خلاقیت و شخصیت در رقصنده حرفه ای

In this study three different groups of professional dancers (ballet, modern/contemporary and jazz/musical), which considerably vary with respect to the creativity-related demands involved in the respective dancing style, are compared with respect to psychometrically determined creativity, general mental ability and different facets of personality. Results indicate that modern/contemporary dancers, who are often required to freely improvise on stage, exhibited relatively high levels of verbal and figural creativity (as it was measured by means of psychometric creativity tests), followed by jazz/musical and finally by ballet dancers. With respect to personality, modern/contemporary dancers can be characterized as being less conscientious, higher on psychoticism and more open to experiences than the remaining experimental groups. In line with relevant research in this field, this study reveals some central personality characteristics of highly creative individuals which may be considered as important ingredients in the acquisition or actualization of exceptional creative potential.

Dancing represents a fascinating and enjoyable creative expression, which has attracted attention in almost all annals of recorded history. Performing artists or dancers from different disciplines (such as ballet or modern dancers) are commonly considered as outstandingly creative individuals, but scientifically no conclusive characterization of this (rather heterogeneous) group of people has been achieved yet. In the course of history, different forms of dance have emerged. For instance, classical ballet has its roots in Europe and Russia of the 16th and 17th century. The technique, as we know it today, was written down in the Académie Royale de Danse in 1661, known today as Théatre Nationale de l´Opéra (Au, 2002). The development of modern/contemporary dance, which involves a considerably higher level of creative expression than classical ballet, may be dated into the 19th century and was motivated by the willingness to attenuate the fixed and rigid structures inherent to classical ballet. Modern or contemporary dance is a more free style type of dance, allowing artists to freely improvise or to perform in a more “ad hoc manner”, while in other dancing disciplines such as jazz/musical or classical ballet, dancers are required to align themselves more strongly to predefined choreographies or scripts. Jazz and musical dance has its origin in the USA. This form of dancing emerged from the folk and society dances of the African slaves in America, and meanwhile this dance discipline comprises a broad repertoire of different steps and body movements. It became very famous in the 20th century, at the time when the musical was born. This study was designed to investigate personality characteristics of professional dancers of varying dance disciplines in order to learn more about the manifold facets of personality specifically involved in outstanding (or at least clearly above-average) creative individuals. In doing so, we aim at improving our understanding of creative personality characteristics in individuals in more “real-life” or creativity-related domains such as dance or performing arts, which may offer a valuable enrichment of research in samples of the normal population. Specifically, three different groups of dancers (ballet, modern/contemporary, jazz/musical), which may considerably vary in the creativity-related demands involved in the respective dance style, are compared with respect to psychometrically determined creativity, general mental ability and different facets of personality. Guided by the view that creativity is highly domain specific, this study aims at looking at “micro-domains” (such as ballet, modern/contemporary or jazz/musical) within the larger creativity domain of dance (cf. Baer, 2010). Research on personality correlates of creativity has been carried out in many different domains. For instance, in one of the first studies in this field, MacKinnon (1965) focused on personality characteristics in architects of varying levels of creativity. MacKinnon’s work has stimulated much research in this area and in the meanwhile relevant studies in this field have provided evidence of a relatively stable set of core dimensions as being characteristic for creative individuals. Among the most important ones are “high valuation of esthetic qualities in experience, broad interests, attraction to complexity, high energy, independence of judgment, autonomy, intuition, self-confidence, ability to resolve antinomies or to accommodate apparently opposite or conflicting traits in one’s self concept, and finally, a firm sense of self as ‘creative’” (Barron & Harrington, 1981, p. 453). Within the artistic creativity domain, highly creative individuals such as artists or dancers have been characterized among others as being more creative, introverted, comparatively high on emotionality or neuroticism, more open to experiences and strongly achievement- or performance-oriented (e.g. Alter, 1984, Bakker, 1991, Haller, 2010, Marchant-Haycox and Wilson, 1992 and Rubinstein and Strul, 2006). Similarly, in Feist’s (1998) comprehensive meta-analytic review of literature on personality in scientific and artistic creativity, creative people are “…regardless of which measure or taxonomy was used to assess personality and creativity… more autonomous, introverted, open to experiences, norm-doubting, self-confident, self-accepting, driven, ambitious, dominant, hostile, and impulsive” (p. 299). These traits are highly similar and in some cases even identical to the traits Eysenck (1995) used to identify psychoticism (e.g. aggressive, cold, egocentric, impulsive etc.). Eysenck’s psychoticism dimension, which has been observed to be substantially associated with various creativity-related demands (e.g. Abraham, Windmann, Daum, & Güntürkün, 2005; see also Eysenck, 1995), is conceptualized as a continuum, ranging from lower (altruism, conformity) to higher manifestations (impulsivity, psychopathy, p. 235) and this personality trait is thought to underlie a variety of psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia or manic-depressive symptoms (as well as schizoid, psychopathic or borderline disorders). In fact, there are many illustrative examples of eminent creative people who suffer(ed) from mental or psychopathological disorders leading some authors to conclude that “…madness may be the price for possessing one of the most sublime human gifts” (Barrantes-Vidal, 2004, p. 59). Post (1994) for instance investigated the prevalence of various forms of psychopathologies in exceptionally creative people (such as writers and artists) and concluded that certain psychopathological personality characteristics may be linked to some facets of creativity. In a similar way, Kaufman (2005) studied a large sample of different types of writers (fiction writers, poets, playwrights, nonfiction writers) and concluded that poets are more likely to suffer from mental illness than other types of writers. According to the findings briefly summarized above, the creative personality can be best characterized as being broadly interested, ambitious, norm-doubting and self-confident, prone to non-conformity, continuously striving to swim against the current and to experience something new. With respect to this study, this may particularly apply for modern/contemporary dancers, who are often required to freely improvise on stage, thereby experiencing more freedom in actualizing their creative potential. In contrast, ballet dancers (and to some minor extent also jazz/musical dancers) who are normally obliged to adhere to well-structured choreographies and scripts, are expected to tend to conformity or higher levels of conscientiousness. We may therefore hypothesize that the higher level of creative expression in modern/contemporary (as opposed to classical ballet) dancers is also reflected in psychometric tests of creative cognition. Specifically, modern/contemporary dancers should outperform ballet dancers and possibly also jazz/musical dancers in the employed psychometric creativity tests. With respect to personality, we may expect that modern/contemporary dancers score relatively high on Eysenck’s psychoticism dimension (cf. Eysenck, 1995; see also Abraham et al., 2005) and on the Big Five dimension openness to experiences which is seen in close relation to creativity (see e.g. King, Walker, & Broyles, 1996). And finally, the three different groups of dancers should be also compared with respect to their motivation towards achievement and with respect to selected creativity-related variables from the (interpersonal or family) environment (such as parental support), which have been shown to be associated with creativity as well (Simonton, 2000). Though motivational and environmental variables are known as important components of creativity (e.g. Hennessey and Amabile, 2010 and Simonton, 2000) it may be difficult to derive specific hypotheses whether or to which extent modern/contemporary, jazz/musical and ballet dancers differ with respect to these variables (in light of sparse empirical evidence in this specific creativity domain). Thus, these latter research questions should be addressed in an exploratory manner.