The importance of music versus musical experience in music ... and Beavers.pdfThe importance of...
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The importance of music versus musical experience in music choiceLauren Mutispaugh and Mitch Beavers
Dr. Christopher Buchholz (Faculty Advisor)
Roanoke College
AbstractThis study examined how student’s ratings of the importance of music and
musical experience related to personality as well as preference for certain
types of music. Participants completed questionnaires that measured music
preference, music importance, music experience, and various personality
factors (big 5 factors, self-esteem, and need for cognition). The statistics
revealed that music importance was positively correlated with
agreeableness and preference for energetic/rhythmic music. Music
experience was positively correlated with emotional stability and a
preference for reflective/complex music. For participants with high music
experience, complex music preference was positively correlated with
openness to experiences and need for cognition. For participants with lower
musical experience, complex music preference was negatively correlated
with extraversion and agreeableness.
Introduction
• Music is one of the most ubiquitous forms of culture that exists. Some
form of music has been documented in every known culture and often plays
a central role in those cultures (Jourdain, 1997).
• Cattell said it best when he remarked “so powerful is the effect of
music…that one is surprised to find in the history of psychology and
psychotherapy so little experimental, or even speculative, reference to the
use of music” (Cattell & Sunders, 1954, p.3).
• Recently, however, Rentfrow and Gosling (2003) have made efforts to
correct this shortcoming by looking at how personality characteristics relate
to music preferences. They created the STOMP or Short Test of Music
Preference. They looked at how preference for these genres correlated with
personality.
• Rentfrow and Gosling (2003) correlated these global music preference
categories with various personality factors.
• While Rentfrow and Gosling (2003) found a link between music and
personality, others have found a relationship between music and arousal.
For example, Gowensmith & Bloom (1997) found that an individual’s
resting arousal level was related to their music preference.
• Likewise, McNamara and Ballard (1999) found that resting arousal, as
well as sensation seeking, was related to a preference for highly arousing
music.
• The relationship between an individual’s internal state of arousal and
music preference was also established by Little and Zuckerman (1986), who
found a positive correlation between sensation seeking and a preference for
rock, punk, and heavy metal music. Also, they found a negative correlation
between sensation seeking and a preference for sound tracks and religious
music.
• This research suggests that particular individual differences (i.e.,
personality and resting arousal) may draw different people to different types
of music.
• When one considers why we listen to music, we often focus on cultural
explanations that look at the social functions that music serves.
• Blood and Zatorre (2001) used PET scans to investigate how one’s brain
reacts when listening to music.
• Not everyone loves music the same and not everyone has as much
experience with music.
• Music importance is measured as how important music is to one’s life.
• Music experience is how much experience one has writing and
performing music.
• This study examined the correlations between personality, music
preference, and student’s rating of the importance of music and musical
experience.
Discussion
• While music importance was found to correlate with agreeableness,
energetic/rhythmic, and rap/hip-hop, it did not correlate with anything else.
This suggests that people who find music important tend to like all different
kinds of music and that there are no particular personalities that find music
more important than others (with the possible exception of agreeableness).
• The means for music experience suggest that it is not the norm to have
musical experience (M = 3.15) and that there is some variability in musical
experience in the sample (SD = 1.90). Music experience was found to
correlate with multiple factors. In general, music experience was strongly
correlated with both complex music preference and for the
reflective/complex STOMP category. This suggests that those with higher
musical experience prefer more complex music and those with lower
musical experience prefer music that is simpler in nature. This preference
for complex music seems to go hand-in-hand with need for cognition which
was also positively correlated with music experience. So, those with more
musical experience like more complex music and like to think. Reflecting
this preference for complex music, music experience was found to be
positively correlated with classical music, blues, and jazz, and negatively
correlated with country, rap/hip-hop, and pop music.
• The results suggest that individuals with less musical experience who like
complex music are more introverted and disagreeable, and those with less
musical experience who like simple music are more extraverted and
agreeable. The results also indicate that for individuals with more music
experience, liking complex music is associated with higher openness to
experience and need for cognition. While, these results are interesting and
informative, they are still preliminary. Further studies will need to be
conducted to establish a valid and reliable pattern of results.
MethodsParticipants
Our study included 62 Introduction to Psychology students from a small
liberal arts college who were given class credit to participate.
Materials
Participants were given a series of scales that measured music preference,
importance, experience, as well as various personality characteristics. The
measures included the Big 5 factors (Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swan, 2003), self-
esteem (Rosenberg, 1965), and need for cognition (Cacioppo, Petty, Feinstein, &
Jarvis 1996). Participants also completed Renfrow and Gosling’s (2003) Short Test
of Music Preference (STOMP). The STOMP test contains questions which indicate
14 genres of music: alternative, blue, classical, country, electronica/dance, folk,
heavy metal, rap/hip-hop, jazz, pop, religious, rock, soul/funk, and soundtracks.
Preferences were rated on a 7-point Likert scale (1-Not at all; 7- A great deal). In
order to examine individual’s experience with music participants were asked to
indicate their agreement/disagreement on a 7-point Likert scale to several
statements (e.g., “I am proficient at playing a musical instrument.” and “I can read
music.”). To assess how important music is in one’s life we had participants
indicate their agreement/disagreement on a 7-point Likert scale to several
statements (e.g., “I feel that music is very important in my life.” and “Music is a
central part of who I am.”). Finally, Buchholz’s (2006) music complexity scale was
used assess an individual’s desired level of music complexity. This scale is a 9 item
Likert-type scale that included questions such as “I prefer music that is more
complex in nature”, “Most of the music I listen to has many different instruments
and parts”, and “I prefer music that is rhythmic and uncomplicated”.
Procedure
This study was part of a larger study that looked at mood and music
preference. In the larger study, participants were exposed to a video clip intended
to make them feel sad, happy, or neutral (control group). After that, they were
asked to rate 2 song clips. Once the first part of the study was completed,
participants completed a series of questionnaires, and then they were debriefed and
dismissed. The measures relevant to this study were collected during the
questionnaire phase of the experiment.
Results
As depicted in Table 1, music importance was found to correlate with
agreeableness (r = .318, p=.003) and with the energetic/rhythmic STOMP
category (r = .282, p=.009). The only specific genre that music importance
correlated with was rap/hip-hop (r = .231, p=.033). Music experience,
however, correlated with several variables (see Table 2). Music experience
was strongly correlated with both complex music preference (r = .521,
p<.001) and for the reflective/complex STOMP category (r = .558,
p<.001). Music experience was also correlated with need for cognition (r =
.317, p=.003). When breaking down the global STOMP categories to
specific genres, music experience was found to be positively correlated
with classical music (r = .512, p<.001), blues (r = .387, p<.003), and jazz (r
= .364, p=.001); while it was negatively correlated with country music (r =
-.275, p=.011), rap/hip-hop (r = -.278, p=.010), and pop music (r = -.273,
p=.011).
We decided the look further into the interaction between musical
experience and a preference for more complex music. So, we conducted a
median split on the data to separate it into two groups, those with high
music experience and those with low music experience. Then we reran the
correlations between complex music preference and personality to see if
these relationships were different for the different levels of experience. For
the sample with low music experience complex music preference was
negatively correlated with extraversion (r = -.442, p=.015) as well as with
agreeableness (r = -.404, p=.027). For the sample with high music
experience we found positive correlations with both openness to experience
(r = .637, p<.001) and need for cognition (r = .440, p=.012).
References
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manuscript.
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Music Importance Correlated with:
Agreeableness r = .318 p = .003
Energetic/Rhythmic r = .282 p = .009
Rap/Hip-Hop r = .231 p = .033
Table 1. The correlation between music importance, personality, and
music preference.
Music Experience Correlated with:
Complex Music Preference r = .521 p < .001
Need for Cognition r = .317 p = .003
Reflective/Complex r = .558 p < .001
Classical r = .512 p < .001
Blues r = .387 p < .001
Jazz r = .364 p = .001
Country r = -.275 p = .011
Rap/Hip-Hop r = -.278 p = .010
Pop r = -.273 p = .011
Table 2. The correlation between music experience, personality,
and music preference.
Figure 1. Means of music experience and music
importance.