“How development and personality influence scientific thought, interest, and achievement”, GJ Feist, Review of General Psychology, 2006; important bits start on pg 9:

"In 1998, I published a quantitative review of the literature on personality and scientific interest and creativity (Feist, 1998. In this meta-analytic review of which personality traits make interest and creativity in science more likely, I found every published (and some unpublished studies) that examined the role in personality in scientific interest or scientific creativity from 1950 to 1998. There were 26 studies that reported quantitative effects of personality in scientists compared to non-scientists.

…The two strongest effect sizes (medium in magnitude) were for the positive and negative poles of conscientiousness (C; see Table 1). Being high in conscientiousness (Cϩ) consists of scales and items such as careful, cautious, conscientious, fastidious, and self-controlled, whereas being low in conscientiousness (CϪ) consists only of two scales/items, namely, direct expression of needs and psychopathic deviance. Although the CϪ dimension comprised only five comparisons, it is clear that relative to non-scientists, scientists are roughly a half a standard deviation higher on conscientiousness and controlling of impulses. In addition, low openness to experience had a median d of .30, whereas introversion had a median effect size of .26.

A consistent finding in the personality and creativity in science literature has been that creative and eminent scientists tend to be more open to experience and more flexible in thought than less creative and eminent scientists (see Table 2). Many of these findings stem from data on the flexibility (Fe) and tolerance (To) scales of the California Psychological Inventory (Feist & Barron, 2003; Garwood, 1964; Gough, 1961; Helson, 1971; Helson & Crutchfield, 1970; Parloff & Datta, 1965). The Fe scale, for instance, taps into flexibility and adaptability of thought and behavior as well as the preference for change and novelty (Gough, 1987). The few studies that have reported either no effect or a negative effect of flexibility in scientific creativity have been with student samples (Davids, 1968; Smithers & Batcock, 1970).

For instance, Feist and Barron (2003) examined personality, intellect, potential, and creative achievement in a 44-year longitudinal study. More specifically, they predicted that personality would explain unique variance in creativity over and above that already explained by intellect and potential. Results showed that observer-rated Potential and Intellect at age 27 predicted Lifetime Creativity at age 72, and yet personality variables (such as Tolerance and Psychological Mindedness) explained up to 20% of the variance over and above Potential and Intellect. Specifically, two measures of personality—California Psychological Inventory scales of Tolerance (To) and Psychological Mindedness (Py)–resulted in the 20% increase in variance explained (20%) over and above potential and intellect. The more tolerant and psychologically minded the student was, the more likely he was to make creative achievements over his lifetime. Together, the four predictors (Potential, Intellect, Tolerance, and Psychological Mindedness) explained a little more than a third of the variance in lifetime creative achievement. I should point out that these findings on To and Py mirror very closely those reported by Helson and Pals (2000) in a longitudinal study of women from age 21 to 52.

…Busse and Mansfield (1984), for example, studied the personality characteristics of 196 biologists, 201 chemists, and 171 physicists, and commitment to work (i.e., “need to concentrate intensively over long periods of time on one’s work”) was the strongest predictor of productivity (i.e., publication quantity) even when holding age and professional age constant. Helmreich, Spence, Beane, Lucker, and Matthews (1980) studied a group of 196 academic psychologists and found that different components of achievement and drive had different relationships with objective measures of attainment (i.e., publications and citations). With a self-report measure, they assessed three different aspects of achievement: “mastery” preferring challenging and difficult tasks; “work” enjoying working hard; and “competitiveness” liking interpersonal competition and bettering others….Helmreich and his colleagues found that mastery and work were positively related to both publication and citation totals, whereas competitiveness was positively related to publications but negatively related to citations

…Helson (1971) compared creative female mathematicians with less creative female mathematicians, matched on IQ. Observers blindly rated the former as having more “unconventional thought processes,” as being more “rebellious and non-conforming,” and as being less likely to judge “self and others in conventional terms.” More recently, Rushton, Murray, and Paunonen (1987) conducted factor analyses of the personality traits most strongly loading on the “research” factor (in contrast to a “teaching” factor) in two separate samples of academic psychologists. Among other results, they found that “independence” tended to load on the research factor, whereas “extraversion” tended to load on the teaching factor."