General, Artistic and Scientific Creativity Attributes of Engineering and Music Students

The purpose of this research was to investigate similarities and differences in general, artistic, and scientific creativity between engineering versus music students, as 2 groups respectively representing scientific and artistic domains. One hundred music and 105 engineering students from a large, Northeastern university completed measures of general creativity, music creativity, engineering creativity, and a demographic questionnaire. Results indicated that musicians scored higher in general and artistic creativity, with no significant differences in scientific creativity. Participants had higher levels of creativity, compared with normative data from previous studies. Gender, age, and specialization within major yielded no significant differences. Implications for creativity measures are discussed, including cognitive risk tolerance. Snow (1959) noticed some attributes of scientists and artists that made them seem to be living in two different cultures, although also sharing some common qualities. Prospects for identifying creativity attributes among scientists, as well as artists, have been explored periodically by various authors (Feist, 1999; Feist and Barron, 2003; Helson 1996), and have indicated a need for further investigation of creativity in these two cultures. Questions that motivated our investigation included the following: What similarities and differences are there in general, artistic, and scientific creativity among engineering and music undergraduate students? How do these engineering and music majors compare with published normative test information? To what extent are there similarities and differences within each major? What creativity differences are functions of demographic characteristics (gender, ethnicity and age) among engineering and music students? The Nature of Artistic and Scientific Creativity Simonton, as quoted in Kersting (2003), seemed to acknowledge the existence of differences, as well as possible similarities in creativity between scientist and artists when he stated: ‘‘Science has to be constrained to scientific process, but there’s a lot less constraint on artists. Many artists come from more chaotic environments, which prepares them to create with less structure’’ (p. 40). According to Simonton (1999), ‘‘Researchers often treat creativity as a single, relatively homogeneous phenomenon’’ (p. 639). Somewhat in contrast, Gardner (1999) stated, ‘‘People are creative when they can solve problems, create products, or raise issues in a domain in a way that is initially novel Christine Charyton is now at Department of Psychology, the Ohio State University at Newark. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2004 American Psychological Association Convention in Honolulu, Hawaii as a Paper Session: Research in Psychology of Creativity as a part of APA Division 10 programming. We thank Glenn Elliott, and Roslyn Gorin, who assisted with computer programming technology and statistical analyses, respectively, as well as Frank Farley for recommending the work of C. P. Snow. Correspondence should be sent to Christine Charyton, Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University at Newark, 1179 University Drive, Newark, OH 43055. E-mail: [email protected] Creativity Research Journal 2007, Vol. 19, Nos. 2–3, 213–225 Copyright # 2007 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Creativity Research Journal 213 but is eventually accepted in one or more cultural settings’’ (p. 116). Gardner’s views seem to support the idea that creativity can take different forms in different domains. Thus, it may be conceptually and practically important to know about differences, as well as similarities, of creativity among engineers versus musicians. Cognitive and disposition profiles tend to vary according to the type of creative achievement (Feist, 1999; Simonton, 1999). Larson, Thomas, and Leviness (1999) noted the possibility that creativity in engineering might be different from creativity in literature, painting, and other professions. ‘‘A distinguishing feature is that the engineer has an eye on function and utility. Therefore, there may be a creative engineer versus a creative sculptor, painter, poet or musician’’ (p. 2). Weisberg (1995) stated that the basis for creativity is problem solving. This problem solving process is common in both artistic and scientific fields, although it may take different forms. Some researchers have attempted to understand similarities and differences regarding artistic versus scientific creativity by focusing on personality attributes. ‘‘Certain personality traits consistently covary with creativity, yet there are some domain specificities’’ (Feist, 1999, p. 289). As a result of meta-analysis, Feist (1999) identified social and nonsocial traits in art and science domains from recent theories of Eysenck (1994), Russ (1993), Busse and Mansfield (1984), and the five-factor model. Social traits for the artist included norm doubting, nonconformity, independence, hostility, aloofness, unfriendliness, and lack of warmth. Social traits of scientific creative personality included dominance, arrogance, hostility, and high self-confidence. It appears that aesthetic taste and a lack of conventionality are common characteristics of creativity in both domains (Feist, 1998, 1999; Simonton, 1999; Sternberg, 1986). Helson (1996), MacKinnon (1962), and Simonton (1999) are some of the researchers who had investigated art and science domain differences. MacKinnon, an earlier researcher, reported that the creator in scientific creativity acts as a mediator between externally defined needs and goals, but in artistic creativity, the creator externalizes something of himself or herself into the public field. When studying artists and scientists, MacKinnon emphasized architects and mathematicians, because architecture design requires the practitioner to be both an artist and a scientist. Helson, using the Holland (1966) hexagon system for analyzing occupational potential, reported that creativity was most likely to be found among people with artistic interests, followed by investigative, social, and enterprising personalities. According to Helson, creativity is least likely in realistic and conventional personalities. From her research, it would seem reasonable that engineering students may be less likely than music students to display creativity. According to Simonton, ‘‘creative scientists tend to exhibit traits that fall somewhere between those of the creative artist and those of the average human being’’ (p. 639). One logical extention, beyond what Helson and Simonton stated, would be to predict that engineers and musicians may differ in some attributes that are specific, respectively, to science and art domains. Feist and Barron (2003), from a longitudinal study starting when respondents were graduate students, found that creative individuals tended to be more autonomous, introverted, open to new experiences, norm-doubting, self-confident, and self-accepting. They concluded, ‘‘The participants who became the most creative over the course of their lives were self-controlling, independent, self-assured, spontaneous, responsible, tried to make a good impression on others, relatively low in hypomania and hostility’’ (p. 80). Feist and Barron (2003) observed that ‘‘these findings contradict other studies that have reported arrogance and hostility to be associated with creative scientists’’ (p. 81). It is plausible that some of these creativity attributes may be common in both engineering and music domains (Charyton, 2005). Perhaps literature has emphasized differences; however, similarities in scientific and artistic creativity may also be prevalent. Therefore, in our study, we chose to investigate potential similarities, by using measures of general creativity attributes, and potential differences by also using domain specific creativity measures. Furthermore, risk taking may be an attribute that affects creativity, thus we included a measure of cognitive risk tolerance for assessment. Farley C. Charyton & G. E. Snelbecker 214 Creativity Research Journal (1991) commented that ‘‘creativity in science, art and many fields, [is] the sort of productive risk taking [that] has been a hallmark of America from its beginnings’’ (p. 375). The concept of risk tolerance has been central to decision making in finance, investments, and financial planning (Roszkowski & Snelbecker, 1990). Snelbecker, Roszkowski, and Cutler (1990) proposed a conceptual model and developed a set of scales to assess investors’ risk tolerance and return aspirations (Roszkowski, Snelbecker, & Leimberg, 1989). A measure of cognitive risk tolerance (Snelbecker, McConlogue, & Feldman, 2001) was developed as an extension of that model and set of scales. Feldman (one of the creators of the cognitive risk tolerance scale) noted: ‘‘[Cognitive risk tolerance is] an individual’s ability to formulate and express one’s ideas despite the threat of negative assessment regarding: reputation, integrity, credibility, honor and intelligence’’ (Feldman, 2003, p. 6). Using the Cognitive Risk Tolerance Survey, Feldman (2003) found cognitive risk tolerance to be moderately related to, but different from, two so-called positive psychology variables: academic hardiness and emotional intelligence. Additionally, the present authors viewed cognitive risk tolerance as a potentially relevant attribute or component of creativity. In previous research (Feldman, 2003), the Cognitive Risk Tolerance Scale was also moderately correlated with two other positive psychology attributes, academic hardiness and emotional intelligence. Risk taking has been described by others (Farley, 1991) as a necessary component of creativity. However, our series of literature reviews did not reveal relevant research findings about the risk taking in general, nor of cognitive risk tolerance in particular, for creativity. In our study, cognitive risk tolerance was included as a construct to be measured in regard to general creativity. Although various authors have mentioned risk as a component of influence on creativity, the only cognitive risk tolerance instrument found during the literature reviews was the research version of the Cognitive Risk Tolerance Survey (Snelbecker, McConologue, & Feldman, 2001). Therefore, it seems plausible that cognitive risk tolerance might be related to creativity among engineers as well as musicians. Measurement of Musicians’ and Engineers’ Creativity Initially, we attempted to identify existing scientific creativity and artistic creativity measures, but were not very successful in finding such instruments. Various resources were reviewed to identify potentially useful measures, respectively, of engineers’ and musicians’ creativity. In addition to conducting literature searches of psychology, social science, technology, education, and other databases, we also contacted relevant faculty members, specialized librarians, and others who might provide leads to such instruments. Wherever feasible, we contacted authors or vendors of instruments that might be useful for this study. We first searched for information about creativity measures for musicians, because it seemed likely that more measures might be available for musicians’ creativity than for engineers’ creativity. Despite extensive searches, we found very few appropriate instruments. Music creativity researchers apparently have tended to utilize the divergent versus convergent thinking processes or have focused on creative products (Hickey, 2001; Hong, Milgram, & Gorsky, 1995; Runco, 1986). According to Hickey, consensual assessment is one approach that has been used to assess the extent to which music products or outcomes are ‘‘creative’’; consensual assessment involves the extent to which there is interrater agreement of a creative product. However, Hickey notes that the ‘‘use of consensual assessment for measuring musical creativity is recent and limited’’ (p. 236). There are similarly limited measures designed specifically to assess engineers’ creativity. Researchers (Goodman, Furcon, & Rose, 1969; Sprecher, 1963) made early attempts to assess engineering creativity, with productivity surveys and tests, but no generally accepted measure of engineers’ creativity resulted from that work. Larson, Thomas, and Leviness (1999) used the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and Torrance tests to assess engineers’ creativity, but apparently they were not satisfied with the MBTI as a measure of creativity. A series of literature reviews revealed that some attempts had been made to measure engineers’ scientific creativity or engineering creativity, but only limited reports were found and General, Artistic, Scientific Creativity Creativity Research Journal 215 efforts to contact those researchers were not successful (Gupta, 1988; Majumbar, 1975; Shukla & Sharma, 1987, 1986). After review of the information that could be found, the present authors concluded that the Purdue Creativity Test, designed to measure the potential of engineers to be creative in their career (Lawshe & Harris, 1960), was an appropriate measure for this study. Larson (one of the researchers cited above) indicated both support for and interest in our project and our selected measures. Based on his own research and professional experiences, Larson suggested that that both originality and practicality (or, usefulness) might be a unique attribute of engineering creativity (M. Larson, personal communication, August 14, 2003). Measurement of General Creativity Based on information from previous research, the present authors hypothesized that engineers and musicians would demonstrate approximately equivalent levels of general creativity, that engineers would demonstrate higher levels of scientific creativity, and that musicians would demonstrate higher levels of artistic creativity. Normative data and demographic information (where available) were used to provide some perspective about the levels of creativity indicated by respondents in this research. Additionally, it was expected that students with some specializations (i.e., within the engineering major and within the music major) might display more creativity than other specializations, respectively, within each major.