Personality and psychological factors predict imagination: Evidence from Taiwan

• Personality and psychological factors predict imagination via intrinsic motivation.
• Most personality traits have direct effects on imagination.
• Most psychological predictors have indirect effects on imagination.
• Openness is the most influential factor on creative and reproductive imagination.
• Conscientiousness plays a distinctive role in evoking reproductive imagination.

Little research has been done to determine whether psychological factors and personality traits make independent contributions to creativity or whether they interact with one another to affect an individual's creative behavior. The present study thus aimed at analyzing the effects of both personality and psychological factors on student imagination as one main characteristic of creative behavior. A survey (N = 891) was administered at nine universities across different regions of Taiwan. The hypothesis of the study—that the variable of intrinsic motivation mediates the effects of personality/psychological variables and both types of imagination—was partially supported. The structural model also showed that most personality traits had direct effects on imagination, while most psychological variables had indirect effects. In addition, the trait of openness was identified as the most influential variable on both types of imagination, while conscientiousness had a distinctive role in evoking reproductive imagination. Furthermore, this study also sheds light on the variables of inspiration through action and self-efficacy which can greatly trigger student imagination.