IDENTITY AND CREATIVE PERSONALITY

The present paper discusses the relation between the adolescent identity and the features of creative personality. The concept of identity comes from Berzonsky who, according to the participation of cognitive strategies in identity construction, distinguished three basic processually oriented identity styles: informational, normative, diffuse/avoidant. This author devotes special attention to the extent of that part of formed identity that he calls 'commitment'. The creativity of personality also takes part as a factor in identity formation. The developing creative personality may reach identity redefinition sooner and avoid role diffusion. Goal: To identify how the selected adolescent personality traits contribute to identity construction and to determine the interrelation among the variables. Materials and methods: Identity style questionnaire (Berzonsky), WKOPAY (Khatena, Torrance). Results and conclusions: There is a mutual relationship among the traits of creative personality and adolescent identity styles. The selected traits of creative personality influence identity construction. 'Authority' acceptance and disciplined imagination contribute to identity formation in the sense of obligation. A lower degree of authority acceptance as well as of other personality traits supports the active formation of autonomous adolescent identity. Adolescents with their autonomous formed identity, who rely on themselves to a higher degree in their autonomous identity formation, reject authorities. Vice versa, adolescents with unformed identity tend to uncritical acceptance of the opinions and attitudes of those in authority.