The Creative Personality, According to Mihály Csíkszentmihályi

  One of the central themes of Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s work was creativity. He interviewed 91 people in depth who stood out for their creative work. This allowed him to make a detailed description of the creative personality based on ten traits. Asked about the definition of creative personality, Mihály Csíkszentmihályi claimed that he could summarize it in one word: complexity. He was referring to the fact that creators tend to have great contrasts in their way of being. They’re usually ‘extreme’ people: aggressive and cooperative, introverted and extroverted, etc., at the same time. However, they only behave in one way…