Network mapping of personality-creativity dynamics: Domain-general and domain-specific associations across genders

The present study explored the complex interplay between personality and both domain-specific and domain-general creativity by employing network analysis. We collected valid questionnaire data from 666 college students and used the Chinese Big Five Personality Inventory-15 (CBF-PI-15), the Chinese Version of the Revised Creativity Domain Questionnaire (CDQ-R), the Alternate Uses Task (AUT), and the Language-independent Remote Associate Task (LI-RAT) for measurement. The results indicate that, in the domain-specific creativity and personality network, Openness is most strongly connected to multiple dimensions of domain-specific creativity. In the domain-general creativity and personality network, Neuroticism holds a central position, whereas LI-RAT shows no connection to personality traits. Gender differences were also found in the network structure of domain-specific creativity and personality: males exhibited a more robust network structure than females, with significant differences observed in the Arts dimension and connections between Math/Science-Arts and Openness-Neuroticism in the dimensional network. Overall, this study sheds new light on the complex interplay between personality and creativity, offering valuable insights into the different associations between creativity and personality across genders.