Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 2003, 44, 125 –131

Gender bias in the evaluation of New Age music

Blackwell Publishing Ltd

ANN COLLEY1, ADRIAN NORTH1 and DAVID J. HARGREAVES2

1
School of Psychology, University of Leicester, UK
2
University of Surrey Roehampton, UK

Colley, A., North, A. & Hargreaves, D. J. (2003). Gender bias in the evaluation of New Age music. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 44,
125–131.
Eminent composers in Western European art music continue to be predominantly male and eminence in contemporary pop music is similarly
male dominated. One contributing factor may be the continuing under-valuation of women’s music. Possible anti-female bias in a contemporary
genre was investigated using the Goldberg paradigm to elicit judgments of New Age compositions. Since stronger stereotyping effects occur
when information provided about individuals is sparse, fictitious male and female composers were presented either by name only or by
name with a brief biography. Evidence for anti-female bias was found in the name-only condition and was stronger when liking for the
music was controlled. Other findings were the tendency for females to give higher ratings, and the association of gender differences in liking
of the music with ratings of quality in the name-only condition. These results are relevant to the design of formal assessment procedures
for musical composition.
Key words: Gender, music, stereotyping, evaluation.
Ann Colley, School of Psychology, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK . E-mail: aoc@le.ac.uk

The composition of Western European art music, like many
other areas of artistic expression, has been traditionally male
dominated. Musicologists and music psychologists have
noted that few female classical composers have achieved
eminence (Farnsworth, 1969; O’Neill, 1997). Historically,
female participation in music has been inextricably linked
to gender roles, with females making music in domestic
settings, while males occupy the public and professional
arena (Green, 1997). Female achievement has therefore
received little attention, particularly in the area of composi-
tion. The qualities of composers like Thea Musgrave and
Clara Schumann have now been acknowledged, but the cul-
tural and historical context in which they worked prevented
them from achieving the recognition bestowed upon many
of their male counterparts. Prestige associated with the com-
position of music in popular genres has not been explicitly
studied, but it is common for performers to compose their
own music either as solo artists or in small groups, and
recent studies have consistently found male domination of
the rankings of performers in terms of both position and
number appearing (North & Hargreaves, 1995, 1996).
The educational system has a powerful role to play in
encouraging gender equity in the development and recogni-
tion of musical skills. However, despite the stated position of
the English National Curriculum with respect to equality of
access for male and female pupils to all areas of the musical
curriculum (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority,
1999), it appears that gender differentiation remains in the
perceptions of both pupils and teachers. Girls have con-
tinued to take up tuition in greater numbers than boys,
although the kinds of instruments played by the two sexes
differ such that their qualities reflect stereotypically male
and female attributes (O’Neill & Boulton, 1996). Despite the
greater uptake of formal training by girls, males are per-
ceived to have more ability in composition by both pupils
and teachers (Green, 1997). Male domination in this area
has been assisted by the introduction of music technology,
which has opened up composition to those with less well
developed instrumental skills, and discouraged females, with
their lower interest in and experience with computers and other
forms of technology (Comber, Hargreaves & Colley, 1993).
One important question of clear relevance to the assess-
ment of musical skill and, more generally, to the potential
for women to receive recognition for talent as composers, is
whether stereotypical perceptions of compositional ability
favor males over females. Musical composition has not fea-
tured in studies of the evaluation of the performance of
males and females, although other creative tasks, such as
writing (e.g. Tanner, 1977) and art (e.g. Etaugh & Sanders,
1974; Lenney, Mitchell & Browning 1983), have received
attention. The research on performance evaluation in artistic
production and other areas such as vocational ability and
competence is difficult to digest due to variations in both
methodology and findings.
The seminal research in this area was undertaken by
Goldberg (1968) in a study of the evaluation by female par-
ticipants of supposed journal articles in the fields of art
history, education, dietetics, linguistics, law and city plan-
ning. The same journal articles were attributed in half the
cases to a fictitious male author (John McKay) and in the
other half to a female author (Joan McKay). The same
background information was provided for both authors,
with only the forename varied. The methodology has sub-
sequently become known as the Goldberg paradigm. The

© 2003 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. ISSN 0036-5564.

126 A. Colley et al.
overall finding has been widely reported as indicating a bias
toward evaluating the male author more positively. However,
Swim, Borgida and Maruyama (1989) have pointed out that
the results are less clear-cut: what they show is qualified
support for gender bias, particularly for articles concerning
masculine topics such as law and city planning.
Paludi and colleagues extended Goldberg’s findings by
adding a sexually ambiguous name which used initials rather
than a forename (Paludi & Bauer, 1983) and the ambiguous
forename of Chris (Paludi & Strayer, 1985). Their findings
indicated that male and female participants rated male
authors more favorably and female authors least favorably,
with the products of authors with ambiguous names receiv-
ing intermediate ratings. However, the nature of the articles
proved to be a relevant factor. The participants tended to
interpret ambiguous names in terms of the gender character-
istics of the articles, so that articles in masculine areas were
attributed to males and those in feminine areas to females.
Lower ratings were given when the ambiguous author was
believed to be female.
In addition to the sex stereotyping of the stimulus article
used, other factors, such as status and familiarity with the
field in question, have been found to influence bias in evalu-
ations. A study by Pheterson, Kiesler and Goldberg (1971)
found that paintings by a female artist were regarded less
positively than those by males only when they were pre-
sented as contest entries rather than contest winners. Ward
(1981) found that art students were more critical of the work
of a female artist than university students with no particular
expertise in art, who showed a slight positive bias. That status
influences evaluation is not particularly surprising, given the
literature on prestige effects (e.g. Crozier & Chapman, 1981).
The association of greater bias with greater expertise is
somewhat counterintuitive, since it might be expected that
greater familiarity would lead to a greater focus on the pro-
duct rather than the artist. However, as Ward concluded, for
those engaged with the area there may be some advantage in
devaluing women due to fears that their professional status
may be diminished by the inclusion of a lower-status minor-
ity in a prestigious group. In other words, those working in
the same area may have a vested interest in preserving the
status quo.
In order to obtain an overview of studies using the
Goldberg paradigm, Swim et al. (1989) undertook a meta-
analysis of 106 published articles. They concluded that average
differences between the ratings of the products or behaviors
of males and females are negligible, even when other factors
such as the sex of the raters or the year of publication were
taken into account. However, they acknowledged that evalu-
ations may be influenced by a number of factors of which
gender is only one, which might include the diagnosticity of
the material presented about the target and the nature of the
judgments required. While useful as an overall summary of
effect sizes, their findings inevitably throw little light upon
factors that might interact with gender in producing bias in
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Scand J Psychol 44 (2003)
judgments, due to wide variation in the methodology of
the studies used. The studies included in their meta-analysis
varied in the amount of information provided about the
fictitious target, from a name only to a resume or even a video.
They also varied according to the stimulus material used,
which could be articles, art, behaviors, resumes or biograph-
ies, and by whether a person or product was the target of the
ratings. Top’s (1991) review of performance evaluations in
creative areas drew attention to the complexity of any effect
of sex bias, and concluded that it is dependent upon charac-
teristics of the stimulus materials, the rater, the judgment
situation, and the nature of the judgments required.
One crucial variable in any study of the use of stereotypes
is the nature and amount of information provided about the
target. The literature distinguishes between stored informa-
tion about the characteristics of social categories, which pro-
duces stereotyping effects, and given information about an
individual, which may or may not be congruent with the
information within the stored category. Where both types
of information are present, they interact in the forming of
impressions or judgments and individuating information
can moderate or even negate the influence of stereotyping
(Deaux & Lewis, 1984; Eagly & Wood, 1982; Locksley,
Borgida, Brekke & Hepburn, 1980). However, in order to be
influential the individuating information must have diag-
nostic value for the judgment being made (Deaux & Lewis,
1984; Macrae, Shepherd & Milne, 1992). This body of
research suggests that stereotypes will be most likely to influ-
ence judgments when little or no relevant information is
available about an individual.
It is common in listening to music and in some assessment
situations that little information is provided about a com-
poser. This is particularly true at the start of musicians’
careers, before articles and interviews about them appear in
the music press. In some assessment situations anonymity is
used to prevent bias from arising. This may not be entirely
successful, however, when other information is available
which might be used to guess the gender of the person being
assessed. Studies of the anonymous marking of academic
work have found that handwriting style may be used to
attribute gender to the author (e.g. Hartley, 1992). In mu-
sical compositions similar attributions may be made for
stylistic features. Indeed, there is evidence that particular
features can invoke gender associations (Tagg, 1989) so it is
possible that such associations could influence assessors,
who may guess the sex of a composer when no identifying
information is present.
In examining possible anti-female bias in judgments of
music, the literature on stereotyping suggests that one
important variable may be the amount of information avail-
able about the composer. The study reported here, therefore,
used the Goldberg paradigm to examine judgments of con-
temporary compositions under conditions in which either
only the name of the composer was provided or a brief bio-
graphy was available in addition to the name. Anti-female

Scand J Psychol 44 (2003)
bias was predicted to be more likely to occur in the name-
only condition.
METHOD
Participants
Sixty-four undergraduate students (32 males, 32 females) with a
mean age of 19.5 years took part in the study. Approximately 50%
of the males and females had no formal training or recent musical
experience other than as listeners. The remainder had some com-
petence on a variety of instruments, either through formal lessons
or through being self-taught.
Design, materials and procedure
The design used three independent variables: sex of participant, sex
of fictitious composer, and amount of information provided about
the fictitious composer (name only or name plus brief biography).
Each participant was allocated to one of four groups on the basis
of the sex of the fictitious composers of the music to be rated and
the amount of information (names or biographies) provided. Equal
numbers of males and females were allocated to each group. The
music consisted of two 30-second extracts of music composed by
different musicians. The length of extract was chosen to be suffici-
ent for impressions of the music to be formed and was the same as
that used in past studies of musical preference (Baumann, 1960;
LeBlanc, Sims, Sivola & Obert, 1993). The contemporary genre
used in the study, New Age, was chosen for two main reasons: first,
vocal music would introduce the additional variable of sex of the
singer(s), so a genre was selected in which instrumental pieces are
common, and, second, the nature of New Age music, a great deal
of which has roots in the folk and classical traditions, has encour-
aged females to participate, so the genre does not have clear gender
associations. To illustrate the latter point, women were well rep-
resented in the recent Fourth Annual Music Awards from the
American magazine New Age Voice, winning awards for the categ-
ories of “Native American”, “Traditional World”, “Vocal”, “Celtic”
and “Top Radio Play” (New Age Voice, 2000). The extracts were
played through a standard stereo cassette player at constant volume
for all testing sessions. The two extracts were taken from work by
male and female artists, to control for possible differences in mu-
sical features, the source tracks being “Someone up there likes you”
by Simple Minds and “Mosaic” by Suzanne Cianni.
The participants’ responses were recorded in a three-page book-
let. The first page provided written instructions for the experiment
and asked for details of age, sex and musical training. The instruc-
tions stated that the study was examining how people judge styles
of music, and that participants would hear two pieces of music by
different New Age composers. Instructions were then given on how
to complete the response sheets on the next two pages. To ensure
that the details were clear, the instructions were also read aloud by
an experimenter. Pages 2 and 3 contained either the name or a short
biography of a fictitious male or female composer together with a
series of ten 10-point rating scales for the following positive attri-
butes: forceful, individualistic, innovative, warm, soothing, gentle,
technically competent, expressive, artistic merit, interesting. In addi-
tion, an item to assess their own liking of the extracts was used,
namely “How much do you like it?” The first six attributes listed
here were adapted from the Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem, 1974) so
as to be stereotypically masculine or feminine and applicable to
music. The remaining attributes were drawn from the research liter-
ature on musical aesthetics (e.g. Berlyne, 1971; North & Hargreaves,
1998). The scales were labeled at three points: 0, not at all; 5,
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Gender bias in evaluation of music 127
neutral; 10, very/very much. The presentation order of the music
and the name or description of the fictitious composers was bal-
anced across participants to counteract order effects and remove
consistent mapping between the fictitious composers and the musi-
cal extracts.
In the name-only condition, the participants were presented with
response sheets with the names of Klaus Behne and Simon Healy,
or Helena Behne and Sarah Healy, at the top. Both English and
European names were chosen to represent the international nature
of the genre. In the biography condition, the same names were used
followed by five-line descriptions of the family and musical back-
ground of musicians at relatively early stages of their careers. One
description was used for Klaus/Helena Behne and another for
Simon/Sarah Healy. No evaluation of the music was included in the
two descriptions. The participants were instructed to read each
response sheet while the music was playing but not to write until the
music had stopped. They were also asked to make a note if they
recognized the piece, but none did.
To control for any potential influence of the sex of the experi-
menter, male and female experimenters were present at all testing
sessions. Participants were not told at the start of the study that the
composers were fictitious, and so a full debriefing took place at the
end of the study and participants were invited to destroy their
response sheets if they wished. None chose to do so.
RESULTS
The responses of each participant for the two musical
extracts were averaged to provide an overall score on each
attribute for the condition to which they were allocated. All
attribute scores except those for “How much do you like it?”
were then analyzed using a 2 × 2 × 2 × 10 (sex of participant
× sex of composer × amount of information × rating scale)
MANOVA.
Females gave higher ratings than males on all attributes
except “forceful”, multivariate F(10, 46) = 2.35, p = 0.03, and
the biography produced higher ratings than the name-only
condition for seven out of the ten attributes, multivariate
F(10, 46) = 2.25, p = 0.03. In addition, the interaction
between sex of composer and amount of information
approached significance, F(10, 46) = 1.87, p = 0.07. This
interaction is shown in Fig. 1, and arises from the higher
ratings given to the music from the male composer in the
name-only condition on attributes that reflect musical quality.
In addition to the MANOVA, univariate ANOVAs were
conducted on each attribute. As already shown in the multi-
variate result, higher ratings were awarded by females than
males for a number of attributes: individualistic, F (1, 56) =
11.39, p = 0.001; innovative, F (1, 56) = 8.68, p = 0.005; tech-
nically competent, F (1, 56) = 6.97, p = 0.01; and soothing,
F (1, 56) = 4.16, p < 0.05. Near-significant results were also
obtained for expressive, F (1, 56) = 3.25, p = 0.08, and artistic
merit, F(1, 56) = 3.85, p = 0.06. In addition, interaction
effects were obtained for five attributes in which similar
ratings were given by both males and females in the biography
condition, while in the name-only condition females gave
higher, and males lower, ratings (see Fig. 2). Three of these
were significant – innovative, F(1, 56) = 4.16, p = 0.05; express-
ive, F (1, 56) = 6.52, p = 0.01; interesting, F(1, 56) = 3.94,

128 A. Colley et al.
Fig. 1. Mean ratings of music from male and female composers for the 10 descriptive attributes used in the study in (a) the biography
condition and (b) the name-only condition.
p = 0.05 – while the remaining two just failed to reach signi-
ficance – individualistic, F(1, 56) = 3.52, p = 0.07, and artistic
merit, F(1, 56) = 2.84, p = 0.09.
A univariate ANOVA was also conducted on the ratings
given for “How much do you like it?”, which revealed
higher ratings by females and lower ratings by males for the
name-only condition, F(1, 56) = 6.51, p = 0.01 (see Fig. 2f ),
suggesting a link between liking of the music and ratings of
other attributes in the name-only condition. The MANOVA
and ANOVAs were repeated, therefore, with “liking” used
as a covariate. The tendency for females to give higher,
and males lower, ratings in the name-only condition was
no longer present. The multivariate analysis again showed
higher ratings from females, multivariate F(10, 45) = 2.04,
p = 0.05, with the univariate analyses achieving significance
for individualistic, F(1, 55) = 9.36, p = 0.003, innovative,
F(1, 55) = 7.51, p = 0.008, and technically competent, F(1, 55)
= 4.57, p = 0.04. The biography condition again produced
higher ratings than the name-only condition, multivariate
F(10, 45) = 2.22, p = 0.03, with a significant univariate result
for forceful, F(1, 55) = 6.65, p = 0.01. The effect shown in
Fig. 1 for ratings of musical quality to be higher for male
composers than female composers in the name-only con-
dition achieved significance, multivariate F(10, 45) = 2.15,
p = 0.04, with a significant univariate interaction for inter-
esting, F(1, 55) = 4.20, p = 0.04.
DISCUSSION
Some evidence was found for anti-female bias in this study,
in that there was a tendency for higher ratings on adjectives
relating to musical competence to be given to music by male
composers in the name-only condition. The covariance
analyses revealed slightly stronger effects of bias due to
composer gender, indicating that control of other relevant
variables is important in examining aesthetic judgments. The
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Scand J Psychol 44 (2003)
interaction between composer gender and amount of informa-
tion revealed a tendency for the music from the female
composers to be given higher ratings on a number of adject-
ives in the biography rather than in the name-only condi-
tion. The nature of the effect is in accordance with the kind
of stereotyping effect which might be predicted from the
literature, that is, where no information other than social
category is provided, there is greater pro-male bias.
In addition to the main finding relating to composer gen-
der, unexpected findings associated with the sex of the raters
emerged. The results revealed a general tendency for females
to give higher ratings, even when liking was controlled for,
and this issue warrants further exploration in the context of
artistic assessment, as it represents another potential source
of bias. The results also highlighted the importance of con-
sidering how much assessors like the material they are
assessing. The analyses which did not control for liking
revealed significant and near-significant interactions
between the sex of the raters and the amount of information
provided for many of the attributes. Both males and females
gave similar ratings in the biography condition, but females
gave higher ratings and males lower ratings in the name-only
condition for “innovative”, “expressive”, “interesting”,
“individualistic” and “artistic merit”. The attributes con-
cerned all relate to the quality of the composition. However,
the ratings for “How much do you like it?” followed the
same pattern, indicating a strong link between judgments of
quality and liking. Therefore, in the absence of individuating
information about the composer, females tended to like the
compositions more than males and rate their quality more
highly.
The most likely interpretation of this result is that, in the
name-only condition, liking of the music was a more import-
ant contributor to judgments of quality than in the bio-
graphy condition, in which background information about
the composer could be used. There is substantial evidence of
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Scand J Psychol 44 (2003) Gender bias in evaluation of music 129

Fig. 2. Means of the ratings given by male and female participants in the name-only and biography conditions for the following attributes:
(a) individualistic, (b) innovative, (c) expressive, (d) artistic merit, (e) interesting, and (f ) “How much do you like it?”.

© 2003 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations.


130 A. Colley et al.
gender differences in liking of musical styles. For example,
Hargreaves, Comber and Colley (1995) found that girls in
the 11–12 and 15 –16 age groups showed stronger liking than
boys for a number of styles, including reggae, jazz, classical,
opera, folk and chart pop. Boys showed stronger liking for
rock and heavy metal. Similar findings were obtained in earl-
ier studies (e.g. Christenson & Peterson, 1988). Folk, chart
pop and classical, all of which are liked more by females, are
closest in style to New Age music. An association between
liking of music and ratings of its quality has intuitive appeal
and is supported by previous research by North and
Hargreaves (1996), who found highly significant correlations
between art works nominated as “favorite” and “greatest”.
In summary, the unexpected findings from this study, of
higher ratings from females, and of an association between
liking for the stimulus material with higher ratings of quality
in the name-only condition, both have potentially important
implications for the assessment of creative products and
warrant further investigation with genres with different gen-
der associations (e.g. heavy metal). If gender differences in
preferences for different musical genres produce different
patterns of liking, which are in turn associated with quality
ratings, this should be taken into account in designing pro-
cedures for formal assessment. As for the main focus of the
study, other investigators (e.g. Archer, 1992; Swim et al.,
1989; Top, 1991) have concluded that, since gender bias can
be demonstrated under certain conditions, the challenge is
to identify the moderating variables.
Two limitations of our study are the use of only one mu-
sical style and short musical extracts. Although our particip-
ants were able to make the required judgments, it might be
argued that the use of short extracts would encourage stereo-
typing effects by providing relatively little musical experi-
ence of a composer’s work. While further work with a wider
range of musical styles and longer exposure is necessary
before any sweeping conclusions can be drawn, we have
found evidence of greater pro-male bias in evaluations of
compositions attributed to male and female composers
under a condition in which little information about the
composers was available. The effect was stronger when liking
of the stimulus material was taken into account.
As other researchers have pointed out, even slight bias can
have a substantial impact upon outcome, particularly when
few opportunities for advancement exist (Archer, 1992; Top,
1991). Relatively few musicians achieve eminence, and a high
level of selectivity operates in entry to musical careers. Top
(1991) discussed the resistance of sex stereotypes to change
and our results add weight to her conclusion that, rather
than attempt to counter these, it may be more productive to
design “judgment procedures and contexts that minimize
their influence” (p. 103).
The assistance of Steve Barrett, Helen Davies and Heather Myles in
data collection is gratefully acknowledged. Preparation of the study
was assisted by grant reference no. SOC(100)/197 from the Nuffield
Foundation.
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Scand J Psychol 44 (2003)
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Received 29 August 2001, accepted 7 December 2001