Faculty Publications

Assessing Psychological Complexity in Highly Creative Persons: The Case of Jazz Pianist and Composer Oscar Peterson

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Journal of Genius and Eminence

Volume

1

Issue

1

First Page

16

Last Page

27

Abstract

Oscar Peterson, interviewed for the Creativity in Later Life (CLL) Project (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996), was one of the most influential jazz pianists of the 20th Century. Analysis of the CLL transcripts suggests that highly creative persons such as Peterson build their psychological complexity, a rich repertoire of cognitive, social, emotional, and behavioral capabilities represented by “opposites,” including extraversion and introversion, as a result of decades of ongoing, systematic person-context interactions. The article reports rater-administered assessments of Peterson’s personality using the NEO-FFI (Costa & McCrae, 1992) and the California Adult Q-Sort (Block, 1990). Both measures fell short of capturing Peterson’s complexity. Drawing from the interview transcript, the article details examples of Oscar Peterson’s complexity on the Extraversion-Introversion dimension, providing evidence that he intentionally and consistently engaged in characteristic adaptations. This process built capacities associated with introversion, which, in turn contributed to helping him meet creative challenges. The findings support the argument that psychological complexity should be empirically investigated as a promising construct for illuminating the personalities of eminently creative persons and helping to explain the development of their capacity for achievement.

Department

Department of Family, Aging, and Counseling

Original Publication Date

1-1-2016

DOI of published version

10.18536/jge.2016.01.1.1.03

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