Creativity is one of the most important things in the process of creation. Creativity is needed in facing numerous challenges in this fast-paced and ever-changing world. Someone with a high level of creativity can easily produce new ideas and innovations to solve different kinds of problems.  

There are essentially two types of creative thinking: divergent and convergent. They are not mutually exclusive and are complementary to each other. Convergent thinking emphasizes more on analyzing ideas and problem-solving. It is more rational and logical. Meanwhile, divergent thinking involves producing new ideas, staying true to the classic definition of the word creativity. Do you know that music can help to trigger our creativity?

A recent joint study by Radboud University and University of Technology Sydney states that music positively affects creativity. They observed 155 people and split them into a number of groups. Each group was given a different type of music based on emotional valence (positive, negative) and arousal (high, low): calm, happy, sad, anxious, and silence as the control group.

The result shows that people in the happy group (positive valence, high arousal) produce a higher level of divergent thinking compared to the control group. The researchers believe that happy music increases flexibility in thinking, which in turn makes a person able to think of solution options that people inside the control group are less likely to think of. However, music has little effect to convergent thinking.

With this research, scientists hope that music can be widely used to help a person in creative thinking.

Text by Anggie Triana
Stock photos from Pexels

Source(s):

• Ritter, S. M. and Ferguson, S. (2017). Happy creativity: Listening to happy music facilitates divergent thinking. PLOS One. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0182210