The Role of Personality in Musicians' Information Seeking for Creativity

Introduction: 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. Method: 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. Analysis: 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. Results: 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. Conclusions: Overall, musicians' personality, and in particular self-efficacy, is associated with scholarly information seeking and analysis.