Creativity, Analytical Skills, Personality Traits, and Innovative Capability: A Lab Experiment

Abstract

Innovation economics is usually neglecting the psychological tradition of creativity research. Our study is an attempt to experimentally collect behavioral data revealing in how far personality characteristics like creativity, analytical skills and personality traits on the one hand and innovative capability, the topic of innovation economics, on the other hand are interrelated. We find that participants’ performance in innovation games is related to their creativity, risk tolerance and self-control. Other personality traits such as participants’ anxiety, independence, tough-mindedness, analytical skills and extraversion at best play a minor role.