I asked Google a simple question: What kind of creative am I? It spit out about a million links to online quizzes and assessments to help me answer. I’m sharing a few of them here because I find them interesting. I’ve taken many, many personality tests like these over the years. Some seemed almost magical in how well they described me, my thoughts, my actions. Others were quite silly. I still remember the first experience I had with a quiz like this. In high school, we all took an assessment to help us find our best career path. My recommended path? A disc jockey. Ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…. I won’t take the time here to describe all the things that are ridiculous about that suggestion. I sought career guidance elsewhere.
The point is, don’t place too much stock in the results you see. They can give you information to reflect upon but mostly they’re just for fun. Even if there is some truth in the results, they (you) may change over time. Enjoy.
Creative Types by Adobe Create
If you’re only going to take one assessment, choose this one. Not because it’s the most reliable and valid. Do it for the eye candy. Adobe, the world’s premier art and design software maker, offers a wonderful visual experience guiding you through an unusual set of questions. At the end, you have your creative type label and an adorable avatar to identify with.
What’s Your Creative Type? (TED)
TED, known for it’s TED Talks and “Ideas worth spreading,” offers a 10-question quiz that allows you to discover which of five creative types you are. It’s from writer and Emerson University professor Meta Wagner, who uses the quiz with her students. She writes, “By discovering what drives you, you can tap into your deepest motivations and achieve your full creative potential.”
If you’re going to do two of these tests, make this one of them. Here’s Dr. Wagner giving a TEDx Talk about the creative types she defined. (15:07)
How Creative Are You? (Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern)
This quiz looks a little bit like a standard SAT test. There are 40 questions, so it takes a chunk of time to complete. At the end you get a score that corresponds to a level of creativity (Noncreative to Exceptionally creative). I hesitated to include this test. I don’t like the notion of generating limiting beliefs about our creative self (we have enough of those as it is). I suggest just looking though the questions and reflecting. Don’t bother finding your score.
Which Type of Creative Thinker Are You? (Every Woman)
This 11-question test is based on work from Anne Dietrich, a professor of cognitive neuroscience. Like the test from Kellogg, it’s not focused on creativity in the arts but on how you use creativity in your job (or your life) to think outside the box and solve problems.
How Creative Are You? (Mind Tools)
Mind Tools built a quiz based on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s work. This one is also specific to creativity on the job (not including art-making jobs). Sixteen questions will give you a total score, but I’m not sure what that number is for. In the end, you see how the questions relate to Csikszentmihalyi’s 5 steps to an effective creative process (preparation, incubation, insight, evaluation, elaboration) and are given suggestions to use your strengths and build on your weaknesses.
Divergent Association Task (National Academy of Sciences)
This one tests verbal creativity and divergent thinking. You’re given a task that you can complete in a couple of minutes and then a score, relative to other test takers. There’s lots of science-y information about the test and the study (you have the option to contribute your anonymous responses to research). I found it interesting but not as much fun as Adobe’s test.
If you want more quizzes about creative identity , Google can serve them up all day long. Again, they are not necessary to your creative development—use them for fun or for reflection or not at all. Do not let a quiz score be the driver to or from your creative pursuits. There's only one question and answer that matters: Are you creative? Yes.
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