1. A Preliminary Study of Music Experience, Creativity and Personality
William G. Collier
University of North Carolina at Pembroke

2. Music & Personality & Creativity
Rentfrow and Gosling (2003) found that people place a high value on music in a variety of ways. They believe that:
Music is important
That music preferences says something about themselves
That music preferences reveal information about themselves and others
This study examined correlations between music, personality and creativity.

3. Ethnicity and Music Preferences
Rentfrow and Gosling (2003) were unable to examine any potential ethnic differences in music preferences.
Collier (2009) found that African Americans, Caucasians and Native Americans all indicated that their most preferred musical genre was rap/hip-hop.
The second most preferred musical genre for African Americans was Rhythm & Blues, whereas the second most preferred musical genre for both Caucasians and Native Americans was Country.
This study examined these musical preferences again.

4. Personality and Creativity
McKay, Karwowski and Kaufman (2016) reported numerous correlations between the Big Five (as measured by the IPIP; Goldberg et al., 2006) and the five domains of creativity (as measured by the K-DOC; Kaufman, 2012).
This study also examined correlations between the Big Five (as measured by the TIPI; Gosling, Rentfrow & Swann, 2003) and the five domains of creativity (as measured by the K-DOC).

5. Methods Participants 143 undergraduate students
Ages (M = 19.88, SD = 4.627)
94 female (65.7%) & 49 male (34.3%)
64 African American (45%), 56 Caucasian (39%) & 23 Native American (16%)

6. Recruitment
Participants were enrolled in Introduction to Psychology courses.
Participants were recruited on SONA – an online participant management software program that is used by the department of psychology.
Participants completed the surveys online through the SONA system.

7. Materials Kaufman Domains of Creativity Scale (K-DOCS; Kaufman, 2012)
Ten-Item Personality Inventory (Gosling, Rentfrow & Swann, 2003)
A Variety of Music and Study Questions, as well as Demographic Questions

8. Results Music Experience Correlations with Personality and creativity
African Americans
Average Years of Music Experience was significantly correlated with:
Self-Everyday Creativity (r = .26 , p < .05)
Scholarly Creativity (r = .32 , p < .01)
Performance Creativity (r = .33 , p < .01)
Scientific Creativity (r = .29 , p < .05)
Caucasians
Extraversion (r = .32 , p < .05)
Self-everyday Creativity (r = .27 , p < .05)
Performance Creativity (r = .41 , p < .01)
Native Americans
No significant correlation between average years of music experience, personality and creativity.
1 = Totally Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Unsure, 4 = Agree, 5 = Totally Agree

9. Music Preferences
Collier (2009) found African Americans, Caucasians and Native Americans most preferred the musical genre of rap/hip-hop.
The current study found that the most preferred musical genre of African Americans was still rap/hip-hop, whereas the most preferred musical genre of Caucasians was Country.
The two most preferred musical genres (tied in their preference) for Native Americans were rap/hip-hop & country.
The second most preferred musical genre of Caucasians was Rap/Hip-Hop, whereas the second most preferred musical genre of African Americans was Rhythm & Blues.
Thus, the musical preferences in this study are similar to the music preferences in Collier (2009).
1 = Much less creative, 2 = less creative, 3 = neither more nor less creative, 4 = more creative, 5 = much more creative

10. Correlations between Personality & Creativity
McKay, Karwowski & Kaufman (2016) reported numerous significant correlations between the Big Five and the five domains of creativity, including (all positive correlations except one):
Extraversion significantly correlating with all of the five domains of creativity
Agreeableness significantly correlating with Everyday Creativity & also with Scholarly Creativity
Conscientiousness significantly correlating with Everyday Creativity & Scholarly Creativity
Emotional Stability significantly correlated with Everyday Creativity & significantly negatively correlated with Artistic Creativity
Openness significantly correlated with all of the five domains of creativity.
In examining ethnic differences in this study, no significant correlations between Agreeableness or Emotional Stability were found

11. Correlations between Personality & Creativity
Native Americans
Extraversion & Performance Creativity (r = .42, p < .05)
Caucasians
Extraversion & Performance Creativity (r = .32, p < .05)
Conscientiousness & Everyday Creativity (r = .33, p < .05)
Openness & Everyday Creativity (r = .47, p < .01)
African Americans
Openness & Everyday Creativity (r = .35, p < .01)
Openness & Performance Creativity (r = .29, p < .05)
Openness & Artistic Creativity (r = .36, p < .01)

12. Discussion
People believe that music says something about personality. In could be, however, that what music says about one’s personality or creativity depends on one’s ethnicity. At least that is what was found in this study.
Rap/Hip-Hop continues to be the most preferred musical genre not only for African Americans, but also for Native Americans. In addition, Rap/Hip-Hop is the second most preferred musical genre for Caucasians.

13. Discussion
The many correlations between the Big Five and the five domains of creativity reported by McKay, Karwowski & Kaufman (2016) were not replicated in this study.
No correlations at all were found for Native Americans
Only three correlations were found for Caucasians
Only three correlations were found for African Americans

14. Weaknesses
Small Sample Size
Online Survey?
TIPI?

15. Next Step
Future research should replicate and expand on these findings
New research should endeavor to include more ethnically diverse samples.
Obtain larger sample size
Additional aspects of music should be examined

16. References
Collier, W. G. (2009). Music and Personality: A Preliminary Study. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southwestern Psychological Association: San Antonio, TX.
Goldberg, L. R., Johnson, J. A., Eber, H. W., Hogan, R., Ashton, M. C., Cloninger, C. R., & Gough, H. G. (2006). The international personality item pool and the future of public-domain personality measures. Journal of Research in Personality, 40,
Gosling, S. D., Rentfrow, P. J., & Swann, W. B. (2003). A very brief measure of the Big-Five personality domains. Journal of Research in Personality, 37,
Kaufman, J. C. (2012). Counting the muses: Development of the Kaufman domains of creativity scale (K-DOCS). Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 6,
McKay, A. S., Karwowski, M., & Kaufman, J. C. (2016). Measuring the muses: Validating the Kaufman domains of creativity scale (K-DOCS). Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, Online First Publication, 1-15.
Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2003). The do re mi’s of everyday life: The structure and personality correlates of music preferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84,