How Creatively Confident Are You?
Believing you can be creative is different from believing creativity is who you are
Creative confidence is not one belief but at least two: whether you think you're capable of coming up with something original when a task calls for it, and whether being a creative kind of person is actually part of how you see yourself. The two are related but separable - plenty of people are confident in the moment without ever calling themselves 'creative'. This test also looks at a third, closely related thing: whether you're willing to put an original idea out in the open where it can be judged.
Before you start There are no right answers. Pick what is usually true for you, not what sounds best.
Answer about creative moments in general - at work, at home, in a hobby - not about a single artistic talent you may or may not have.
What it measures
Two constructs from the creative self-beliefs literature - creative self-efficacy (confidence you can produce something creative when needed) and creative personal identity (how much being creative matters to your sense of self) - plus a closely related third construct, willingness to share creative ideas and risk being judged for them. It differs from our creativity-domains test, which measures which kinds of creative activities you actually do, not how confident or invested you feel about being creative at all.
Based on: Creative self-efficacy and creative personal identity (Tierney & Farmer, 2002; Karwowski, 2012)
Possible results
Creative self-efficacy
Confidence you can produce something creative when a task calls for it.
Creative identity
How much being creative is part of your sense of who you are.
Sharing creative ideas
Whether you put an original idea out where it can be judged, or keep it to yourself.
Common questions
Is creative confidence the same as creative talent?
No, and the research is careful to keep them apart. This test measures what you believe about your creativity, not how creative your output actually is as judged by other people - it's entirely possible to score high here and produce ordinary work, or to score low and produce something genuinely original that you privately dismiss as not counting.
Can creative confidence be built, or is it fixed?
It moves with experience more than most people assume. The research on creative self-efficacy links it to things you can actually change - practising, taking on more complex tasks, and working under a supervisor who responds well to new ideas - rather than to a talent you either have or don't.
Do you have to think of yourself as 'creative' to actually be creative?
No. Creative personal identity and creative self-efficacy are measured separately precisely because they often split - plenty of people who would never call themselves creative still solve problems in original ways all the time, they just file it under something else, like being resourceful or practical.
Sources
- Tierney, P., & Farmer, S. M. (2002). Creative self-efficacy: Its potential antecedents and relationship to creative performance. Academy of Management Journal. doi:10.2307/3069429
- Karwowski, M. (2012). Did curiosity kill the cat? Relationship between trait curiosity, creative self-efficacy and creative personal identity. Europe's Journal of Psychology. doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.513
- Karwowski, M. (2016). The dynamics of creative self-concept: Changes and reciprocal relations between creative self-efficacy and creative personal identity. Creativity Research Journal. doi:10.1080/10400419.2016.1125254
An honest note The first two dimensions are Quinthea's own wording, adapted from published creative self-efficacy and creative personal identity scales, so your score is not comparable to any published norm. Sharing creative ideas is a related construct from the same literature, not part of either validated scale. These measures ask what you believe about your creativity, which is a genuinely different thing from creative output as judged by others - foundational studies on creative identity were also done mostly with adolescents and young adults, so patterns may differ somewhat at other ages.
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