Personality, intelligence, and art

This study looked at the relationship between personality, intelligence, art experience (i.e. art interests, activities, and knowledge), and a test of art judgement. Participants completed the Graves Maitland Design Test (Graves, 1948), an intelligence measure (Wonderlic, 1992), and the NEO-FFI (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources] personality measure of the Big Five, as well as a questionnaire on their art experience. Openness to Experience was significantly related to art experience (i.e. preference), but not to art judgement (i.e. ability), while intelligence was significantly related to art judgement, but not to art experience. Multiple regression analysis showed that Openness to Experience was a powerful predictor of art experience, accounting for up to 33% of the variance. Personality also predicted art judgement: those high on Extraversion and low on Conscientiousness did best.