Two teams of researchers, from Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, have joined forces to investigate a simple way to influence creativity and listen to music. Yes, experts found that listening to positive music can improve our ability to be creative.
Does progress make us less creative?
In a world of increasing complexity, some researchers believe that, as a society, we are becoming less creative as the years go by. If this were the case, it could represent an obstacle for future generations.
In order to investigate the influence of music on creativity, 155 people participated in the experts' study and completed a questionnaire to evaluate their current mood. Then, the volunteers were divided into 5 groups: 4 of them with different musical pieces and the last one as a control group in which there was only silence.
The musical pieces selected from lowest to highest activity/rhythm were:
- Carnival of the Animals: XIII. The Swan of Camille Saint-Saëns (Calm)
- The 4 Seasons, Opus 8, Number 1, RV 269, Spring - Movement 1. Allegro by Antonio Vivaldi (Happy/Happy)
- Adagio for Strings, Opus 11 by Samuel Barber (Sad)
- The planets: Mars, Bringer of War by Gustav Holst (Anxious)
"This project is unique in that, in our view, it is the first to experimentally test whether listening to specific types of music facilitates creative cognition," the authors explain.
Once the music had begun, the participants were asked to complete a series of cognitive tasks by testing convergent (logical thinking that offers the best answer to a problem) and divergent (making unexpected combinations of thought, transforming information in an unusual way... in short: being creative) levels of creative thinking.
Individuals who presented the most innovative and useful solutions were ranked as highest in divergent creativity, while those who approached the best possible solution scored highest in converging creativity.
Conclusions
Experts found that listening to joyful music, as opposed to silence, increased divergent creativity (i.e., creative thinking), but not converging creativity; perhaps because joyful music may enhance mental flexibility and, therefore, creativity.
The study has some limitations. For example, volume levels and musical genres could play an important role and were not examined in the study. Because music is so accessible, even inexpensively, these findings could have considerable ramifications in education, science and business alike.
The results will have to be repeated in larger rehearsals, but it's interesting to consider that someone's creative musical display can enhance someone else's creative ability to listen to their music. It is undeniable that the presence of music has been present in virtually every culture on our planet and may have helped humanity overcome many puzzles over the millennia.