Self-Perceptions of Creativity & Arts Participation, United States, 2018

This study investigates connections between
arts-based creativity and other forms of creativity such as
problem-solving, entrepreneurship, and social networking. Specifically, it explores individuals' creative inclinations and behaviors through two means.
The first, a national survey of adults, provides insights on how adults of varied socioeconomic and demographic
backgrounds across the United States perceive their own creativity. The second, a mixed-methods study
with professional artists, provides a closer look at how artists perceive of themselves across multiple domains of creativity, and at how creativity fuels entrepreneurial approaches to shaping
their careers. This collection is concerned with the former - the national survey. The primary objective of the national survey is to measure the ways that American adults experience
and exercise creativity in their daily lives. The result of a rigorous survey design phase that included an
extensive review of creativity literature and existing survey instruments across several academic
disciplines, the survey features a wide range of questions on creative attitudes and behaviors. To be as
inclusive as possible of the many different forms and expressions of creativity, the survey was
specifically designed to probe respondents' self-perceptions of creativity across six creative
"domains": artistic creativity, creativity in math/science, creativity in business/entrepreneurship,
creativity in social settings, creativity in civic settings, and creativity in "everyday" activities. The survey
also captures information on respondents' arts participation, in order to enable an examination of the
relationships between arts participation and other types of creativity, as well as information on
respondents' occupations and occupational values. While the survey primarily focuses on inward
characteristics and behaviors, it also includes some questions designed to explore external
environmental conditions that may impact one's ability to express creativity. Demographic information includes gender, race, education, marital status, income, location, and household size.