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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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.