As word formation can be conceptualized as an act of creativity with considerable space for differences among speakers, we present pilot research aimed at the examination of the role of Big-Five personality domains in the formation of new complex words. The sample consisted of 197 participants who underwent a word formation test and a personality assessment via The Next Big-Five Inventory. The results indicate that when ordinal regression is conducted with an aim of accounting for age and gender, open-mindedness is shown as a potentially important predictor – it positively predicted economy of expression and negatively predicted semantic transparency. Furthermore, a more nuanced approach differentiating three facets of open-mindedness shows that creative imagination predicted semantic transparency positively while esthetic sensitivity predicts semantic transparency negatively (the reverse is true for the economy of expression). These findings provide a promising starting point for future research.
