How do creative professionals stand out? Comparing the creative potential of musicians and actors to non-artists

Creative professionals are widely regarded as exemplary creative people, but it is debated in what ways they stand out besides high domain-specific expertise. Therefore, this study compared professional musicians and actors with a control group of non-artists across a broad range of creativity measures. Results showed that creative professionals demonstrated higher divergent thinking ability, openness to experience, creative self-efficacy and personal identity than the control group. They were more driven by intrinsic motives such as passion but also by extrinsic motives such as recognition. Additionally, artists held a stronger growth mindset and were less susceptible to creativity myths. Differences between musicians and actors were limited to higher creative self-concepts in their respective domains. These findings offer insights into the distinct individual differences of professional artists and support a domain-general perspective of creativity, suggesting that certain aspects of creative potential contribute to professional creativity across different domains. • Creative professionals show higher divergent thinking and openness to experience. • The strongest artist-layperson difference was the motive of passion for creativity. • Musicians and actors hold stronger growth mindsets and reject creativity myths. • Findings support a domain-general view of creativity across professional fields.