Date of Conferral

8-17-2026

Date of Award

August 2026

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Psychology

Advisor

Edoardo Naggiar

Abstract

Because emergency services demand adaptive, creative problem-solving within procedurally rigid cultures, this study examined whether Openness to Experience predicted creative capacity among active first responders and whether age or tenure moderated that relationship. A cross-sectional design used N = 117 first responders from eight agencies. Openness was measured with the Big Five Inventory-2 (percentile ranks); creativity was assessed with the Divergent Association Task (DAT; n = 116) and the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT; n = 111). Covariates were age, tenure, rank, gender, and, for 46 participants at one agency, a dispatch-derived operational exposure score. In the full sample, Openness did not significantly predict DAT (r = .11, p = .23) or CAT performance; influence diagnostics showed the DAT null was sensitive to a few high-leverage cases, and neither age nor tenure moderated either relationship. Within the exposure-covered subsample, Openness was positively associated with DAT performance (b = 0.095, p = .04), though the overall model was not significant, and this did not generalize to the full sample. DAT and CAT were uncorrelated (r = .01), indicating distinct creative constructs. In exploratory analyses, a reconstructed certification-based credentialing index (single agency, n = 53) converged strongly with tenure and rank but was not associated with either creativity outcome; a negative association in an earlier archival version did not survive reconstruction. Findings highlight the value of multimethod creativity measurement and transparent reporting of effects; implications for positive social change include directing organizations toward cultural conditions, rather than personality-based selection, to support responder creativity.

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