People judge how creative your work is partly by how unusual your name is. That's the result of a study done by researchers Izabela Lebuda and Maciej Karwowski. They had five groups of people judge four different types of creative projects: art, science, poetry, music. In each case the projects were the same but the names of their supposed creators were different. They were one unusual male name, one unusual female name, one common male name, and one unusual male name. A fifth group judged the projects without seeing any name attached.
Here are the results, as reported in Psychology Today:
"The highest creativity score was earned by a painting signed with a unique female name, while the lowest went to that same painting with a common female name. For the science-related products, works signed by any male name scored much higher than the same products signed by women. In fact, the science product signed by a common female name scored even lower than the anonymous control group. In the area of music, any piece signed by a unique male name was rated highest. Poems, on the other hand, got the best scores when signed by a unique female name and the lowest from a common male name."
It would be interesting to know how that would work with novels; my guess is that it would depend on the genre. I'm sure a thriller written by Blake Carson would rank higher than the same one written by Petunia Abercrombie; but for romantic fiction the reverse might be true.
Does that mean we should use pen names that fit the public perception? Or should we follow in the footsteps of authors whose sheer talent overcame any bias against their names?
