Abstract: It was in the 1950s’ when scientific psychological method was introduced into the field of scientific creativity and creative eminence. Many researchers since then have reported their results and provided the scientists with creative achievements (SCA) specific descriptions. A puzzling situation was that many characteristics of SCA presented were parallel or overlap. As a result, it was difficult to form a clear idea as to what is the most important characteristic trait for SCA, and also their descriptions were conflicting. From methodological point of view，all the previous researchers viewed the problem from an outsiders’ point of view. It is assumed that those who are SCAs would understand the concepts better. This study took the standpoint of “inner looker” to examine how SCAs regarded their own creative achievement and to identify the conceptual structure of creative achievement.
Method
2 pre-studies and a formal study were conducted. In the first pre-study, 34 SCAs were interviewed with a structured interview program; in the second pre-study, an important psychological characteristic inventory was developed, and the test-retest reliability information was computed (r=0.737, n=21, answered with Q-sort technique). In the formal study, 30 SCAs in five disciplines -- mathematics, physics, chemistry, geography and life science -- sorted the psychological characteristics in two contexts (creative achievement/general achievement) with Q-sort technique, and then multiple scaling was used to analyze the data.
Results
(1) The SCAs’ conceptual structure of creative achievement includes two dimensions: achievement pursuit/self-experience pursuit and initiative/down-to-earth and (2) The most important properties of creative achievement were “achievement pursuit” and “initiative”.
Conclusions
(1) Both creative achievement and general achievement had the same property of achievement pursuit, but the creative achievement saw initiative as the power to break through further; whereas the general achievement placed emphasis on knowledge as the basis; (2) To achieve a creative achievement, both general achievement base and initiative were needed. Initiative can generalize the former research results and cover a broader characteristic of SCA

Key words: scientists with creative achievements, conceptual structure, Q-sort technique, multiple scaling