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

ABSTRACT

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.

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.

Notes

Note.

^a n = 81

^b n = 18

^c n = 48

^d n = 49

^e n = 1078

^f n = 1631

^g n = 3235

^h n = 4126

ⁱ n = 87

^j n = 50

^k n = 15000

^l n = 106.

Note.

^a n = 39

^b n = 42

^c n = 25

^d n = 28

^e n = 30

^f n = 35

^g n = 36

^h n = 13

ⁱ n = 15

^j n = 14.

Note.

^a n = 105

^b n = 99

^c n = 97

^d n = 204

^e n = 196

^f n = 205.

*p < .05.

**p < .01.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christine Charyton

Christine Charyton is now at Department of Psychology, the Ohio State University at Newark.