Creative genius and the GAM theory of personality: Why Mozart and not Salieri?

Journal/Book: J Soc Behav Pers. 1998; 13: PO Box 37, Corte Madera, CA 94976. Select Press. 201-234.

Abstract: Why was Mozart the great creator and not Salieri, a composer who worked in Vienna at the same time as Mozart and breathed the same musical air? The GAM theory of personality provides an answer (G stands for genetic endowment, A for assistances of youth, M for misfortunes of youth). Mozart was rich in G, A, and M which gives rise to the challenged personality (typified by high sustained creativity). Salieri, while long in M, was short in A. This combination is associated with the different/conventional personality (typified by low sustained creativity). Challenged personalities have a superior potential for creativity because (a) lacking many of the common scripts, they develop many of their own scripts which constructively clash with the common scripts of society, and (b) they possess a powerful drive to accomplish. Specifically, Mozart's brand of creativity was that of an alchemist tone of the 14 main types of challenged personalities) because his misfortune of youth had been that of father failure (character and profession). Accordingly, the initial comparison between Mozart/Salieri is expanded by comparing Mozart with three other alchemists: Goethe, Picasso and Jung, and then by contrasting him with three other challenged personality types: the universalist, shaped by early parental death (e.g., Each), the radiologist, shaped by offending physical infirmity (e.g., Bartok, Berg, Proust, Eliot, Lautrec), and the trapper shaped by illegitimate birth or suspicion of illegitimacy (e.g., Wagner, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Leonardo da Vinci, Boccaccio).

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