Charles,
I know the MacKinnon study very well, though there has been a lot of water under that particular bridge since then. MacKinnon remains an interesting approach, if only for the method employed. There is a large literature - architects were once the object of these kinds of study, but perhaps less so these days.
Though I was more interested in the learning styles of designers at the time, I conducted a study of personality characteristics of designers (in an art/design context). There are some comparisons with other kinds of designers. This work has been helpful to me in understanding designer motivations in designing practice and research practice - for example the role of intuition, among several other traits. In the intervening years there are several other studies of which I am aware, using other instruments. I really should update this work one of these days (but it has been on a long list for some years now...)
David
Durling, David, Nigel Cross, and Jeffrey Johnson. 1996. “Personality and learning preferences of students in design and design-related disciplines”. In: J. S. Smith, editor, Proceedings of IDATER 96 (International Conference on Design and Technology Educational Research), 2-4 September, Loughborough University, 88-94. http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/cd/docs_dandt/idater/database/durling96.html
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David Durling http://durling.tel
On Monday, 20 July, 2009, at 04:28PM, "Charles Burnette" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Colleagues
>
>With the increasing commoditization of design research and practice I
>have grown concerned about how we are educating for creativity and
>fostering creative personality characteristics in our students.
>
>Many on the list may not know about the seminal research by Donald W.
>Mackinnon "The Personality Correlates of Creativity: A Study of
>American Architects" undertaken at the Institute of Personality
>Assessment and Research, University of California Berkeley as part of
>a larger investigation of creativity in the arts, sciences and
>professions.
>
>40 creative architects among 124 identified and ranked in three
>levels of creativity by professors, editors and peers, were invited to
>Berkeley for a week of testing. Mackinnon's summary after this
>exhaustive testing stated goals that, in my opinion, we should seek in
>ourselves as well as the students we educate. He wrote:
>
>"If I were to summarize what is most generally characteristic of the
>creative architect as we have seen him (sic), it is his high level of
>effective intelligence, his openness to experience, his freedom from
>petty constraints, and impoverishing inhibitions, his aesthetic
>sensitivity, his cognitive flexibility, his independence of thought
>and action, his high level of energy, his unquestioning commitment to
>creative endeavor, and his unceasing striving for creative solutions
>to the ever more difficult architectural problems he constantly sets
>for himself". end quote
>
>Are we consciously addressing these correlates of creativity?
>Shouldn't we be?
>
>Charles Burnette
>[log in to unmask]
>
>MacKinnon D W. The nature and nurture of creative talent.
>Amer. Psychol. 17:484-95, 1962. [University of California, Berkeley,
>CA] Cited over 195 times between 1962 and December 28 1981
>
>In Search of Human Effectiveness: Identifying and Developing
>Creativity (Paperback)
>by Donald W. MacKinnon, Creative Education Foundation, 1978
>
>
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