The role of personality in musicians' information seeking for creativity.

Kostagiolas, Petros; Lavranos, Charilaos; Martzoukou, Konstantina; Papadatos, Joseph

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between musicians' information seeking behaviour and their personality traits within the context of musical creativity. Although previous research has addressed different socio-technological and behavioral aspects of music information seeking, the role of personality characteristics around creative activities has been an under-researched area. Research was conducted by means of a questionnaire survey administered to Greek musicians. Survey questions were developed based on theory from the domains of information behaviour and musical creativity. Different personality characteristics were measured using the Core Self-Evaluations Scale based on self-efficacy, self-esteem, locus of control and neuroticism. The survey provides empirical evidence of the associations between personality traits, music information seeking and musical creativity based on descriptive and inferential nonparametric statistical analysis for group differences. The results indicate that information plays a significant role in different creative activities of musicians. Musicians utilised a variety of information sources but encountered important obstacles in information seeking. Significant connection was also found between musicians' personality characteristics and different types of information seeking aspects and creativity. Overall, musicians' personality, and in particular self-efficacy, is associated with scholarly information seeking and analysis.

Citation

KOSTAGIOLAS, P., LAVRANOS, C., MARTZOUKOU, K. and PAPADATOS, J. 2017. The role of personality in musicians' information seeking for creativity. Information research [online], 22(2), paper 756. Available from: http://www.informationr.net/ir/22-2/paper756.html

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 6, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Jun 9, 2017
• Publication Date: Jun 30, 2017
• Deposit Date: Mar 9, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 9, 2017
• Journal: Information research
• Electronic ISSN: 1368-1613
• Publisher: University of Borås, Information Research
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 22
• Issue: 2
• Article Number: 756
• Keywords: Relationship; Music information; Creative activities; Musicians
• Public URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10059/2194
• Publisher URL: http://www.informationr.net/ir/22-2/paper756.html