher Lösungen ausdenkt.
11 Fragt vor Geburtstagen gerne nach, was der/die zu Verschenkt zu Geburtstagen gerne selbst hergestellte Dinge, auch wenn der/die
Beschenkende als Geschenk gebrauchen könnte. Beschenkte diese gar nicht brauchen kann.
12 Kauft nützliche Einrichtungsgegenstände, deren Aussehen ist Hat eine Vorliebe für ausgefallene Kombinationen von Einrichtungsgegenständen,
ihr nicht so wichtig. die andere manchmal zum Schmunzeln bringen.
13 Lässt sich spontan Witze einfallen, die andere vielleicht nicht Erzählt lieber bewährte Witze.
lustig finden.

Note. Item numbers correspond to those in Table 1. Response alternative A is assigned zero points, response alternative B is assigned one point. Items
marked with an asterisk are reverse-coded. Scale score is calculated by averaging across all items. The German scale instruction is as follows: “Nachfolgend
werden Ihnen Beschreibungen von jeweils zwei Personen dargeboten. Bitte stellen Sie sich für jede Aussage eine Person vor und geben Sie an, mit welcher
der beiden Personen Ihnen der Umgang angenehmer wäre.”

TABLE A2.
Appreciation for creative personality scale (english)

Item
No. Response Alternative A Response Alternative B

1* Stops often to photograph nature during long car rides, and is
therefore sometimes late.
2* His/her ideas are often considered “impractical” or even
“wild”.
3 In school, the person enjoyed physical education very much,
because the rules were always explicit.
4* Admires artists and writers the same amount as medical
doctors and lawyers.
5 Likes to draw pictures only of real people and real objects.
6 Is nice and calm, but does not have so many ideas.
7 Does usually do things in a widely accepted manner.
8 Likes to concern oneself with facts.
9 Is the kind of person who prefers solving everyday problems
in well proven ways.
10 Believes that the first idea that comes to mind when trying to
solve a problem is almost always the right one.
11 Before making a gift, asks what the person actually needs for
his/her birthday.
12 Buys practical furniture, the appearance of which is not so
important.
13 Comes up with jokes spontaneously which others might not
find funny.
When driving by car, he/she tries to reach the destination as quickly as possible and
has no time to admire the surrounding nature, no matter how beautiful it is.
His/her suggestions are usually established ones, which have worked before.
Art was one of her favorite subjects at school.
Is of the opinion that the work of medical doctors and lawyers is more important than
that of artists and writers.
Likes to draw abstract pictures only.
Is lively and full of ideas and therefore does often not do what others might expect.
Normally tries to find new ways to do things.
Likes to concern oneself with ideas and theories.
Is the kind of person who prefers to solve everyday problems in unconventional ways.
Typically takes a long time to solve problems because he/she thinks about numerous
different possible solutions.
Likes to give self-made birthday presents, even if the person does not need them.
Has a preference for unusual combinations of furniture, which sometimes makes other
people chuckle.
Likes to tell established jokes.

Note. Item numbers correspond to those in Table 1. Response alternative A is assigned zero points, response alternative B is assigned one point. Items
marked with an asterisk are reverse-coded. Scale score is calculated by averaging across all items. The English scale instruction is as follows: “In the
following, you will see descriptions of two persons. Please imagine a person for each of these descriptions and indicate with whom of them you would
prefer to have contact with.”