The Effects of Background Music on Creative Writing

Abstract

Although many creative writers listen to music while they write (Chamorro-Premuzic et. al.,2009), it is not yet understood if background music enhances or decreases a writer’s creativity. Previous research suggests that the presence of music increases arousal, which in turn affects creativity (He et. al., 2017). Furthermore, people display higher levels of creativity when exposed to familiar music (Schellenberg et. al, 2007). However, many of these studies have examined music priming (when music is played prior to the task), as opposed to background music (when music is played during the task). There is also a lack of research on creative writing, especially short stories. In this study, experienced and novice writers will be asked to write two 300-word fictional stories with provided prompts. One will be written in silence, and the other will be written while listening to playlists the participants has created themselves. Participants will have fifteen minutes to write each story, and then they will answer a series of questionnaires that measure personality, empathy, and participants’ histories of creative activities and achievements. The stories written by these participants will then be read by two sets of raters: those who are also experienced in creative writing, and novice writers. The raters will compare each author’s stories, and judge which story is more creative. The hypothesis is that music will enhance the creativity in both groups of writers, but will have a greater effect in novices, as experienced writers are capable of being creative with or without music.

Faculty Mentor: Kathleen Corrigall

Department: Psychology (Honours)