Seablue Journal: Conscientiousness and Creativity

While smoking my 'Last Call' cigar out back at work, I took the time to listen to another insightful lecture from Jordan Peterson and was enamored of his comparison between conscientiousness and creativity.

In his lecture he was describing some of the Big Five traits. In particular I was interested in his commentary on the traits of conscientiousness and creativity. Creativity is a subset of the trait of openness. Creativity was described as a high risk, high reward strategy. Conscientiousness on the other hand is the trait that leads people to choose more reliable strategies for reward. It could be characterized as a moderate risk, moderate reward strategy.

The creative person tends to explore the domain of ideas in ways that can generate many concepts that are simply absurd and unworkable. The exploration of the ideas however, can lead to the occasional discovery of an idea of unfathomable worth. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, there is a high pay off for that idea, but only if that person is surrounded by more conscientious people who are able to appreciate the more practical considerations of bringing a novel idea into being.

A company or any human endeavor should consist of a number of conscientious workers and the odd 'wing-nut' who comes up with crazy ideas that occasionally pan out into something worthwhile. The anti-thesis of this would be the endeavor being run by many 'wing-nuts' and not enough conscientious workers to bring those ideas into fruition.

This interests me because I often see how people have a tendency to become polarized about perceptions in life. The open, creative person is antagonistic towards the conservative, conscientious individual and vice versa. Each is so enamored of their own perceived virtue, that they see the polar opposite as a vice.

Our personality traits all play different roles in our society, and each has an important function to perform. There are also times and places where they have greater efficacy. It is a fluid balance that moves with the needs of culture to deal with the problems of their time.

I was trying to find a picture of a creative person. I've gone with Captain Jack Sparrow, as he represents some of the worst aspects of a creative person in a likeable character. He is eccentric, unpredictable, lazy, manipulative and so many other vices, but he has a creative way of exploring his world and solving the problems of his chosen pursuits.

As a person who is high in openness and agreeableness, which puts me in the creative spectrum, I have some affinity with the character. As I've progressed through life, I've also come to appreciate the strengths of the more conservative and conscientious minded people I have encountered. I would encourage others to see life through the eyes of the 'other'. When we understand those that are different from ourselves, we move towards a more balanced and harmonious society.

Here is the lecture on Big Five traits, if you are inclined to dig further into the subject.