Creativity Test

Answer 20 quick questions about your everyday habits, picking whichever option feels closest to how you actually act. At the end, you’ll see how much creative behavior currently shows up in your daily life — it takes about 5 minutes.

When an everyday problem could be solved more than one way, which of these is closest to what happens for you? A zipper that won't budge gets three more yanks at the exact same angle before a different approach even occurs to you. The shortcut app keeps rerouting you the same way; you try a different street only once the delay gets genuinely annoying. A recipe calls for an ingredient you don't have, and a substitute occurs to you before you've even decided the first idea was worth keeping. The chair already stands steady enough on three legs and a folded napkin, and still you go looking for a better fix. Five minutes before guests arrive, with the easy patch already working, you swap it for something better anyway.

When an idea from one situation could just as easily apply somewhere totally unrelated, which of these is closest to what happens for you? Someone else has to point out that the trick from folding laundry also works on wrapping cords before you notice it yourself. Stuck on a specific problem, you'll suddenly remember a completely different fix from somewhere else — but only while you're hunting for one. Waiting for the coffee to brew, with nothing particular to solve, you link two completely unrelated things without even trying. A gardening trick and a filing system have nothing in common on the surface, and still one reminds you of the other. Half-listening to a podcast while your hands are busy with something else, you still catch a stray connection between the two.

When a small, even impractical idea catches your attention, which of these is closest to what happens for you? Most passing thoughts get dropped within a minute; it takes one that's genuinely strange to make you stop and turn it over. It takes an empty Sunday afternoon, nothing on the calendar, before you sit down and start picking a small idea apart. A stray thought about rearranging the bookshelf by color, and you're already testing variations before you've decided it matters. Halfway through cooking dinner, with the pan already going, a tangent idea pulls your attention away from the stove. An idea that clearly won't go anywhere still gets turned over three more ways before you let it go.

When the first workable answer to an everyday problem is already sitting there, which of these is closest to what happens for you? The shop is closing, the last bus is about to leave — only that kind of dead end gets you taking the first answer and leaving it at that. The first fix already does the job well enough on its own, so that's where you stop looking. A strip of tape on a torn bag pocket does the job, and it doesn't even occur to you to try anything else. Even with a free evening and no reason to rush, the first answer that comes along is the one you keep. A better way has already crossed your mind, and you go with the first one anyway.

When something ordinary works in a way you don't fully understand, which of these is closest to what happens for you? A ceiling fan that starts clicking on every third turn is what finally gets you flipping it over to look inside. With nothing else pulling at your attention, you take an old lock apart just to see what's inside it. A can opener that already works exactly as it should still gets turned over in your hands to see how the gears catch. Everyone at the table already knows exactly how the coffee grinder works, and you take it apart anyway. There's a deadline sitting right there, and you still stop to figure out why the hinge squeaks.

When a safe, standard way of doing something is available, which of these is closest to what happens for you? The usual route has to visibly stall out — genuinely, not just slow down — before you try going around it a different way. When the normal method is obviously going to take forever, you start eyeing a faster, odder shortcut instead. The standard way would work fine here too, and you still reach for the odder one instead. There's a real chance the unusual approach backfires in front of everyone, and you take it anyway. Everyone at the table is clearly expecting the usual move, and you make the other one instead.

When a task could go a simple way or a messier, more complicated way, which of these is closest to what happens for you? The tidy version falls apart on its own, and somewhere in that mess, you start considering the harder option instead. The complicated version just looks more interesting on paper, and that alone is enough for you to choose it. A perfectly fine simple option is sitting right there, and you pick the tangled one anyway. The easy route would be done twice as fast with nothing lost, and you take the harder one regardless. No one asked for the complicated version, and skipping it would cost nothing, so of course you take it on.

When a more interesting but riskier option has already crossed your mind, which of these is closest to what happens for you? The unusual option comes with a cost you can actually name, and that's the point where the familiar one wins out. You pass over an approach nobody's tried before in favor of the one that's already proven to work. A workable alternative is sitting right there, and you choose the familiar route anyway, with nothing forcing the choice. The unusual option looks slightly more interesting, and you take the familiar one regardless. You've already turned the other option over for a moment, and you still go with the one you always use.

When a small, practical snag comes up in daily life, which of these is closest to what happens for you? The usual way of propping the window finally gives out completely, and you have a workaround ready right behind it. A wobbly shelf only gets fixed by you once it's actually started annoying someone in the room. A drawer that sticks a little, nothing more, and you've already rigged a small fix before anyone mentions it. The stack of boxes is already stable enough as it is, and you still rearrange it a better way. Running late, with the plain, unimproved option right there, you still take thirty seconds to fix it properly.

When you're learning about or thinking through a subject, which of these is closest to what happens for you? The standard explanation of something stops making any sense at all, and that's the exact moment you start looking at it sideways. A quiet stretch with nothing else pulling at your attention is what it takes to really turn a subject over. The given explanation of something works fine, and you still go looking for another way into it. With no time to spare and the standard explanation right there, you still find yourself reading it sideways. A topic everyone treats as fully settled still gets turned over by you for something nobody's mentioned.

When it comes to writing or making music beyond anything required of you, which of these is closest to what happens for you? A birthday card or a toast is what gets a few lines of your own down on paper. A whole free evening, set aside on purpose, is what it takes before you pick up an instrument or a notebook just to make something. On an ordinary Tuesday evening, with nothing to celebrate and no time carved out, you still end up humming a few bars into your phone or filling a page. Three minutes waiting on a kettle is enough for you to scribble a verse or pick out a tune. You work out a melody with no idea where it's headed or what it's even for.

When it comes to building, tinkering, or inventing something of your own design, which of these is closest to what happens for you? The usual gadget breaks down for good, and you have something rigged from spare parts taking its place soon after. A drawer full of spare parts already sitting there is what tips you into building something out of them. Nothing's broken and nothing's missing, and you still spend an hour rigging a bracket nobody asked for. A ready-made version is one click away, and you build your own instead. You turn a broken umbrella and a bicycle spoke into the two parts of something that was never meant to exist.

When an easy, low-stakes chance for visual or design-related creativity comes up, which of these is closest to what happens for you? A visual project threatens to eat a whole afternoon, and that alone is enough for you to wave it off. With no particular reason to pick up a pencil or a paintbrush, you just don't. A casual, five-minute chance to sketch or arrange something gets waved off by you without much thought. Someone at the next seat is already doodling and would happily hand over a pen, and you still don't join in. The paints are already out on the table, needing nothing more than a hand, and you still leave them there.

When you've made something personal, with no requirement to show it to anyone, which of these is closest to what happens for you? Something has to be entirely finished, and have clearly turned out well, before you show it to anyone at all. A finished playlist or a fixed-up chair only gets shown by you once someone specifically asks to see it. A small project nobody asked to see still gets held up by you for someone to look at, unprompted. A drawing that's only half done still gets turned around by you for someone else to see. Something made purely for your own sake, never meant for anyone else's eyes, still ends up shown to someone.

When it comes to a personal creative result reaching people outside your immediate circle, which of these is closest to what happens for you? A contest entry or a public listing is the specific thing that gets a stranger to notice something you made. A neighbor happens to spot something you left on the windowsill, and that's how it first reaches anyone outside your usual circle. A casual mention you make at a community table, nothing formal about it, is enough for someone unconnected to pick it up and use it. Something made with no audience in mind at all still ends up adopted by people who've never met you. One brief glance at your market stall, nothing repeated, is enough for someone else to pick it up and run with it.

When a personal creative idea or result exists, which of these is closest to what happens for you? A specific, real reason it isn't ready has to exist before you leave something tucked away instead of showing it. With no one in particular asking about it, you just leave a finished little project exactly where it is. A finished result that's ready to show stays folded away in your box, and the question of showing it never even crosses your mind. Someone nearby would clearly be interested, and you leave it where it is anyway. Showing it would take you about ten seconds and cost nothing at all, and you still don't.

When a structured opportunity to put a personal creative result forward exists, which of these is closest to what happens for you? It takes someone else flagging an open call or a local board before you submit anything to it at all. Something has to feel noticeably stronger than everything else you've made recently before you put it forward anywhere. A local open call and a finished result that's nothing special — that combination alone is enough for you to send it in. There's no telling whether anyone will even notice, and you submit it anyway. You made a journal sketch with no audience in mind at all, and months later you end up submitting it to a local show.

When a personal creative project gets started, which of these is closest to what happens for you? A firm date something is genuinely needed for is what carries you all the way to a finished project. It has to still feel genuinely interesting to you partway through, or you don't carry it to the end. A weekend idea with nothing riding on it and no date attached still ends up finished on your counter by Sunday night. The idea has gone flat on you somewhere in the middle, and you finish it anyway. There's a perfectly easy point to just stop, and you push past it anyway, through to the end.

When it comes to completing and showing more than one personal creative thing over time, which of these is closest to what happens for you? A good stretch of time has to pass before doing it again starts to feel, for you, like its own fresh occasion. The first one has to have gone particularly well before you feel like a second attempt is worth starting. A quiet week, with nothing special prompting it, still ends with you finishing a second thing right after the first. The first attempt didn't go especially well, and you start a second one anyway. You finish a sketch, then months later a recipe, then a repaired chair — different each time, never the same project twice.

When it comes to a personal creative idea or project actually getting finished and shown, which of these is closest to what happens for you? Something concrete has to get in the way — a missing part, a plan that falls through — before you leave a project abandoned. Your interest has to have genuinely drained out of it partway through before you leave it sitting unfinished. A half-built birdhouse sits on your porch step for weeks with no particular reason it couldn't go further, and you never get to a finished one to show anyone. It's nearly done, one step away from finished, and you still leave it exactly where it is. Something is completely finished and ready to be shown, and you leave it exactly where it was, untouched.

Your results are no accident

The classic 16-type personality test rooted in Jung's typology has been rebuilt from the ground up: a new CoreTypes methodology, and a far higher level of accuracy. These might be the most useful ten minutes you'll ever spend on yourself: you walk away with the key to your decisions, your relationships and your results — and it's yours for good.

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Frequently Asked Questions About the Creativity Test

Does this quiz have you brainstorming every possible use for a brick?

No — this format has no open-ended prompts and no one scoring the originality of your answers, so it couldn't run that kind of task even if it wanted to. What you get instead is a questionnaire about your actual creative habits, drawn from a separate, well-established line of research. That gap between describing your own behavior and having your ideas graded for quality is real — the correlation between the two is modest at best, and this test doesn't pretend otherwise.

Does being smart automatically make someone more creative?

Not automatically, no. Across a wide range of studies, intelligence and creativity end up only weakly related overall, and the picture changes depending on which part of creativity gets measured — how many ideas someone produces looks different from how good their single best idea turns out to be. There's no simple, universal threshold where one guarantees the other.

Do you have to be artistic in the traditional sense to count as creative?

No. This test treats a clever fix for an everyday problem, an original angle on something you're reading, a few lines written or a tune worked out for no one in particular, and a piece of visual art as equally valid signs of the same underlying pattern. Skipping visual art specifically won't pull your result down on its own.

Is creative behavior something you're born with, or can it change?

What gets measured here — habits around generating ideas, comfort with the unconventional, and whether your personal projects make it across the finish line and into view — behaves more like a set of current habits than a fixed trait stamped in at birth. Because a self-report like this one only loosely lines up with tested creative ability anyway, your result reflects where those habits stand right now, not a permanent ceiling.

Does this sort me into a specific type of creative person?

No — it answers a "how much," not a "what kind." Activity across different areas — art, tinkering, writing, everyday problem-solving — all feeds into one overall reading of how active that creative behavior is in your life right now, rather than sorting you into a named type or category.

Methodology

This test is built on the kind of self-report scales researchers use to track everyday creative behavior and lifetime creative achievement — not a single named instrument, but the same general approach: asking people directly about what they've actually done, rather than judging the quality of an idea on the spot.

That distinction matters enough to state outright: nothing here is an idea-generation task graded by a person or an algorithm. It's a self-report about your own habits and history, and that kind of self-report only tracks loosely with how someone performs on a directly tested creativity task — the two measure genuinely different things.

What the twenty questions add up to is a picture of how regularly your mind reaches for a new idea, how much you gravitate toward curiosity and the offbeat, how many separate corners of daily life creative behavior touches, and how far a personal creative result usually travels — kept to yourself, shared with people close to you, or picked up by people further out.

None of this reaches into talent, raw ability, or how good any particular idea is — and it says nothing about future success in any field. It also isn't a verdict on intelligence: across the research, creativity and intelligence turn out to be only weakly connected overall, and the exact relationship shifts depending on which side of creativity gets measured. For more on how psychologists define creativity, the APA's dictionary entry is a solid starting point.

References

Kaufman, J. C., & Beghetto, R. A. (2009). Beyond Big and Little: The Four C Model of Creativity. Review of General Psychology, 13(1), 1–12. doi:10.1037/a0013688
Kaufman, J. C. (2012). Counting the muses: Development of the Kaufman Domains of Creativity Scale (K-DOCS). Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 6(4), 298–308. doi:10.1037/a0029751
Carson, S., Peterson, J. B., & Higgins, D. M. (2005). Reliability, Validity, and Factor Structure of the Creative Achievement Questionnaire. Creativity Research Journal, 17(1), 37–50. doi:10.1207/s15326934crj1701_4
Runco, M. A., Plucker, J. A., & Lim, W. (2001). Development and psychometric integrity of a measure of ideational behavior. Creativity Research Journal, 13(3–4), 393–400. doi:10.1207/S15326934CRJ1334_16

Author: Lex Tarrel, personality type expert Reviewed by: Igor Lyadskiy, PhD