Personality, hypomania, intelligence and creativity

This study examined the relationship between fluid intelligence, the Big Five traits, hypomania and three measures of creativity: Divergent Thinking fluency, Self-rated creativity and the Biographical Inventory of Creative Behaviours (BICB). One hundred and twenty eight sixth-form students took part. Fluid intelligence was found to be positively associated with DT fluency, but unrelated to both Self-rated creativity and the BICB. Hypomanic traits were significantly correlated to all three creativity criteria. The combination of hypomanic traits and fluid intelligence demonstrated the strongest association with DT fluency, accounting for 11% of the variance. Hypomania was the best predictor of Self-rated creativity accounting for 17% of the variance. The Big Five accounted for incremental validity of 5–8% depending on the creativity measure used.