Free Will to Imagine: Creative Agency as a Metacognitive Feeling

People often feel a sense of authorship and free will over mental processes that are influenced by external forces. This paper introduces 'creative agency' as a metacognitive feeling and develops a measure for it in music-evoked imagination. Across two studies (N = 247 and N = 219) with Prolific participants, a reliable six-factor structure of creative agency and free will in imagination emerged. Creative agency beliefs were strongly linked to absorption in music, musical reward sensitivity, and musical sophistication, indicating that creative agency is integral to aesthetic experience, not just creative production. The findings establish creative agency as a multidimensional construct with stable individual differences.

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Abstract

People routinely feel creative ownership over mental processes that are demonstrably shaped by forces outside themselves. We introduce creative agency—the sense of authorship and free will one experiences during creative cognition—as an undertheorized metacognitive feeling and develop a measure of it in the domain of music-evoked imagination. In an initial study (N = 247) and pre-registered replication (N = 219) with Prolific participants, we identify a reliable structure consisting of six distinct but related factors of creative agency and free will in imagination with good psychometric properties. Across studies, creative agency beliefs are robustly associated with absorption in music, musical reward sensitivity, and musical sophistication, suggesting that creative agency is integral to aesthetic experience rather than merely to creative production. These findings establish creative agency as a multidimensional construct characterized by stable individual differences, with implications for understanding aesthetic engagement, metacognition, creativity, and the subjective experience of authorship.