Abstract
This study examined the effect of music listening on creative thinking through the lens of the arousal-and-mood hypothesis, which posits that emotional reactions (i.e., arousal and valence) mediate the effect of music listening on cognitive functioning. Participants were randomly assigned to three groups: a positive music group (n = 198), a negative music group (n = 195), and a control group (n = 191). Creative thinking and emotional reactions were assessed with the Test for Creative Thinking-Drawing Production and the Affect Grid, respectively. The results showed that both positively and negatively arousing music enhanced creative thinking. The results further revealed that arousal, regardless of valence, significantly mediated the music-creativity relationship. This study enriches the research on the arousal-and-mood hypothesis by (1) providing direct empirical testing on the mediating roles of emotional reactions; (2) including both positively and negatively arousing music in the study design; and (3) identifying that only arousal, and not valence, was a significant mediator in the music-creativity link.
Highlights
The role of music in cognitive functioning is one of the most popular issues of discussion in research (Corrigall et al, 2013)
The present study examined the effect of music listening on creative thinking through the lens of the arousal-and-mood hypothesis, which postulates that emotional reactions mediate the effect of music listening on the subsequent performance of cognitive functioning (Husain et al, 2002; Schellenberg, 2005; Schellenberg et al, 2007)
Lending partial support to Hypothesis 2, which states that emotional reactions mediate the effect of music listening on creative thinking, the results of the mediation analyses using Hayes’ PROCESS procedure for SPSS suggest that only arousal, and not valence, mediates the music-creativity relationship in both conditions, i.e., listening to positively or negatively arousing music
Summary
The role of music in cognitive functioning is one of the most popular issues of discussion in research (Corrigall et al, 2013). Widespread interest in the potential benefits of listening to music was sparked by a series of studies regarding the Mozart effect (Jones and Estell, 2007), which documented that listening to music composed by Mozart led to significant improvements in spatial intelligence (e.g., Rauscher et al, 1993, 1995). Researchers have been increasingly interested in the possible impacts of music exposure on cognitive functioning, including intelligence and creativity (Schellenberg, 2005; Schellenberg et al, 2007; Swaminathan et al, 2017). Joining this line of research, the present study aimed to examine the effect of music listening on creativity through the lens of the arousal-and-mood hypothesis
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