Personality influences career choice: sensation seeking in professional musicians

Despite the obvious importance of deciding which career to pursue, little is known about the influence of personality on career choice. Here we investigated the relation between sensation seeking, a supposedly innate personality trait, and career choice in classical and ‘rhythmic’ students at the academies of music in Denmark. We compared data from groups of 59 classical and 36 ‘rhythmic’ students, who completed a psychological test battery comprising the Zuckerman Sensation Seeking Scale, the Spielberger State–Trait Anxiety Inventory, as well as information about demographics and musical background. ‘Rhythmic’ students had significantly higher sensation seeking scores than classical students, predominantly driven by higher boredom susceptibility. Classical students showed significantly higher levels of state anxiety, when imagining themselves just before entering the stage for an important concert. The higher level of anxiety related to stage performance in classical musicians was not attributed to group differences in trait anxiety, but is presumably a consequence of differences in musical rehearsing and performance practices of the two styles of music. The higher sensation seeking scores observed in ‘rhythmic’ students, however, suggests that personality is associated with musical career choice.