Lesson 6: Some Personality structures related to Art

Emergence of the Trait perspective

So far, these theories have focused on unconscious motivations and drives. Instead of looking at unconscious motives, the trait perspective looks at general behavioral patterns and conscious (versus unconscious) motives. These patterns are thought to be relatively stable over time and situations.

 

Take a minute to take some notes: How are trait theories different from prior theories of personality?

 

How has personality been assessed?

-Myers Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI)

 The Myers-Briggs assessment is based on 4 dichotomies and based on Carl Jung’s typologies (see above, Jung, 1921, Myers & Briggs,1980). The test distinguishes where an individual falls along 4 dimensions: 1) Introversion (I) versus Extraversion (E), 2) Sensation (S) versus Intuition (N), 3) Thinking (T) versus Feeling (F) and Judging (J) versus Perceiving (P). Here are the general descriptions of each:

  • I/E: Where is energy directed? Do you prefer to focus on the outer world or on your own inner world?
    • I (Introversion) Prefer to direct energy toward the inner world of ideas, reflection, and imagination
    • E (Extraversion) Prefers to direct energy toward the outer world of society and objects
  • S/N: How is information processed? Do you prefer to focus on the basic information you take in or do you prefer to interpret and add meaning?
    • S (Sensation) Focuses on what can be seen
    • N (Intuition) Interprets observed information and adds meaning
  • T/F: How are decisions made? Do you prefer to first look at logic and consistency or first look at the people and special circumstances?
    • T (Thinking) Prefers logic
    • F (Feeling) Looks at people and circumstances
  • J/P How is life organized?In dealing with the outside world, do you prefer to get things decided or do you prefer to stay open to new information and options?
    • J (Judging) Get things decided, makes plans and lists
    • P (Perceiving) Stays open, loosely scheduled

The result is 16 different combinations.  For example, INFP, ENTJ, ISFJ, etc.  The assessment is commonly known as the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI). You can take it here Links to an external site. - which is a more valid version as far as I can tell but you need to give your e-mail address and create an account. If you don't want to do this: You can take it here Links to an external site.. You can also take the FFI using the first link Links to an external site.

How did you score? Let me know by clicking here. I'll post statistics on the results. 

Now, for your entertainment only – there are several Myers-Briggs breakdowns of the characters on TV shows (your favorite show is probably represented somewhere on the internet if you google it!)  

 

 

-Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation

Think about what is motivating you to read this lesson. If you are motivated by internal rewards such as love of learning, interest in the subject, personal sense of accomplishment and personal growth you would be high on intrinsic motivation. In contrast, extrinsic motivation describes when you are motivated by external rewards such as a particular grade, praise, an award or a raise. The Work Preferences Inventory (WPI, Amabile , Hill, & Hennessey, 1994) assesses intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation.

There are some very interesting studies on Intrinsic/Extrinsic motivation. We read about some of them in Lesson 3, and here is another perspective: RSA ANIMATE: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us Links to an external site.RSA ANIMATE: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

 

 

-Sensation Seeking

Sensation seeking is a trait which describes people who prefer intensity and novelty over the routine and comfortable. Specifically, Zuckerman (1994) defines sensation seeking as “…a trait defined by the seeking of varied, novel, complex, and intense sensations and experiences and the willingness to take physical, social, legal, and financial risks for the sake of such experiences” (p. 27). Zuckerman created the Sensation Seeking Scale, and which includes 4 subscales:

  1. boredom susceptibility: a tendency to avoid repetition and routine such as not watching the same movie twice
  2. disinhibition: preference for less control such as wild parties and taking drugs
  3. experience seeking: trying unconventional activities such as exploring a new town or drug use
  4. thrill and adventure seeking: seeking exciting activities such as mountain climbing or skydiving

 

Take the sensation seeking test Links to an external site.

 

Furnham et. al. (1997) studied the relationship between sensation seeking and aesthetic preference and found that sensation seeking is positively correlated with liking surreal art and negatively correlated with liking representational Art. Also, Furnham et. al, (1988) found that sensation seeking is also positively correlated with Abstract Art.

Take a minute to take some notes: Distinguish among the 4 different sensation seeking subscales. Which ones do you score high or low in? Do you think that these have changed or remained relatively stable across your life span?

 

 

What are the Big 5 personality types?

 

Research in Psychology has established many traits that are reliable and able to predict a variety of behaviors. However, there have been 5 found to be the most reliable over time and predicting behavior across many different situations: These are those 5 personality types (also called dimensions or factors or domains):

  1. Openness: Tendency to be intellectually curious and use imagination
  2. Conscientiousness: Tendency toward organization and caution
  3. Extraversion: Tendency to be more content in social situation
  4. Agreeableness: Tendency to be friendly and trusting of others
  5. Neuroticism: Tendency to experience negative emotions such as depression and anxiety.

Image Source https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/d7/de/f6/d7def6c45591bd9d0012a70a348c94a2.jpg Links to an external site.

 

The acronym “O.C.E.A.N” is a frequently used mnemonic to summarize these 5 traits. Over time, these traits have emerged across many samples using scales with good psychometric properties (i.e. good reliability and validity) and research including samples with variety of age groups, backgrounds and professions. There are several specific personality scales that measure these 5 traits (Costa & McCrae, 1992; DeYoung, Quilty, & Peterson, 2007; Goldberg, 1993). Because of the prevalence of these traits in the psychological literature, these particular 5 have been most investigated with respect to artistic preferences and creativity. 

While these 5 seem to be agreed upon by most researchers, the facets (or subdomains) are often disputed. For example, Costa and McCrae (1992) advanced 6 facets, or subdomains per personality dimensions, whereas Goldberg (1993) advanced 9 facets. DeYoung et. al. (2007) provided strong evidence that each facet can be broken down into 2 aspects with several facets underneath each aspect. Because this approach has been well-substantiated by DeYoung and colleagues and because it has been a particularly useful approach to the study of creativity and art, we will use DeYoung’s structure of the Big 5 traits. Here is an example of how DeYoung et. al. (2007) breaks down the 5 personality dimensions:

Take a minute to take some notes: Distinguish between a personality dimension (factor) versus an aspect versus a facet. Which is the broadest, the second broadest and the most specific?

 

How is personality related to art?

It is probably not surprising that Openness is the trait most commonly associated with creativity and art. What is probably less well known is that different aspects of the Openness trait have been associated with different kinds of creativity. According to Costa and McRae (1992), each personality trait has 6 facets, or sub-domains. Openness has the following 6 facts:

  • Fantasy: receptivity to imagination
  • Aesthetics: appreciation of art and beauty
  • Action: openness to new experiences
  • Feeling: openness to inner feelings and emotions
  • Ideas: intellectual curiosity
  • Values: readiness to re-examine own value system and authority

Recently, DeYoung and colleagues have proposed that openness as well as the other personality factors can have 2 aspects each. For openness, this can be broken down into openness to experience and intellect (DeYoung, Carey, Krueger, & Ross, 2016; DeYoung, Quilty, & Peterson, 2007; Kaufman, 2013; Kaufman, Quilty, Grazioplene, Hirsh, & DeYoung, 2016) Openness to experience includes the facets of fantasy, aesthetics, action, and feeling whereas the intellect subdomain includes opens to ideas.

Openness to experience has been shown to be most related to appreciation and success in the arts whereas intellect has been more related to creative achievement in the sciences.

So a better model may be

Facet: Openness to Experience

Aspect 1: Openness

Facets

Fantasy

Aesthetics

Action

Feeling

Values

Aspect 2: Intellect

Facets

Intellectual curiosity

Mental Quickness

Ingenuity

Competence

Openness.png

Take a minute to take some notes: What is the difference between a factor, aspect and facet – giving examples for the trait of Openness?

 

How is openness related to preference for style and creativity?

 

Pablo Picasso, Massacre in Korea, 1951

Image source: https://www.pablopicasso.org/massacre-in-korea.jsp Links to an external site.

Generally people high in openness to experience prefer complexity in art, have positive attitudes towards the arts and engage in the arts significantly more. Overall, people who are open to experience like most varieties art more other personality types but this is especially true for abstract art (Ercegovic, Dobrota, & Kuscevic, 2015; Furnham & Walker, 2001).

People high in openness tend to approach complexity rather than reject it so they have a higher liking for complex art (Chamorro-Premuzic, Burke, Hsu, & Swami, 2010). In music, they like music that is sophisticated, intense, and/or mellow; they have shown to rate both heavy metal and classical music as likable (Cleridou & Furnham, 2014; Ercegovic, Dobrota, & Kuscevic, 2015) but tend to dislike listening to pop music and tend to avoid Impressionism (BBC Study; Ercegovic, Dobrota, & Kuscevic, 2015). This may be because those genres are too familiar and are not challenging enough.

Openness is a big predictor of aesthetic attitude, as noted above there is a negative correlation with anti-art attitude; positive with aesthetic relativity (McManus & Furnham, 2006). People high in openness also engage in a large variety of aesthetic activities: there is a positive relationship with listening to classical music, going to art museums, reading novels, reading poetry, playing instrument, drawing and painting. Also, there is a negative relationship with opened and watching TV (McManus & Furnham, 2006).

Interestingly, Gridley (2004) found that 70% of his sample of art collectors were intuition (“N”) types in the Myers-Briggs, which is positively associated with openness to experience. Similarly, Van Rooij (1997) found that “S” (sensation) types preferred realistic art over abstract whereas “N” generally liked both realistic and abstract pieces, but did prefer abstract significantly more that “S” types.

Most subdomains of sensation seeking are associated with openness to experience, and correlations between sensation seeking and art preferences tend to follow the same pattern found with openness to experience. Furnham et. al. (1997) found that sensation seeking is positively correlated with surreal art and is negatively correlated with representational art. Also, Furnham et. al, (1988) found that sensation seeking is also positively correlated with abstract art (Furham & Avison, 1997).

Take a minute to take some notes: The personality factor openness to experience is related to like what kind of visual art? Also, what kind of music?

 

Openness is the personality trait most clearly related to artisitc preference and creativity. But there are correlations with the other 4 traits. Let's looks at some of these associations. 

Conscientiousness, represented by “C”:  High scorers tend to be well organized and careful vs. disorganized and careless. The 6 facets of the Conscientiousness subscale are:   

Aspect 1: Industriousness

Facets: 

Competence: belief in own self-efficacy

Dutifulness: emphasis placed on fulfilling moral obligations

Achievement-Striving: need for personal achievement and sense of direction

Self-discipline: competence to take on tasks and follow through

Deliberation: tendency to think things through before acting or speaking

Aspect 2: Orderliness

Facets: 

Orderliness: personal organization

Perfectionism

 

How is conscientiousness related to artistic preference?

Generally those high in conscientiousness tend to dislike complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity. Conscientiousness is highly related with conservatism, so the research on the relationship between conscientiousness and conservatism can be said to go back a number of years. For example, Wilson, Ausman, and Mathews (1973) found that highly conservative types show a negative correlation with complex art. In this study, participants were presented with 4 categories of images and asked to rate how much they liked each image according to their personal preference:

  • Simple Representational
  • Simple Abstract
  • Complex Representational
  • Complex Abstract

The findings showed that those scoring higher in conservatism disliked images that were more complex and abstract.

  • Correlations with Conservatism:
    • Complexity (r = -.56)
    • Abstractness (r = -.14)

This research echoed what was discovered by Barron in 1952, who found that conservatives gravitated toward simple and symmetrical designs. In contrast, those who were “dissident, cynical, somewhat eccentric, and deviant” gravitated toward the more complex and asymmetric designs. I also just like that description. :-)

Modern research has substantiated these findings. For example Furnham and Walker found that conscientiousness was related to a preference for representational paintings (Furnham & Walker, 2001) and a negative relationship with complex paintings (Chamorro-Premuzic, Burke, Hsu, & Swami, 2010).

Other research has shown conscientiousness to be associated with a preference for religious paintings (Ercegovic, Dobrota, & Kuscevic, 2015). In the domain of music, a negative relationship with intense music, such as Led Zeppelin or The Who, has been established (Cleridou & Furnham, 2014).

Behaviorally, those high in conscientiousness are less likely to play an instrument, go to concerts, listen to classical music, draw or paint, or read poetry (McManus & Furnham, 2006). And the aspect of orderliness has been negatively linked to getting chills as an aesthetic response and to aesthetic absorption (Silvia & Nusbaum, 2011). 

Take a minute to take some notes: The personality factor conscientiousness is related to like what kind of visual art? Also, what kind of music?

 

Extraversion, represented by “E”:  High scorers are sociable and affectionate versus retiring and reserved. The 6 facets of the Extraversion subscale are divided into two broader categories:  Interpersonal and temperamental traits

Aspect 1: Enthusiasm

Facets: 

Warmth: interest in others

Gregariousness: preference for the company of others

Positive Emotions: tendency to experience positive emotions

Aspect 2: Assertiveness

Facets: 

Assertiveness: forcefulness of expression

Activity:  pace of living

Excitement-seeking: environmental stimulation

 

 

How is extraversion related to artistic preference?

Extraverts tend to have positive attitudes about art; for example, in the McManus et al study they had a negative relationship to and "anti-art" attitude and a positive relationship with overall aesthetic attitude (McManus & Furnham, 2006). Like those high in openness to experience, extraverts preferred abstract and cubist art relative to more representational forms like Impressionism and Japanese art (Chamorro-Premuzic, Reimers, Hsu, & Ahmetoglu, 2009). In one study, extraverts had preference for classical art characterized by correctness of style, such as The Voyage of Life: Youth by Thomas Cole over Romantic art characterized by freedom of subject matter and style such as Wheatfield with Cyprus by van Gogh [IMAGES BELOW](Rosenbluh, Owens, & Pohler, 1972).

 Thomas Cole

The Voyage of Life, T. Cole Links to an external site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wheatfield with Cypress, van Gogh Links to an external site.

Extraverts seem to use music in daily activities more than introverts and use it frequently to promote positive mood. For example, extraverts tend to rate pop music favorably (Ercegovic, Dobrota, & Kuscevic, 2015) and tend to use happy music in the background (Chamorro-Premuzic, Fagan, & Furnham, 2010). Also, extraverts are more likely to go out dancing (McManus & Furnham, 2006).

 

Take a minute to take some notes: The personality factor extraversion is related to like what kind of visual art? Also, what kind of music?

 

 

Agreeableness, represented by “A”: High scorers tend to be trusting and helpful, good natured, cooperative, vs. suspicious and uncooperative.   The 6 facets of the Agreeableness subscale are:

Aspect 1: Compassion

Facets: 

Trust: belief in the sincerity and good intentions of others

Altruism: concern for the welfare of others

Tender-Mindedness: sympathy toward others

Aspect 2: Politeness

Facets: 

Compliance: response to interpersonal conflict

Modesty: capacity to be humble

Straightforwardness: frankness in expression

 

How is agreeableness related to artistic preference?

Though agreeableness rarely has correlations with art preferences (Cleridou & Furnham, 2014), a few correlations have been established by researchers. Those high in agreeableness have been found to prefer representational art to abstract art (Furham & Avison, 1997). Also, negative correlations have been established between agreeableness and art about diverse cultures / world art, as well as depictions of violence; whereas positive correlations were found between agreeableness and religious art and landscapes (Ercegovic, Dobrota, & Kuscevic, 2015). In music, high scorers in agreeableness tend to dislike heavy metal but enjoy jazz/world and popular music (Ercegovic, Dobrota, & Kuscevic, 2015).

Behaviorally, those high in agreeableness are less likely to act in a play or go dancing (McManus & Furnham, 2006). In addition, the compassion aspect of agreeableness is linked to feeling touched by art and music (Silvia & Nusbaum, 2011). 

Take a minute to take some notes:  The personality factor agreeableness is related to like what kind of visual art? Also, what kind of music?

 

Neuroticism, represented by “N”:  High scorers are more maladjusted, worry a lot, insecure, depressive vs. calm, secure and well adjusted. The 6 facets of the Neuroticism sub-scale are:

Aspect 1: Volatility

Facets: 

Impulsiveness: Give in to temptation and desires

Hostility: Anger

Aspect 2: Withdrawal

Facets: 

Self-consciousness: Shame; sensitivity to criticism; feelings of inferiority

Depression: Sorrow; sadness & hopelessness

Vulnerability: Lowered ability to effectively deal with stress

Anxiety: Fretfulness and fear

 

How is neuroticism related to artistic preference?

Like agreeableness, there are fewer findings for neuroticism than for openness to experience, but some relationships have been established between neuroticism and artistic preference. Rosenbluh et. al (1972) found that Neuroticism was correlated with a  preference for romantic art over classical art.

There were also negative relationships between neuroticism and  intense and unpretentious styles of art in the (Cleridou & Furnham, 2014) study. This was particularly true for intense or unpretentious architectural styles. Neuroticism has also been positively associated with preferences for sad paintings and those high in neuroticism have been found to be drawn to dark and cold colors versus warm and intense colors (Chamorro-Premuzic, Burke, Hsu, & Swami, 2010).

 

Take a minute to take some notes: The personality factor neuroticism is related to like what kind of visual art? Also, what kind of music?

 

What Factors influence Personality and how does Personality influence behavior?

Psychologists generally agree that personality is a combination of genes, physiology and environment. For example, Gregory Feist (2010, 2017) discusses a model of personality that proposes that personality variations are affected by genes and brain structure, which influence behavior, specifically creativity. His model suggests that our physiological makeup is the foundation of many individual differences, such as how social we tend to be, whether or not we need a lot of external stimulation, and if we tend to be motivated by internal pleasure or external reward. We know that our genes directly influence the development of our nervous systems and individual variations in brain structure (particularly the frontal lobe and right hemisphere) and neural complexity influence the way we view and respond to the world. Specifically, Feist talks about differences in Cognitive Traits (way of thinking about the world), Social Traits (response to pressure to conform, authority, tradition), Motivational Traits, and Clinical considerations (degree of psychoticism/schizotypy). A combination of these may lower your threshold for creative thought – for example, if you are open to new ideas, tend to resist conformity and question authority and traditions, are motivated by internal rather than external rewards and have reduced latent inhibition (associated with schizotypy, discussed in Lesson 4), you are more likely to behave creatively.

This constellation of individual attributes changes the threshold for certain behaviors. Generally, the underlying physiology of an individual generates a constellation of traits lowers the threshold for certain behavioral responses.

Feist Cambridge University Press

For example, take the behavior of Skydiving. If you are a person who craves a lot of stimulation to be happy and loves excitement and adventure, your threshold for that behavior may just be that someone asked if you wanted to go. If you aren’t so adventure-seeking your threshold for that behavior may be much higher – say an external reward of a million dollars.

Feist also notes that this flow can be bidirectional. In other words, acting in creative or adventurous ways may influence the way you think and respond, influencing brain structures and processes and even genes.

TakeNotes.jpgTake a minute to take some notes: What are the components of Gregory Feist's model? How do these components work together to produce behaviors - specifically creative thoughts and behaviors. 

As you can see, considerations of the nature of personality and how it affects, and is affected by, attitudes and behavior are complex. Likewise, the nature of our very perceptions are more complex than 'meets the eye' (haha) ... and there is no place this complexity becomes more obvious than art. So, next we explore whether the experience of art is on the canvas, in our brains or in our minds. Don't forget to test yourself. 

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE: Lesson 6 Matching: Personality 

Lesson and What does your Art say about You? Three Minute Quiz

 

"Fragments of personality" Bekim Hasaj (Italy) 

 Image source: Link Links to an external site.