PERSONALITY MODEL OF FINE ARTISTS

This investigation was designed to (a) identify the personality factor s that best discriminated between fine artists and nonartists, and (b) develop a model through which those discriminating personality factor s could be predicted from other personality factors. Cattell's 16 PF t est (Form A) was individually administered to 51 artists and 51 nonart ists randomly selected from 235 cases. Stepwise discriminant analyses and standardized partial regression analyses showed that three persona lity factors, which related to working style and creative production o f artists, could best differentiate the artists from the nonartists. T hese could be predicted from seven other personality factors of the Id PF. Thus, although prior studies used tests of means and found differ ences between artists and nonartists in a number of interrelated perso nality factors, the present discriminant analysis revealed that differ ences adequately could be explained with only three personality factor s: artists are more introverted independent, and tender-minded than no nartists. These three factors can be predicted from a larger set of tr aits-if prediction is an issue-and in any case they have the advantage of parsimony.