470 Final Research Paper - Wendy Liu

7/31/2019 470 Final Research Paper - Wendy Liu

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Wendy Liu

Due: June 4, 2012

Personality and Music: Can creativity predict how one uses music in everyday

life?

Abstract:

Despite the increasing presence of music in psychological research, very little of it is

dedicated to individual differences and personality. Findings on the Five Factor

traits and uses of music in everyday life include a positive correlation between

openness to experience and rational/cognitive use of music. There is much variety

in how music is used in todays society. For example, rational/cognitive use of musicis where the listener focuses primarily on the structure components of the piece.

Because rational use of music has been correlated with openness to experience, and

openness to experience has been correlated with creativity, the present research

aims to expand upon existing knowledge by looking at whether a positivecorrelation can be drawn between creativity and the tendency to use music in a

rational/cognitive way.

Introduction:

There is no denying that the music industry is growing at a tremendous rate in

todays society. We pull out our MP3 players for the bus ride to school, bond with

our peers over favorite artists, and go to concerts on the weekends. From a form of

therapy to an advertisement jingle, it is clear that music has an immense array of

applications. But what determines exactly how and why we each use music the way

we do?Previous research has found that personality traits can predict how an

individual tends to use music (Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2007). The three

primary uses of music include using music as a form of emotional manipulation or

regulation (e.g. listening to sad music when sad or listening to music that makes

oneself feel better), using music in a rational/cognitive way (e.g. analyzing the

compositional structure of the piece), and using music as a background activity (e.g.

playing music while engaging in other tasks such as jogging or studying). Chamorro-

Premuzic and Furnham pioneered research on the relationship between the Five

Factor personality traits and music use, designing their own inventory to assess the

latter. As originally predicted, they found that the factor of openness to experience

was positively correlated with cognitive use of music, a finding that has since beenreplicated numerous times across cultures (Chamorro-Premuzic, Goma-i-Freixanet,

Furham, & Muro, 2009; Chamorro-Premuzic, Swami, Furnham, & Maakip, 2009;

Chamorro-Premuzic, Fagan & Furnham, 2010). Studies have shown that individuals

who score higher on both self-assessed and psychometrically measured intelligence

are more likely to seek out intellectual stimulation in resources like music

(Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2005). Intelligence has also been positively

correlated with openness to experience.


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So far, openness to experience and intelligence are only a few measures

shown to predict rational/cognitive use of music. However as mentioned in past

studies, creativity is a construct that may further explain individual differences in

use of music (Chamorro-Premuzic et al., 2009; Chamorro-Premuzic, Fagan, &

Furnham, 2010). Creativity is positively correlated with fluid intelligence and

openness to experience (McCrae, 1987; Batey, Chamorro-Premuzic, & Furnham,2009; Hocevar, 1980). Because intelligence and openness to experience can predict

cognitive use of music in individuals, and creativity is closely tied with both, it can

be hypothesized that creativity can predict cognitive use of music. Specifically, the

more creative an individual, the likelier it is that they tend to use music in a

rational/cognitive way.

This topic is of importance due to a number of reasons. Music is an

omnipresent aspect of almost every culture. Although past research has found

correlations between certain Five Factor traits and various uses of music

(Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2007), it is an area of study that can still be vastly

expanded upon. In addition, creativity as a predictor of rational appreciation of

music in individuals is an idea brought up in previous studies (Chamorro-Premuzic,Fagan, & Furnham, 2010). Looking at the relationship between these two variables

would ideally further current research.

Procedure and Measures:

Participants (N=49) were recruited over the Internet through use of email and the

social networking site Facebook. There were 34 females and 15 males. Participants

filled out the questionnaires at a time and location of their choice. They were asked

to give consent at the start of the experiment and filled out a demographics sheet at

the end. The survey was hosted online through a site called Qualtrics. There were

two questionnaires included in the experiment. These questionnaires were shownin alternating order to control for any possible sequencing effects.

(a) Uses of Music Inventory (Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2007). The

Uses of Music Inventory is a 15-item, self-report questionnaire designed to assess

how one uses music. Previous studies have found that music is primarily used in

three ways: emotional manipulation or regulation (emotional use), for rational or

cognitive appreciation (cognitive use), and as a background soundtrack for other

activities (background use). Participants were asked to provide responses on a five-

point Likert scale (from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree) for statements

such as Whenever I want to feelhappy I listen to a happy song. This questionnaire

has been used in not just the initial study for which it was designed, but also inreplications and follow-up research (Chamorro-Premuzic et al., 2009; Getz et al.,

2010; Chamorro-Premuzic, Fagan, & Furnham, 2010). Further details on the

reliability of this inventory to predict use of music can be examined in Table 1

(Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham) below.


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(b) Creative Behavior Inventory (CBI). The Creativity Behavior Inventory

(Hocevar, 1979) is a 77-item, self-reportchecklist of ones previous creative

behaviors and/or accomplishments. Participants were presented with statements

such as Made your own holiday decorations and Had a piece of literature(poem/short stories, etc) published in a school or university publication. They thenmarked a response indicating the number of times that they had engaged in this

particular behavior on a six-point Likert scale (with answers ranging from Never toMore than 6 times.) The 6 subscales within this inventory include creativity in the

fine arts, crafts, literature, music, performing arts, and math or science.

Results:

Participant scores from the Uses of Music Inventory and CBI were combined in aregression analysis. Only the 5 items that specifically measured rational/cognitive

use of music from the Uses of Music Inventory were included in the dataset.

Examples of these items are I often enjoy analyzing complex musical compositions

and Rather than relaxing, when I listen to music I like to concentrate on it. Thenumerical values corresponding to their responses were summed, as were all of the

items from the CBI.


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A correlation was then drawn between the two measures. The Pearsons r

was calculated to determine the strength of the correlation. This correlation

coefficient was found to be extremely small (r= 0.11), especially when compared to

the r > 0.7 value normally considered by researchers to represent a strong

correlation. The results of this experiment show that the relationship between these

two variables is weak to the point that it can be considered negligible. In otherwords, the results obtained from this experiment are largely inconclusive. Although

there is a slight positive correlation observable in the data, it is not significant and

doesnt provide strong enough evidence to support the hypothesis that highercreativity in individuals is indeed a reliable predictor of how much they use music in

a rational or cognitive way. Table II shows a scatterplot of the data. The points are

distributed randomly across the graph, showing just how unclear the dataset is.

Table II. Correlation obtained from the results of the study

Discussion:

The results obtained from this experiment did not support my hypothesis that

creativity and cognitive use of music are positively linked. Despite this, I maintain

my belief that creativity in actuality can be a good predictor of rational/cognitiveuse of music. I regard this skepticism toward my results as justified; it is due

primarily to my belief that the CPI used in this study simply does not have high

construct validity. Although it may have high face validity and seem at first like a

trustworthy indicator of creativity, I have since discerned many sources of error

that likely affect its reliability. Just to name a few, the CPI measures the number of

times that the test taker had engaged in certain creative behaviors in their life.

Already, age and socioeconomic status are possible confounding variables. This is

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

0 5 10 15 20 25

Creativity

Rational/Cognitive Use of Music

Creativity and Rational/Cognitive Use of

Music


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because the older someone is, the more time (and thus, the likelier) they are to have

engaged in a particular activity. In addition, someone of higher socioeconomic status

would have had more resources (e.g. money and time) to spend on leisurely

behaviors than someone who had no time to spare because of obligations like work.

They would also have been more likely to complete their schooling, where required

participation in art and music classes are a possible influencer for someone to takeup a creative hobby on their own time.

Instead of the CPI to assess creativity, a better choice would have been the

Creative Personality Scale (Gough, 1979) or a divergent thinking test. Both the CPS

and divergent thinking, or the ability to come up with many novel solutions to one

problem, have been shown to positively correlate with openness to experience

(McCrae, 1987). Creativity is admittedly a very difficult and vague construct to

assess, and the measures stated above, like all measures, have their own unique

faults. However despite this, they would most likely be a better indicator of

creativity as a personality trait than the CPI, which only measures previous creative

accomplishments without taking into account any external factors.

While the data gathered from my experiment does not provide evidence thata creative personality can dependably predict cognitive use of music, one should

keep in mind that the inventory used to assess creativity in this study is not very

valid. It should also be remembered that there has been a sufficient amount of

background research supporting the probability of a link between creativity and

cognitive use of music (Hocevar, 1980; Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2005).

Therefore, one should consider this topic of research as still inconclusive and open

to further examination.

References:

Chamorro-Premuzic, T., Fagan, P., & Furnham., A. (2010). Personality and uses ofmusic as predictors of preferences for music consensually classified as

happy, sad, complex, and social. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the

Arts, 4, 205-213

Chamorro-Premuzic, T., & Furnham, A. (2005). Personality and intellectual

competence. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Chamorro-Premuzic, T., & Furnham, A. Personality and music: Can traits explain

how people use music in everyday life? (2007). British Journal of Psychology,

98. 175-185.

Chamorro-Premuzic, T., Goma-i-Freixanet, M., Furnham, A., & Muro. A. (2009).

Personality, self-estimated intelligence, and uses of music: A spanish

replication and extension using structural equation modeling. Psychology of

Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 3, 149-155.


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Chamorro-Premuzic, T., Swami, V., Furnham, A., & Maakip, I. (2009). The big five

personality traits and uses of music.Journal of Individual Differences, 30, 20-

27.

Getz, L.M., Chamorro-Premuzic, T., Roy, M.M., & Devroop, K. (2011). The

relationship between affect, uses of music, and music preferences in a sampleof south african adolescents. Psychology of Music, 40, 164-178.

Hocevar, D. (1979). April. The development of the Creative Behavior Inventory.

Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Rocky Mountain Psychological

Association.

Hocevar, D. (1980). Intelligence, divergent thinking, and creativity. Intelligence, 4,

25-40

Juslin, P. N., & Laukka, P. (2003). Communication of emotions in vocal expression

and music performance: Different channels, same code? PsychologicalBulletin, 129, 770814.

Juslin, P. N., & Sloboda, J. A. (2001). Music and emotion: Theory and research. Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

McCrae, R. R. (1987). Creativity, divergent thinking, and openness to experience.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 1258-1265.

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470 Final Research Paper - Wendy Liu