Creativity
Does music boost creativity by stirring up emotions?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Ten minutes of either cheerful or sad classical music made children more creative on a drawing test than sitting in silence, and the boost worked through how aroused the music made them feel rather than whether it made them feel good or bad.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Human experiment — Pre-post, three-group design: children matched into positive-music (Mozart), negative-music (Albinoni) or 10-minute silence groups; Affect Grid and TCT-DP creativity drawing test before and after; bootstrap mediation analysis
- N
- N=584 · 584 children: 198 positive music, 195 negative music, 191 silent control
- Population
- Ethnic Chinese schoolchildren aged 9-14 (grades 4-9) from four co-educational schools in Hong Kong
- Outcome
- Creativity composite from the Test for Creative Thinking-Drawing Production (0-66); arousal and pleasantness ratings on the Affect Grid as mediators
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Key findings
Both music pieces raised arousal; Mozart made children feel more pleasant and Albinoni less pleasant, while the silent group did not change. Creativity scores rose significantly in both music groups but not in the silent group, and both music groups outscored controls afterwards, with no difference between happy and sad music; effects were small (partial eta squared around 0.02 for the post-test group difference). Mediation analyses showed that the rise in arousal significantly carried the music effect on creativity in both music conditions, whereas the change in pleasantness did not.
Methodology
The researchers tested 584 Hong Kong schoolchildren aged 9 to 14. Children first completed a creativity drawing test and rated their feelings on the Affect Grid, a 9-by-9 grid capturing arousal (energised vs sleepy) and pleasantness. They were then placed in three groups matched on creativity, mood, age, gender and music experience. A week later one group listened for 10 minutes to an upbeat Mozart sonata, another to Albinoni's sad Adagio, and a control group sat in silence, after which everyone repeated the feelings rating and a parallel form of the drawing test.
Limitations
Groups were formed by matching rather than clearly described random assignment, and mood and creativity were measured at the same post-test, so the mediation analysis shows a statistical pattern rather than proof that arousal caused the creativity gain. Only classical music, only one creativity test (a drawing task), and only 10 minutes of listening were used, and effects were small. There was no relaxing, low-arousal music condition, which would be needed to confirm that arousal rather than music as such is the key ingredient. Results are from children in Hong Kong and may differ for adults or other cultures.
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