Poster #13 - The Development of Chinese Preschoolers' Creative Personality: A Study Based on Social Creativity Theory

• In Event: Poster Session 12

Abstract

Creativity is the driving force of human technological and cultural progress. However, few studies have investigated preschoolers’ creative personality in the past. The present research aims to investigate the development of creative personality in 3–6-year-old Chinese children based on the component model of Social Creativity Theory. This study investigated the characteristics of young children’s creative personality by initially using 1206 3–6-year-old children’s cross-sectional creative personality characteristics data, and then investigated the development trend of intrinsic driving factor and growing factor in young children’s creative personality by using 148 3-year-old children’s three-year three-wave longitudinal data. Participants in two daycare centers attended the research, and their creative personalities were assessed by a nine creative personality characteristics scale (including novelty, independence, achievement, cooperation, self-confidence, sensitivity, curiosity, aesthetics and sense of humor). ESEM，reliability and validity analyses of the 9 primary creative characteristics scale recovered a three-factor solution indicating three broad dimensions of creativity personality: an intrinsic driving factor (including curiosity, sensitivity, and novelty), a growing factor (including independence, self-confidence, achievement, and cooperation) and an openness factor (including aesthetics and sense of humor). Then, the development trend of two newly found factors, the growing factor and the intrinsic driving factor, and the relationship of these two factors were examined in 3-year-old children by three-year three-wave longitudinal data. The analysis result of LGCM (Latent Growth Curve Model) with no covariates showed that the development of intrinsic driving factor and growing factor increases with age. Significant individual differences in the initial value and development speed of intrinsic driving factor exists in boys. Significant individual differences in the initial value, but no significant individual differences in the development speed of growing factor exists in young children. From 3 to 6 years old, the individual differences in intrinsic driving factor decreased significantly year by year, whereas those in growing factor increased year by year. The parallel LGCM and the cross-lagged regressive model showed that intrinsic driving factor and growing factor, developed at the same pace, no regression correlations between each other. This research showed that creative personality characteristics have broad structural dimensions in young children. Creativity increases with age before 6 years old, and significant gender differences exist in the individual creative development.

Keywords：Preschoolers, Creative Personality, Social Creativity Theory

Authors

• Wen Liu, Liaoning Normal University

• Liting Tan, Liaoning Normal University
  Presenting Author