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The Psychological Profile of a Rock Band Using Intellectual and Personality Measures with Musicians
Abstract
Unique personality and intelligence factors are important components of the makeup of any individual. In addition, emotional factors, such as a person's inherent levels of joy, anger, passion, worry, grief, and dedication, influence their creative expression. The picture becomes more complicated when there are four individual members with different emotional, intelligence, and personality profiles who must collaborate to make one composition of a creative group. The inner workings of a band are intrinsic and may produce inner conflict, affecting not only themselves and family members but also management and production teams. While there is a growing amount of literature on cohesiveness and attitudinal influences on performance in other areas of psychology, the lack of literature and exploration into the dynamics of cohesiveness and group attitude within the musical domain is significant. Using the WAIS-III, MMPI-2, Rorschach Inkblot Test, and an interview, the authors took a psychological "snapshot" of a band. Making music is often the first thing a musician states as his life's work, but as this case study illustrates, intra-band difficulties including severe depression, anxiety, control issues, and family disruptions are significant issues that arise, affecting the success goals of the group.
... The small amount of existing research in the area of musicians' occupational health in South Africa has focused on classical musicians. Studies abroad, however, have shown that musicians of diverse genres experience physical and psychological problems related to their performance(Árnason, Árnason and Briem 2014;Heredia, Hinkamp, Brodsky and Llapur 2014;Mishra, De, Gangopadhyay and Chandra 2013;Erickson 2012;Kim, Kim, Min, Cho and Choi 2012;Hernandez, Russo and Schneider 2009;Barr, Potter, Van Dusen and Burke 2005;Kahari, Eklof, Sandsjo, Zachau and Moller 2003;Marques, Rosset- Llobet, Marques, Gurgel and Augusto 2003;Raeburn, Hipple, Delaney and Chesky 2003;Rigg, Marrinan and Thomas 2003;Chesky and Henoch 2000). ...
The high statistics of musicians’ performance-related pain and injury are well documented. Research shows that tertiary level musicians’ occupational health education is imperative, and internationally more and more institutions are proactively incorporating innovative preventative educational programmes as part of their coursework. However, there are no courses in musicians’ health offered in any of the music departments of South African universities. In this article we will explore a model towards musicians’ occupational health education, based on the research done by Judy Palac, a specialist in performing arts medicine education. Her collaborative and interdependent model for a musicians’ health intervention has three components: health professionals diagnose and treat musicians with music-related physical or psychological disorders; music teachers provide pedagogy that is founded on sound musical, psychological and biomechanical principles; movement and somatic specialists provide knowledge of the body in music making. Our aim is to demonstrate how this framework is applicable in South Africa. Brief recommendations for possible implementation strategies in the South African context are made.
... Research on musicians' personalities has largely focused on differences between musicians of various instrument groups and musical styles (e.g., Buttsworth and Smith, 1995;Kemp, 1996;Cribb and Gregory, 1999;Langendörfer, 2008;Hernandez et al., 2009;Vuust et al., 2010), the relationship between personality and performance anxiety (e.g., Cooper and Wills, 1989;Marchant-Haycox and Wilson, 1992;Kenny et al., 2004), as well as the relationship between personality and creativity (e.g., Gibson et al., 2009;Charyton and Snelbecker, 2010). To our knowledge, studies focusing primarily on general aspects of personality (i.e., not music-specific traits such as performance anxiety) and their relation to flow experiences in musicians have not been conducted so far. ...
Being “in flow” or “in the zone” is defined as an extremely focused state of consciousness which occurs during intense engagement in an activity. In general, flow has been linked to peak performances (high achievement) and feelings of intense pleasure and happiness. However, empirical research on flow in music performance is scarce, although it may offer novel insights into the question of why musicians engage in musical activities for extensive periods of time. Here, we focused on individual differences in a group of 76 piano performance students and assessed their flow experience in piano performance as well as their trait emotional intelligence. Multiple regression analysis revealed that flow was predicted by the amount of daily practice and trait emotional intelligence. Other background variables (gender, age, duration of piano training and age of first piano training) were not predictive. To predict high achievement in piano performance (i.e., winning a prize in a piano competition), a seven-predictor logistic regression model was fitted to the data, and we found that the odds of winning a prize in a piano competition were predicted by the amount of daily practice and the age at which piano training began. Interestingly, a positive relationship between flow and high achievement was not supported. Further, we explored the role of musical emotions and musical styles in the induction of flow by a self-developed questionnaire. Results suggest that besides individual differences among pianists, specific structural and compositional features of musical pieces and related emotional expressions may facilitate flow experiences. Altogether, these findings highlight the role of emotion in the experience of flow during music performance and call for further experiments addressing emotion in relation to the performer and the music alike.
The Oxford Handbook of Sport and Performance Psychology includes the latest research and applied perspectives from leaders in the field of performance psychology, presenting sport and performance psychology from myriad perspectives. It looks at individual psychological processes in performance such as attention, imagery, superior performance intelligence, motivation, anxiety, confidence, cognition, and emotion. Articles also consider the social psychological processes in performance including leadership, teamwork, coaching, relationships, moral behavior, and gender and cultural issues. The book further examines human development issues in performance, such as the development of talent and expertise, positive youth development, the role of the family, the end of involvement transitions, and both youth and masters-level sport and physical activity programs. Finally, the text looks at interventions in sport and performance psychology and counseling of performers in distress including such important issues for all performers as: appearance- and performance-enhancing drug use, injuries, managing pain, eating and weight issues, burnout, and the role of physical activity in maintaining health. The articles collected here also cover the history of sport and performance psychology; the scope and nature of the field; ethical issues in sport and performance psychology; performance psychology in the performing arts and other non-sporting fields; perfectionism and performance; the role of the performance coach and of the sport psychologist with a coach and team; supervision; and a look ahead to the future of the field.
This longitudinal study aimed to explore the nature of the relationships between personality Big Five as measured by the (NEO PI-R), psychometric and self-estimated intelligence (Ravens, Wonderlic and Baddeley Tests) and creativity (Barron Welsh Test). A model was developed which proposed that both self-estimated intelligence (SEI) and creativity (SEC) as well as the Big Five personality traits, predicted both psychometric intelligence and creativity which in turn predicted academic performance. Results showed that Openness was significantly correlated with, and predicted, fluid intelligence (Ravens) as well as psychometric Creativity (Barron Welsh). SEI was found to be predictive of intelligence scores on all three IQ tests. Openness to Experience (positively) and Conscientiousness (negatively) was found to predict psychometric Creativity. Males gave consistently higher estimates than females in SEI and SEC. Academic performance was found to be predicted by trait Conscientiousness, and also by Baddeley (fluid intelligence). Implications of this study are discussed.
Two data sources--self-reports and peer ratings--and two instruments--adjective factors and questionnaire scales--were used to assess the five-factor model of personality. As in a previous study of self-reports (McCrae & Costa, 1985b), adjective factors of neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness-antagonism, and conscientiousness-undirectedness were identified in an analysis of 738 peer ratings of 275 adult subjects. Intraclass correlations among raters, ranging from .30 to .65, and correlations between mean peer ratings and self-reports, from .25 to .62, showed substantial cross-observer agreement on all five adjective factors. Similar results were seen in analyses of scales from the NEO Personality Inventory. Items from the adjective factors were used as guides in a discussion of the nature of the five factors. These data reinforce recent appeals for the adoption of the five-factor model in personality research and assessment.
Theory and research in both personality psychology and creativity share an essential commonality: emphasis on the uniqueness of the individual. Both disciplines also share an emphasis on temporal consistency and have a 50-year history, and yet no quantitative review of the literature on the creative personality has been conducted. The 3 major goals of this article are to present the results of the first meta-analytic review of the literature on personality and creative achievement, to present a conceptual integration of underlying potential psychological mechanisms that personality and creativity have in common, and to show how the topic of creativity has been important to personality psychologists and can be to social psychologists. A common system of personality description was obtained by classifying trait terms or scales onto one of the Five-Factor Model (or Big Five) dimensions: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Effect size was measured using Cohen's d (Cohen, 1988). Comparisons on personality traits were made on 3 sets of samples: scientists versus nonscientists, more creative versus less creative scientists, and artists versus nonartists. In general, creative people are more open to new experiences, less conventional and less conscientious, more self-confident, self-accepting, driven, ambitious, dominant, hostile, and impulsive. Out of these, the largest effect sizes were on openness, conscientiousness, self-acceptance, hostility, and impulsivity. Further, there appears to be temporal stability of these distinguishing personality dimensions of creative people. Dispositions important to creative behavior are parsed into social, cognitive, motivational, and affective dimensions. Creativity like most complex behaviors requires an intra- as well as interdisciplinary view and thereby mitigates the historically disciplinocentric attitudes of personality and social psychologists.
This article describes findings from two separate convenience samples of popular musicians' health status, access to and use of health care, health habits, and related attitudes surveyed in 1996-1997. Sample 1 consisted of 111 musicians attending one of three regional music conferences (in Portland, OR, Austin, TX, or San Francisco, CA). The findings from sample 1 consist of demographics and music career-related information; current medical problems; nonmusculoskeletal (N-MS) and musculoskeletal (MS) problems that affected performance in the previous year; access to and use of health care; health habits related to alcohol, drug use, and smoking, use of hearing protection; and several health-related attitudes. Sample 2 consisted of 115 musicians surveyed in 1996 by mail from a random sample of a musicians' union list, by face-to-face interview during music club jobs in Dallas, Texas, or at a music conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. The findings from sample 2 are generally limited to N-MS and MS problems that affected performance in the previous year, health habits, and some health-related attitudes. Basic findings for sample 1 were as follows: 26% cited a current medical problem, 49% had at least one N-MS problem, 74% had at least one MS problem, and 42% reported hearing loss. In sample 2, 37% of the musicians reported hearing loss. Overall percentages for N-MS and MS problems for sample 2 were not available, but percentages for specific problems are delineated. Depression and anxiety were among the most frequently cited N-MS problems for both samples. Pain and stiffness were the most frequently reported MS problems for both samples. Ten percent of sample 1 musicians and 16% of sample 2 musicians indicated that alcohol or drug use had hurt their performance in the previous year. More than half of the musicians in sample 1 and sample 2 had health insurance, but most obtained it through non-music-related jobs or family coverage. Although the generalizability of the findings is limited significantly by the nonrandom nature of the samples and generally low response rates, this study nonetheless contributes provisional information on popular musicians' health status. The findings are compared with other musician samples where possible, including some previously unpublished health findings from the University of North Texas Musicians' Health Survey on the Internet. Specific concerns and strategies for future research on popular musicians' health status are suggested.
The social psychology of musical groups is a new but emerging area of inquiry that is critically reviewed here. Professional musicians (N = 227) from 16 major orchestras throughout the United States and Canada completed a questionnaire dealing with stereotypes and personality traits of musicians from each of the four major orchestral sections (strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion). The brass and strings were consistently on opposite poles of the continua.
This review paper examines two related areas of research: studies dating back over 50 years on lay theories of the nature and measurement of intelligence, and more recent research on sex and culture differences on self-estimated intelligence. The latter focus is on the nearly 20 published papers on estimated intelligence. Studies have shown consistent sex differences with males rating themselves higher than females. There are also consistent generational effects with adult participants believing around a half standard deviation difference in intelligence with their grandparents being least intelligent and children most. Self-estimated and psychometric intelligence only correlates weakly. Studies looking at self and other estimates of multiple intelligence indicated that participants seemed to believe that intelligence was male normative in that it was specifically those types of intelligence (mathematical and spatial) that most differentiated between the sexes that were themselves more predictive of general overall intelligence. Implications of these findings for intelligence testing are considered.
We explored emotional accompaniments to stages of a musician's cycle of creativity through interviews with musicians. Creativity was defined in terms of performance or composition. These musicians described strong emotional vacillations that occur across the creative cycle and discussed ways of dealing with emotional issues involved in moving from one work to the next. Parallels were drawn between emotional aspects of completing a performance or composition to emotional aspects of termination in psychotherapy. Suggestions were offered to musicians for means of dealing with naturally occurring but powerful emotional components of creativity. In addition, some of the musicians suggested that music educators consider teaching students about potential emotional issues that may accompany creative effort. An integration of these issues into music education programs might better prepare students for careers as professional musicians.
This paper brings together extensive data from 257 children to explore the relative importance of social-environmental factors during critical periods of children's musical development. The paper also presents preliminary findings from a follow-up of 20 of the most musically successful children 8 years later to determine which childhood factors predict differences in success as adult performers. Those children who continued to play an instrument started at an early age, had higher parental support in lessons, and had first teachers who were friendly but not too technically able. However, these factors alone were not sufficient to predict relative success in childhood. Successful childhood musicians also appear to need teachers who are 'not too relaxed' and also 'not too pushy' and they also need to do substantial amounts of practice. The follow-up study suggested, though, that successful adult performers were not those who did the most practice; rather, the successful adults were those who took part in more concert activities in childhood, did more improvisation, and who had mothers at home in their early years. The results are discussed in relation to theories of musical development and the changing influences of parents, teachers and peers.
One hundred and eighty-seven university students completed the full NEO-PI-R assessing the five super-traits and 30 primary traits, and the Wonderlic Personnel Test of general intelligence. Two months later (before receiving feedback on their psychometric scores), they estimated their own scores on these variables. Results at the super-factor level indicated that participants could significantly predict/estimate their own Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Conscientiousness scores. The correlation between estimated and psychometrically measured IQ was r=.30, showing that participants could, to some extent, accurately estimate their intelligence. In addition, there were a number of significant correlations between estimated intelligence and psychometrically assessed personality (particularly Neuroticism, Agreeableness and Extraversion). Disagreeable people tended to award themselves higher self-estimated intelligence scores. Similarly, stable people tended to award themselves higher estimates of intelligence (even when other variables were controlled). Regressing both estimated and psychometric IQ scores onto estimated and psychometric personality scores indicated that the strongest significant effect was the relationship between trait scores and self-estimated intelligence.