Who is more creative? Assessing the role that individual characteristics play in their relationship with creativity in various domains

Abstract

The relationship between artistic domains (such as music, painting, dancing, etc.) and creativity is not a novel idea, but researchers have yet to identify the exact relationship that exists. This study seeks to shed light on the relationship between artistic domains and creativity in regard to expertise, novel production, generalizability, and personality. The domains in question include music, visual arts, creative writing, dance, soccer, and softball/baseball.

For this study, participants from the MTSU Psychology Research Pool completed a survey that was made up of three components: a portion of the HEXACO-PI-R, a Biodata Questionnaire, and a creativity measure called the Alternative Uses Task (Guilford, 1967). For this task, participants were asked to come up with as many creative and practical uses for the item pictured within two minutes. Significant relationships were only found within the music domain. Music experience and production of novel work were found to predict the number of creative uses and that the interaction of music experience and openness to experience was the strongest predictor.