Personality and creativity in realistic, investigative, artistic, social, and enterprising college majors

Despite much research on how interests are related to personality and creativity, comparatively little work has focused on how different college majors as categorized by the RIASEC model compare on these constructs. In this study, 3295 college students (207 Realistic, 1945 Investigative, 447 Artistic, 480 Social, and 216 Enterprising) completed a five-factor personality measure, a brief self-report of creativity, and the Compound Remote Associates Task (CRAT). Investigative and Artistic majors scored higher on openness and self-assessed creativity than Realistic and Social majors, and Investigative majors were much more agreeable than other majors.

► Creativity and personality were tested across five types of majors. ► Holland’s RIASEC model was used for classification. ► Investigative and Artistic majors were higher on openness and self-assessed creativity. ► Investigative majors were much more agreeable than other majors.