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Although personality is vital for creative achievement, little is known about the personality profiles of eminent creators from different domains. The role personality plays in being recognized and acclaimed by public opinion is even more overlooked. In our study, we performed linguistic analyses of postaward interviews on a large sample (N = 225) of Nobel Prize laureates (1957–2019) in art (literature) and science (chemistry, economic sciences, medicine, and physics) to infer creators’ personalities. We examined (a) between-domain differences in personality and (b) the links between personality and professional (space devoted to laureates in Encyclopedia Britannica) and popular (the number of language versions of Wikipedia profiles) recognition. When compared to scientists, writers were more open, introvert, and neurotic and less conscientious. While personality was not related to the space devoted to laureates in Encyclopedia Britannica, the number of Wikipedia language versions was not only much higher for writers than for scientists but also positively linked with writers' Openness and Extraversion and negatively linked with their Agreeableness. We discuss the results in light of between-domain differences in personality and in light of the mechanisms of creative people gaining recognition.

Do you know who Olga Tokarczuk is? Very likely so, given that she is a recent (2018) recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature. But what about Naguib Mahfouz, the 1988 awardee? Nobel Prize winners are often presented as celebrities or geniuses and many of them are pretty well-known outside their domains (Fahy, 2018; Zuckerman, 1996). But even among Nobel Prize winners, there are figures such as Guglielmo Marconi, who were well-known to the public long before the prize, and figures such as James Watson and Francis Crick, who did not become known until receiving the prize. What is more, even among Nobelists there are people who remain relatively poorly...