The contribution Openness to Experience and its two aspects to the explanation of idea generation, evaluation and selection: A metacognitive perspective

Abstract
This investigation is part of a line of research examining the implications of Openness to Experience for creative metacognition. We assessed the relationships between Openness to Experience and its two aspects and idea generation, evaluation and selection, using a metacognitive approach. In studies 1 and 2, participants completed a battery of questionnaires assessing Openness to Experience, demographic questions and a divergent thinking task. In addition, participants were asked to report strengths and weaknesses for their ideas and select the most creative idea. Independent raters evaluated the creativity of each idea, the relevance of the identified strengths and weaknesses and selected the most creative idea for each participant. Results showed a consistent, positive relationship between Openness to Experience and creative scores and relevance of strengths and weaknesses identified. In study 1, Openness made a significant, additional contribution to creative scores while controlling for Openness to Experience. Conversely, in study 2, Intellect made an additional contribution to relevance of strengths and weaknesses. Overall, results from our measurement model showed that Openness to Experience explained between 54 and 67% of the total variance, leaving a significant amount of residual variance in part explained by Openness and Intellect.