Do people recognize the four Cs? Examining layperson conceptions of creativity.

Researchers examine implicit beliefs about creativity to understand what laypeople think. Past work has looked at cultural differences, characteristics associated with creativity, and the positive or negative valence that people feel toward creativity. In this study, we focused on the Four C Model of Creativity (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007; Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009) to discover if laypeople perceive nuances in different levels of accomplishment. We found that although Pro-c and little-c merged into one factor, Big-C, mini-c, and Not-c (not creative) were distinguishable. Personality (particularly agreeableness and openness) predicted how participants rated different levels of creativity.