IMPLICAII ALE PERSONALITII N MANAGEMENTUL CARIEREI

LA MUZICIENI
PERSONALITY IMPLICATIONS IN THE MUSICIANS CAREER
MANAGEMENT
Dorina Iuc1
Abstract
Vocational orientation towards music has always presupposed a number of
specific elements, due to the musical aptitudes context and developmental rhythm.
Leaving these aspects aside, personality plays just as an important a role in the
management of an artistic career. J. L. Hollands theory reveals that a persons options for
a career are determined by certain personality traits which interact with the work
environments characteristics. Thus, the particular interaction between the types of
personality and the preferred work environments allows for the identification of six
categories of personality-environment relational configurations: the realist, the
investigative, the artistic, the social, the enterprising and the conventional type. Starting
from the premise that at the basis of ones choice of a career in music lies an artistic
personality, this research seeks to produce a descriptive statistic of the types of
personalities of the students attending the Faculty of Music. The results of the research
show that the artistic type is not predominant, as it is equally present as the social one.
This demonstrates that social interaction is perceived as being as important in a musical
career as musical abilities. Moreover, qualitative aspects related to the motivation to
follow a career in music are also discussed, this variable having been obtained as a result
of content analysis.
John L. Holland was a pioneer in assessing the environments of colleges and
universities and their influence on students. His research has been central in the
development of knowledge about nonacademic accomplishments. His theory of
vocational personalities and work environments revolutionized the delivery of vocational
assistance worldwide. He made contributions to research on originality and interpersonal
competence. He also influenced our field through his influence on other psychologists.
Persistence, focus, horizon-scanning, the interpretation of evidence in novel ways,
revision of ideas based on evidence, an emphasis on the practical, generosity with
colleagues, and intellectual tension are themes that characterize Holland's working style
and explain his enormous influence.
Over many years of research, Holland developed an important conceptual scheme,
with supporting research and assessment techniques, for classifying individuals and jobs
according to what Holland called vocational personality. His theory argued that the
choice of a vocation is an expression of personality. Hollands scheme is based on a huge
volume of research conducted over several decades and provides not just an important
theory of occupational suitability, but also a series of assessment devices and practical
techniques to assist individuals in putting theory into practice.
1

George Enescu University of Arts Iai

Hollands system is a typology in the sense that it classifies individuals and

occupations into specific types. According to Holland, there are six vocational personality
types: Realistic (R), Investigative (I), Artistic (A), Social (S), Enterprising (E), and
Conventional (C). People have unique combinations of these six types, although most
people can be described by a single most prominent type, with other types moderately
influencing their behavior and preferences.
1. People with Realistic personalities tend to prefer working with machines, tools,
plants, or animals. They like practical or physical activities, tend to dislike social
interaction or expression of feelings. They are task oriented.
2. People with Investigative personalities tend to have an interest in math and
science. They are interested in ideas, logic, research and problem solving.
3. People with Artistic personalities tend to have artistic, innovational, intuitional,
and aesthetic interests. They are very creative and enjoy unstructured situations,
self-expression and autonomy. They dislike regulation.
4. People with Social personalities tend to be motivated by altruism across the
variety of contexts that make up their lives. They enjoy working with helping
others. They tend to be idealistic and skilled in interpersonal relations. They are
warm and caring.
5. People with Enterprising personalities tend to enjoy influencing, leading,
managing, and persuading. They enjoy working with others, being interested in
leading others to achieve goals through persuasion and management.
6. People with Conventional personalities like to work with data and numbers. They
are interested in structure, planning and organization. They value security and
control and they like detail work.
People with specific vocational personality types are attracted to activities and
occupations associated with those types, and they demonstrate behavioral repertoires,
patterns of likes and dislikes, and concordant attitudes and values that support their
developing interests. For example, people with an Enterprising personality might believe
that the sales profession is valuable and important to the economy and the welfare of
humankind. Additionally, people who make vocational, social, and leisure choices that
are congruent with their Holland vocational personality types experience greater life
satisfaction than do people who make choices that are less congruent.
There are several views of how vocational personalities develop. Holland
hypothesized that vocational personalities are formed as young people become familiar
with their own abilities, develop competencies in accordance with those abilities, and
begin to understand their own innate interests in various types of activities and
occupations. However, Gottfredson, in her Circumscription and Compromise Theory
(CCT; Gottfredson & Lapan, 1997), proposed that the formation of vocational
personalities is highly influenced by what young adolescents believe are acceptable
vocational roles for adult men and women. According to this theory, young people begin
to circumscribe their career, leisure, and academic choices based on these gender-role
perceptions (rather than their self-assessments of abilities, competencies, and interests) in
early adolescence, so that the range of careers for which they are preparing becomes
progressively narrower throughout middle school, high school, and beyond.
Circumscription causes a premature foreclosure of options, leading Gottfredson to

suggest that counselors work to offset this process by exposing young people to a broad
spectrum of careers through exploration and awareness activities.
In the following study, we have set to identify the most relevant aspects regarding
the particulars of the musicians career management by starting from Hollands theory on
career choice. This aspects importance is demonstrated by the fact that over the last
years, a low percentage of the University of Arts graduates have become employed in the
field of music after finishing their studies. Moreover, school drop-out rates is continually
rising, which makes casting a more detailed look at how people are motivated to attend
the Faculty of Music all the more useful.
This research has been done on one hundred students attending the Faculty of
Composition, Musicology, Musical Pedagogy and Musical Interpretation at the
University of Arts in Iasi. The results show a fairly equal balance regarding gender (there
are 40% girls and 60% boys) and each ear of study is represented.
The subjects were asked to fill out Hollands Interest Questionnaire, as well as
another survey with open-ended questions and multiple choice questions regarding their
motives for having chosen to attend graduate courses in the field of music. Each subject
was allowed approximately half an hour to fill in the questionnaires.
This study was aimed at identifying the type of personality which predominates
among the Faculty of Musics students, thus highlighting a more detailed psychological
profile of the musicians. It was expected that this profile would revolve around a core
artistic personality, since this type is considered to be the main agent in the orientation
towards a career in music. The premise was based on the idea that a personality which is
expressive, independent, intuitive, original, nonconformist, emotional, focused on selfexpression and appreciative of arts will agree with the particulars of the courses offered
by the Faculty of Music.
The studys results have shown that apart from the predominantly artistic type,
social personality is also present in a high percent, which demonstrates that students of
music are almost as interested in social interaction as in the field of music (see Figure 1).
Figure 1
Types of personality percentages
realist
1%

investigative
0%

artistic
53%

social
45%

enterprising conventional
1%
0%

The reasons behind these results can be determined once we focus our attention
on the musicians relationship with the audience, which is a very important element in an
artistic career. Music industry has always valued the manner in which an artist interacts
with his or her public. An artists profile and look, his or her performance on the stage,
communicating the musics message are all related to the field of music, but they find
their equivalents in the social sphere in spontaneity, apprehension, sociability, level of
communication.
A more detailed look at the music students psychological profile surveys the
combination which results from taking into account a subjects three most predominant
personality types. Considering the students major an independent variable, the following
results were evinced:

Students with a major in Musical Interpretation had a predominantly artistic-socialrealist structure. This result can be explained by the fact that having to work with a
musical instrument the subjects were also concerned with physical coordination,
dexterity, ingenuity, practicality; that is, elements pertaining to a realistic personality.
Students majoring in Composition, Musicology and Music Pedagogy have a
personality structure which is consistent with the social-artistic-investigative model.
This results interpretation emphasizes the fact that jobs like music professor or
musicologist are primarily focused on social interaction and on the manner in which
artistic information is transmitted. Furthermore, the presence of the investigative type
reminds us that music is essentially an abstract field, with a specific language and a
particular manner of cognitive processing, which may be called musical thinking.
The second questionnaire gathered information about the subjects motivation for
considering music. A very high percentage of the students intend to have a career in
music after graduation, although this aspect has a different bearing according to gender
(as seen in Figure 2).
Figure 2
When you graduate, will you follow a career in music?
140

120

75

100

80

25

60
54
46

40

Percent

CAREER
20

no

yes
male

female

GENDER

Also, when they were asked whether they thought that they had made the best
possible choice by opting for music, a significant 90% of the students in the Faculty of
Music answered yes.
Concerning the motives which led the students to seek higher education in music,
the percentages show that the more important stimuli were either related to the pleasure
of singing or playing, the passion for music, the wish to discover more about music, or
related to personal development issues, such as realizing ones talent for music, that was
discovered at an early age and asserting oneself artistically. The results are shown in
Figure 3.

Figure 3
Motives for choosing the field of music
Passion for music
Wish for self-assertion
Need for personal development
Realizing ones talent for music
Financial benefits
Family influence
Satisfaction of interaction with the audience
Tours, fun

78%
51%
30%
63%
2%
45%
38%
1%

The data in Figure 3 were obtained through a content analysis of the answers to
the open-ended question What are your motives for choosing music?. Alongside the
above observations, one also notices that extrinsic motivations such as financial or
amusement incentives are insignificant, while intrinsic motivations illustrated by the
pleasure of making music, the need to sing or play or express oneself musically are
predominant.
To conclude, the present research has achieved its objective, which was to detail
some of the musicians traits, and at the same time it pinpoints the characteristics of the
motivation to pursue a career in the field of music.
References:
Gottfredson, L. S., & Lapan, R.T. (1997). Assessing gender-based
circumscription of occupational aspirations. Journal of Career Assessment, 5, 419-441.
Holland, J. L., Richards, J. M. (1965) Academic and nonacademic
accomplishment: correlated or uncorrelated?. Journal of educational psychology, 56(4),
165-74.
Holland, J. L. (1968). Explorations of a theory of vocational choice. A
longitudinal study using a sample of typical college students. The Journal of applied
psychology, 52(1), 1-37.
Holland, J. L. (1994). Occupations Finder. Lutz, FL: Psychological Assessment
Resources.
Holland, J. L. (1994). The Self-Directed Search, Form R (4th ed.). Lutz, FL:
Psychological Assessment Resources.
Holland, J. L. (1997). Making vocational choices: A theory of vocational
personalities and work environments (3rd ed.). Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment
Resources.
Holland, J. L., Fritzsche, B. A., & Powell, A. B. (1994). The Self-Directed Search
technical manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
Oosterveld, P. (1994). Confirmatory factor analysis of the Self-Directed Search
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