PS3017 Psychology of Music

Liking for music

The problem music debate
Music and commerce

http://www.le.ac.uk/pc/acn5/acn.html
 WARNING!!!
 Course changed in 2005-6
 Ignore questions on earlier past papers set by
Mike Beauvois about auditory stream segregation
etc.
 You can trust questions on past papers about

musical preference, music and commerce, and the

problem music debate
 Questions this year will all be on these topics
Examples of typical exam questions
 Questions as per past papers still very likely
 Evaluation of Berlyne’s theory as a complete theory of musical preference, what
are the effects of music in shops, does problem music pose a problem for society?
 Newer, more detailed, questions now possible also
 What factors specific to the individual can explain responses to music?
 How is a listener’s age and / or personality related to his / her musical preference?
 What have economics and business studies contributed to our understanding of
what music becomes popular?
 How does music affect customers in commercial environments?
 Discuss whether musical behaviour is a product of intra- and inter-group processes
 Is the idolisation of musicians a good or a bad thing for the fans concerned?
 Should pop music be subject to censorship?
 No nasty surprises
 i.e. no questions based on one or two slides only
 Only ‘big’ topics lead to questions
How to get high marks
 Lots of extra reading
 i.e. not just book chapters but LOTS of papers (and demonstrate that you’ve read them)
 Read up to date material (so use Psyc-info)
 Dip into other subjects (since much of the material can be found on ASSIA, Business
Source Premier, Medline, Econlit etc.)
 Think
 How do different theories relate to each other, what are the limitations of existing areas
of research, how can the findings be applied in the real world (e.g. policy, commerce,
therapy etc.)
 Demonstrate it in the exam
 Don’t worry too much about names and dates of minor studies
 You should know names and dates for big theories
 Spend revision time thinking and reading and NOT learning names and publication
dates of minor studies
 It’s safe to criticise my research
 But only if you must!
Plan of the module
 Three ‘big’ topics spread over the lectures
 Liking for music
 Problem music, censorship, and subculture
 Music and commerce
Liking for music
What music do you like?
 Who is your favourite musician and why?
 Many different reasons
What music do you like?
 Who is your favourite musician and why?
 Many different reasons
 North and Hargreaves (2002)
 Channel 4 Television, The Guardian, and HMV
 ‘Who are the three best pop groups / musicians?’
 12502 people responded leading to over 37,000 nominations
 The Beatles (2289), Bob Dylan (1038), Oasis (937),
Radiohead (921), Pink Floyd (718), David Bowie (571), Van
Morrison (523), Stone Roses (475), U2 (444), Nirvana (437)
 Same top 10 when divided into two random piles or by region
 What music do you like? (cont.)
 Farnsworth (1969) and
classical music fashions 1938 1944
Year of Poll
1951 1964
1 Bach 1 Bach 1 Beethoven 1 Bach
 Broad agreement on ‘the 2 Beethoven 2 Beethoven 2 Bach 2 Beethoven
3 Wagner 3 Mozart 3 Brahms 3 Mozart
greatest’ shows there 4
5
Mozart
Palestrina
4
5
Wagner
Haydn
4
5
Haydn
Mozart
4
5
Haydn
Brahms
must be rules governing 6
7
Haydn
Brahms
6=
6=
Brahms
Palestrina
6=
6=
Schubert
Debussy
6
7
Handel
Debussy
reactions to music 8
9
Monteverdi
Debussy
8
9
Schubert
Handel
8
9
Handel
Wagner
8
9
Schubert
Wagner
10 Schubert 10 Debussy 10 Palestrina 10 Chopin
 Massive disagreement 11 Handel 11 Chopin 11 Chopin 11 Monteverdi
12 Chopin 25 Monteverdi 15 Monteverdi 12 Palestrina
between individuals
shows that these rules
must be complicated!
Liking for music
 The music  Extra-musical information
 Berlyne  Conformity effects
 Preference for prototypes
 Berlyne vs. prototypes
 Informational influence
 Physical attractiveness
 The situation
 Konečni’s work  Music in everyday life
 Prototypicality and
appropriateness
 The individual
 Age
 Non-human animals
 Gender
 Social class
 Personality
The music
Berlyne’s theory
 Inverted-U between liking and arousal
potential
 Three aspects of music mediate
arousal
 Psychophysical (e.g. tempo), ecological
(e.g. memories), collative (e.g.
familiarity, complexity)
 Why?
 On way to cortex the fibres of the RAS
pass through pleasure and displeasure
centres
 Pleasure centre has lower threshold and
asymptotic level
 Makes adaptive sense – something
very arousing could be dangerous
 Try it for yourself
Evidence for Berlyne’s theory
 Several lab studies support Berlyne’s theory
 ‘Real world’ evidence
 Unfamiliar music is often derided at first
 Classical, jazz, and pop
 Erdelyi (1940)
 Sales of sheet music (i.e. liking) and radio plugging (i.e. familiarity)
 Inverted-U relationship
 Plugging (i.e. changes in familiarity) preceded sales (i.e. changes in liking) by 13 days
 Jakobovits (1966)
 Inverted-U between sales and plugging
 Frequency of plugging predicted the speed of rise and fall in popularity
 Simonton (1987)
 Inverted-U in Beethoven’s work between popularity (e.g. concert performances) and ‘two-note
transition probabilities’
 Simonton (1980; 1986)
 String quartet music is most complex, operas are least complex
 Composers compensate for arousal from the number of instruments by writing different types of
melody
The relationship between liking,
familiarity and complexity
 Familiarity reduces subjective complexity
 As you know a piece better it’s easier to
predict what it will do next
 Increasing familiarity pushes a song left-
wards on the inverted-U
 Might explain
 Slower sales charts for classical than pop
 Why people hate modern classical music
 Why musically trained people like classical
music more
Familiarity, complexity, and The Beatles
Berlyne and emotional responses
to music
Preference for prototypes
 Prototypicality is the extent to which a given stimulus is
typical of it’s class
 People classify things more easily if they correspond with
a prototype
 Prototypical things should be preferred because they are
classified more easily
 Try it for yourself
 Prototypicality explains preference better than does
Berlyne
 Martindale and Moore (1989) found 4% complexity and 51% prototypicality
 Seven other studies found the same
Berlyne versus prototypes?
 BUT just because prototypicality explains more we shouldn’t
discard Berlyne’s theory
 Importance of typicality and ‘Berlynian’ factors in preference depends on the
extent to which the music varies in these
 E.g. different dance music tracks vary little in arousal (i.e. >90 bpm, simple
melody etc.)
 Prototypicality has to explain more of variance in liking between the different
tracks than does complexity
 Variations in arousal are also variations in prototypicality
 E.g. dance is usually fast tempo so any variation in this Berlynian factor (i.e.
tempo) also influences the extent to which any given track is typical of ‘dance
music’
 Variations in any factor are also variations in prototypicality
 E.g. the music you listen to has a typical level of arousal, typical frequency of
mentioning ‘dog’ in the lyrics etc.
 Prototypicality is a broader-ranging variable than arousal so it has to explain more
The listening situation
Konecni’s theory
 Berlyne said we prefer music that causes
moderate arousal
 Konečni (1982) said that we prefer music that
moderates arousal evoked by the situation
 Arousing situations = simple music
 Dull situations = arousing music
 Insulted subjects prefer simple music
 Works in reverse also
 People played arousing (i.e. loud, complex) music are more
aggressive
 They use the situation to moderate arousal caused by the music
Prototypicality and appropriateness
 Is arousal moderation everything?
 Appropriateness = typical of music usually heard in a given
place
 Positive relationship between liking and appropriateness
 Arousal goals rather than moderation in the listening situation
 North and Hargreaves (2000)
 People either ride an exercise bike or relax and then select music
 Arousal moderation strategy as per Konečni
 People either ride an exercise bike or relax while selecting music
 Arousal polarising strategy
 Situational arousal-based goal determines preference
 Explains why we like loud music in a gym but turn down car radio in
heavy traffic
The individual
 Age
 Open-earedness
 Critical periods
 The unborn
 Non-human animals
 Animal welfare
 Musical preferences
 Gender
 Attitudes towards music
 Preferences
 Uses of music
 Social class
 Personality
 Introversion / extraversion
 Sensation-seeking
 Conservatism
 Rebelliousness
Age
 LeBlanc and ‘open-earedness’
 Tolerance for a range of styles
 ‘(a) younger children are more open-eared, (b) open-earedness
declines as the child enters adolescence, (c) there is a partial
rebound of open-earedness as the listener matures from
adolescence to young adulthood, and (d) open-earedness declines
as the listener matures to old age’ (LeBlanc, 1991, p.2)
 LeBlanc, Sims, Siivola, and Obert (1993)
 Preference judgements from 2262 6-91 year olds for 30-second
recordings of ‘art music’, trad jazz, and rock
 Generally conformed the model for overall responses, and within
each of the three styles
 There was an ‘adolescent dip’ in preference, followed by an increase
towards adulthood, and a final decrease in preference in old age
Age
 Two problems …
1. Why should there be an ‘adolescent dip’?
2. Is there only an ‘adolescent dip’ for music chosen by researchers?
 North and Hargreaves (1999)
 Five age groups nominate and rate liking for as many types of a) rock
and pop b) classical music and c) jazz as possible
 Unsurprisingly, younger people liked rock and pop, older people
preferred classical and jazz
 BUT mean liking was consistent across all age groups
 When people select their own music to respond to the adolescent (and
any other) dip disappears
 Rather different age groups simply have their own musical preferences
 Leads onto the next age-related influence on musical preference …
Age
 Here is a list of pop musicians who have
all had a British number 1 single between
1955 and 1994. Pick a few that you like
best …
Perry Como, The Dave Clarke Five, Mud, Wham, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, The Searchers, The
Rubettes, Frankie Laine, The Bachelors, The Three Degrees, A-Ha, Guy Mitchell, Cilla Black, David
Essex, George Michael, Peter & Gordon, Status Quo, Rosemary Clooney, U2, Bill Haley & His
Comets, The Animals, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, Chaka Khan, Pat Boone, The Rolling Stones,
Slik, Sister Sledge, B-52s, Tommy Steele, Manfred Mann, The Bay City Rollers, T’Pau, Frankie
Vaughan, Lonnie Donegan, The Kinks, David Bowie, Eurythmics, Herman’s Hermits, Elvis Presley,
The Supremes, The Four Seasons, Madonna, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Moody Blues, Whitney Houston,
Leo Sayer, Pet Shop Boys, Paul Anka, The Righteous Brothers, Hot Chocolate, The Everly Brothers,
Wings, The Hollies, Mel & Kim, Kate Bush, Conway Twitty, Sandie Shaw, The Commodores,
M/A/R/R/S, The Byrds, Shirley Bassey, Russ Conway, KLF, Walker Brothers, The Spencer Davis
Group, Boney M, Dusty Springfield, Wet Wet Wet, Buddy Holly, Georgie Fame, 2 Unlimited, Cliff
Richard, The Small Faces, Whigfield, Blondie, The Boomtown Rats, Bobby Darin, The Troggs, Gary
Numan, Adam Faith, The Shadows, The Four Tops, Take That, Joe Cocker, Marvin Gaye, The
Police, Anthony Newley, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Ace Of Base, Johnny Preston, The Beach
Boys, Eddie Cochran, Bryan Adams, Mungo Jerry, The Wonder Stuff, Jimmy Jones, Simon &
Garfunkel, Snap, Ricky Valance, The Monkees, Dr. Hook, The Specials, Dr. Alban, Dave Dee, Dozy,
Beaky, Mick & Tich, The Jam, Seal, Roy Orbison, Smokey Robinson, Dexy’s Midnight Runners,
Petula Clark, Jimi Hendrix, Aswad, Roxy Music, The Marcels, Black Box, T-Rex, Floyd Cramer, Rod
Stewart, Bros, Slade, The Temperance Seven, Adam & The Ants, Enya, Kylie Minogue, Del
Shannon, Don McLean, Donny Osmond, Michael Jackson, Soft Cell, Simple Minds, The Bangles,
Helen Shapiro, Human League, Kraftwerk, David Cassidy, Ray Charles, Sinead O’Connor, Madness,
The Tornados, Lisa Stansfield, Frank Ifield, Culture Club, Kajagoogoo, The Searchers, Sweet,
Vanilla Ice, The Stylistics, Gerry & The Pacemakers, Enigma, The Beatles, James, Duran Duran,
The Waterboys, 10cc, Brian Poole & The Tremeloes, Terry Jacks, Roxette, Billy Joel, Wizzard,
Danny Williams, Eden Kane, Spandau Ballet, Paul Young, Craig Douglas, Men At Work, Mariah
Carey, Buck’s Fizz, Erasure, Boyz II Men, Peters & Lee, The Platters, Shakin’ Stevens, Brian &
Michael, Tasmin Archer, Gary Glitter, Tommy Edwards, Chicory Tip, Brotherhood Of Man, Gabrielle
, David Soul, Vic Damone, Thunderclap Newman, Culture Beat, Harry Belafonte, Manhattan
Transfer, Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince, Haddaway, John Denver, Andy Williams, Marmalade, Janet
Jackson, The Teenagers, Alvin Stardust, Dickie Valentine, Engelbert Humperdinck, Chaka Demus &
Pliers, Sonny & Cher, Jason Donovan, Glenn Medeiros, Rick Astley
Age and critical periods
 North and Hargreaves (1995)
 9-10 years, 14-15 years, 18-24 years, 25-49 years, and 50+
years
 All shown the same list of 200 pop groups and singers who
had all enjoyed a number 1 single in the United Kingdom
charts
 50 had had their first number 1 between 1955 and 1964, 50
had had their first number 1 between 1965 and 1974 etc.
 Choose up to 30 from the list “who in your own personal
opinion have performed music that deserves to be called to
the attention of others”
50+ year olds
10. Petula Clarke = 3. Perry Como /
9. The Bachelors Shirley Bassey / Cliff
8. The Shadows Richard / Harry
Belafonte / Andy
Williams
2. Simon & Garfunkel
1. The Beatles
25-49 year olds
10. U2 5=. Eurythmics / Rolling
9. The Beach Boys Stones
8. Jimi Hendrix 4. Elvis Presley
7. The Police 3. Simon & Garfunkel
2. David Bowie
1. The Beatles
18-24 year olds
10. Rolling Stones 5. Eurythmics
9. George Michael 4. Elvis Presley
8. The Police 3. Madness
7. Jimi Hendrix 2. U2
6. Madonna 1. The Beatles
14-15 year olds
9=. U2 / Take That 5. Bryan Adams
8. Haddaway 4. Elvis Presley
7. Whitney Houston 1=. Madonna / Wet Wet
Wet / The Beatles
9-10 year olds
10=. Take That / Janet 5. Pet Shop Boys
Jackson 3=. The Beatles / Elvis
9. Jazzy Jeff & The Presley
Fresh Prince 2. Wet Wet Wet
8. Ace of Base 1. 2 Unlimited
6=. Madonna / Michael
Jackson
Age
 ‘Golden greats’ always do well but late
adolescence / early adulthood critical period
 Further evidence from North and Hargreaves
(2002)
 12502 people nominated the greatest musician (from HMV,
The Guardian, and Channel 4)
 Calculated the mean year in which people’s nominated
musicians achieved their first top 10 UK album
 Late adolescence / early adulthood critical period
 Under 19 year olds =1990, 19-34 year olds = 1983, 35-54
year olds = 1975, 55+ year olds = 1971
Age
 Holbrook and Schindler agree
 “Preferences toward popular music appear to reflect tastes
acquired during late adolescence or early adulthood”. (Holbrook
and Schindler, 1989, p.119)
 They find the same for preferences for movies (Holbrook and
Schindler, 1996), the appearances of male and female movie stars
(Holbrook and Schindler, 1994), males’ preferences for automobile
styles (Schindler and Holbrook, 2003), mens’ tastes in female
fashion models’ personal appearance (Schindler and Holbrook,
1993), and among 21 other categories such as novels, talk-show
hosts, soft drinks, cereals, and toothpastes (Holbrook, 1995).
 Haack’s (1988) nominations of the top 10 songs of all time (1945-
1982) showed preference for music that was popular while
participants were in their mid-20s
Age
 Why? At least three possibilities …
 1. Analogous to imprinting
 Young animals at a critical stage in their development form a strong
and irreversible attachment to a parent
 Late adolescence / early adulthood period represents a time of
maximal sensitivity toward and liking for any music that we might
hear
 2. Peer influences or associations with certain rites of passage
 3. Nostalgia
 Holbrook’s notion of ‘nostalgia-proness’ (e.g. ‘Things used to be
better in the old days’, ‘Things are getting worse all the time’)
 Preferences for movie stars and movies both showed an earlier age-
related peak among nostalgia-prone participants than among those
scoring lower on this variable
Age
 Two final points about critical periods …
 Peak liking may be not for music released at this time
but instead for music we first became aware of during
late adolescence / early adulthood
 May explain enduring popularity of Elvis and The Beatles -
their music was present during everyone’s critical period
 Only way for critical periods research to explain how we like
music released before we were adolescent (e.g. most
classical music!)
 Certainly explains the common observation that
“today’s pop music is rubbish compared with that of
{insert year of your choice}”
Age
 Music in the womb
 Hepper (1991)
 Experiment 1 - newborns
 Newborns exposed to the theme of a popular TV programme (e.g.
Neighbours) during gestation exhibited changes in heart rate, number of
movements, and behavioural state two to four days after birth (although
these effects disappeared by 21 days of age)
 Experiment 2 – third trimester foetuses
 Foetuses between 29 and 37 weeks of gestational age exhibited changes in
their movements when they were played a tune they had already heard
earlier during pregnancy
 Effects in both experiments were specific to the music heard previously
rather than to any music
 Foetus is not simply responding to an external stimulant, but has instead
learnt the specific music
Age
 Shahidullah and Hepper (1993)
 foetus will first respond to acoustic stimulation at 20 weeks of gestational
age
 Lecanuet, Graniere-Deferre, Jacquet, and DeCasper (2000)
 foetuses at 36-39 weeks could distinguish different piano notes
 Responses to music develop while in the womb
 Shahidullah and Hepper (1994)
 foetuses at 35 weeks could better distinguish pure tone frequencies than
could foetuses at 27 weeks
 Kisilevsky, Hains, Jacquet, Granier-Deferre, and Lecanuet (2004)
 Foetuses at 28-32 weeks showed an increase in heart rate to Brahms’ Lullaby
played at 105 or 110 decibels
 Over time the foetuses reacted to quieter music
 Older foetuses are better able to pay attention to music
Age
 Implications of music in the womb
 Development post-birth (Lafuente, Grifol, Segarra, Soriano, Gorba, and
Montesinos, 1998)
 Pre-natal music can have a positive impact on a child’s post-natal development.
 Women in the last third of their pregnancy wore a waistband containing loudspeakers
connected to a tape recorder
 After birth the mothers then noted the age at which their babies developed a range of
behaviours (e.g. gross and fine motor activities, linguistic development)
 Those exposed to the music developed earlier
 We need a broad definition of ‘music listening’ and ‘musical preference’
 Not just teenagers listening to iPods in their bedrooms
 Medical implications
 Understanding of the development of hearing and the early detection of deafness
 Hepper and Shahidullah (1992) - the rate of habituation to a foetal auditory stimulus
may discriminate children who will from those who will not be born with Down’s
syndrome
 If music learning occurs mid-pregnancy then implications for abortion law?
Non-human animals
 Well-known ethological research on birdsong
 i.e. functions (e.g. territory marking) and learning (e.g.
regional accents)
 Research aimed at understanding human
perception of music has considered how animals
use and perceive music
 Growing evidence concerning specifically how
non-human animals react to music
 impact of music on animal welfare
 the existence and modification of musical preferences in non-
human animals
Non-human animals
 Animal welfare
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/4665252.stm
 Consistent with Konečni’s arousal moderation
 Calming music may counteract the stress of captivity
 Wells, Graham, and Hepper (2002)
 Human conversation, classical music (most soothing), heavy
metal music (least soothing), pop music, and a control to 50
dogs in an animal rescue shelter
 Classical music led to the dogs spending more time resting,
more time quiet, and less time standing - behaviours
“suggestive of relaxation” (p.385)
 Heavy metal led to the dogs spending more time barking
Non-human animals
 North, MacKenzie, and Hargreaves (unpublished)
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1408434.stm
 Fast and slow tempo music to dairy cows in crowded winter shelters
 Milk yield indicates well-being
 3% higher yield in the slow than the fast music condition
 McCarthy, Ouimet, and Daun (1992)
 Exposing rats to stimulating rock music reduced ability to heal
wounds
 Peretto and Kippschull (1991)
 Played music to mice over two weeks
 “(1) classical music produced more interaction … (4) easy listening
increased huddling; and (5) rock tended to increase aggression but
decrease sexual activity” (p.51)
Non-human animals
 Two other studies harder to explain in terms of Konečni still show
welfare effects
 Uetakea, Hurnika, and Johnson (1997)
 19 cows over a 69 day period
 The number of cows accessing milking compartments of an automatic milking
machine increased from 22.3% in the absence of music up to 45.0% when music
was played
 Line, Markowitz, Morgan, and Strong (1991)
 Increasing the cage size of macaques was ineffective for welfare relative to the
provision of music under their control
 Many captive animals now given artistic activities
 Henley (1992) talks about captive apes, elephants, and dolphins
 BUT
 Cloutier, Weary, and Fraser (2000, p.107)
 Music did not improve condition of piglets during handling and weaning
Non-human animals
 Musical preferences exist in non-humans
 McDermott and Hauser (2004)
 Tamarin monkeys have sound preferences
 Different to those of humans exposed to the same materials
 King, West, and White (2003)
 Adult and juvenile female cowbirds’ preferences for different
types of birdsong could be modified
 Okaichi and Okaichi (2001)
 Rats could discriminate the original from a version of Yesterday
performed by one of the experimenters
 Could distinguish the music of Mozart
 Could distinguish music and white noise
Non-human animals
 Payne (2000)
 Songs of humpback whales arise through improvisation rather than by
accident or as conveyors of information
 Clear musical thematic structure
 McAdie, Foster, Temple, and Matthews (1993)
 Hens could distinguish between music, and the sounds of a water-
hose, poultry, and a train
 Porter, Reed, and Neuringer (1984)
 Pigeons could discriminate between Bach flute music and Hindemith
viola music, and between Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and a Bach
organ piece amongst others
 College students responded similarly
 “The pigeon’s response to complex auditory events may be more like
the human's than is often assumed” (p.138).
Non-human animals
 Non-humans have responses to music that are not very
dissimilar from those of humans
 Implications
 For music psychology
 How and why do these apparent preferences emerge?
 Does music help welfare because of aesthetic effects or simply by
masking background noise?
 For research on animals
 Are we really experimenting on inferior ‘dumb animals’?
 For the food business
 Happy animals taste better: if music does help then what music is
best?
 But non-vegetarians may be eating a Coldplay fan for dinner tonight
Gender
 Evidence on three aspects
 Attitudes, preferences, uses of music
 Females have more positive attitudes and participate more
 North, Hargreaves, and O’Neill (2000)
 2465 13-14 year olds asked do you play an instrument
 64.7% of the musicians were female, 35.3% were male
 Eccles, Wigfield, Harold, and Blumenfeld (1993)
 Girls regard themselves as more musically-competent than do boys
 Colley, Comber, and Hargreaves (1994)
 Liking for school music lessons in 11-13 year olds was associated with higher
Femininity scores on Boldizar’s Children’s Sex Role Inventory
 Comber, Hargreaves, and Colley (1993)
 This pattern may be changing
 Boys are more positive than girls in their attitudes towards music technology
 More music technology in National Curriculum
Gender
 No short-term differences in preference for individual
pieces of music
 Sopchack (1955) - men and women were equally responsive to
music
 Over the long-term, females prefer ‘softer’ musical styles
 North and Hargreaves (2005)
 Survey of 2532 people aged 12-85 years
 Females disproportionately liked chart pop, disco, musicals
 Males disproportionately liked rock and rap
 Same results from other studies (e.g. Robinson, Weaver, and
Zillmann, 1996; Took and Weiss, 1994)
 Why the long-term difference?
Gender
 Is this a reason why you like your favourite music?
Please answer yes or no
 To enjoy the music
 To help me get through difficult times
 To be trendy or cool
 To create an image for myself
 To express my feelings / emotions
 To please or impress my friends
 To reduce loneliness
Gender
 Gender differences in uses of music
 North, Hargreaves, O’Neill (2000)
 Why do you listen to music?
 Males ‘create an impression to others’ (e.g. ‘to be cool’, ‘create an image
for myself’)
 Females ‘satisfy emotional needs’ (e.g. ‘express my emotions’, ‘get
through difficult times’, ‘reduce tension and stress’)
 Generally, gender is studied little in its own right
 Usually only in terms of interaction with other factors
 Gender is a red herring
 Other factors explain much more
 E.g. the situation – even though they’re female, women in the gym listen
to loud, fast music not slow, quiet music
 E.g. age – even though a male, my Dad hated heavy rock
Social class
 Sociologists in 1960s and 1970s argued for massification
 Homogeneity reduces financial risk to music industry
 Others (e.g. Bourdieu, 1971; 1984) argued for
diversification
 Upper social classes control means of cultural production
 They ‘legitimise’ some art and not other art
 They preserve legitimised art for themselves (e.g. classical music)
 In practical terms
 Upper social classes should like classical music and opera more
 Musical taste in determined by your position in society
 Led to research on ‘taste publics’
 A socioeconomic sub-group of the population who share particular
tastes
Social class
 Taste publics defined by social class (e.g. income) are
linked to musical preference
 Fox and Wince (1975)
 ‘Jazz-blues’ taste public related positively to hometown size, father’s
education and occupation, and being atheist, agnostic, or Jewish
 Dimaggio and Useem (1978)
 In past 12 months 18% of professionals had attended a symphony concert
versus 4% of manual workers
 North and Hargreaves’ (2005) lifestyle survey found day-to-day
evidence for this
 e.g. access to financial resources (e.g. credit cards), spending on food,
drinking wine (rather than beer etc.), education (e.g. PhDs), choice of radio
stations, choice of TV programmes etc.
Social class
 Criticisms of research on taste publics
 They are poorly-defined and hypothetical
 “Surely, nobody is able to stake out the actual taste publics of heavy
metal, reggae, or folk music” (Zillmann and Gan, 1997, p.172)
 Patterns of legitimation are changing constantly
 e.g. jazz used to be regarded as a type of pop music
 The research therefore gets outdated very quickly
 Hard to think of acclaimed music that does not satisfy both
legitimate, high-brow aesthetic and non-legitimate, low brow
aesthetic
 ‘Great music’ tends to have artistic value and also to sell by the
truckload
Personality
 Not researched much
 The role of music in personality has not been
addressed
 i.e. we sometimes listen to a particular piece to

express a trait and sometimes to compensate for

that same trait (e.g. listen to aggressive music to
pump us up further or as catharsis)
 Therefore some traits (e.g. extraversion) do not

always lead reliably to particular musical

preferences
Personality
 Other factors more clear-cut and imply reflection of personality
rather than compensation
 Sensation-seeking
 The need for varied, novel, and complex experiences, and the willingness to
take physical and social risks for the sake of obtaining such experiences
 Links to liking for heavy music
 Which tends to be loud and fast, to deal with risqué themes in its lyrics, and
to be the subject of visually dynamic live performances
 e.g. Arnett, 1991, 1992 Kim, Kwak, and Chang, 1998; McNamara and
Ballard, 1999
 Litle and Zuckerman (1986)
 High sensation seekers also more likely to get emotionally involved with
music
Personality
 Conservatism
 i.e. anti-abortion, death penalty etc.
 Another instance of reflection of personality rather than compensation
for it
 People low on conservatism prefer ‘problem music’ styles such as rock and
rap
 McLeod, Detenber, and Eveland (2001)
 Participants with conservative attitudes were most likely to support music
censorship: participants who listened to ‘problem’ music lyrics did not
support their censorship
 Lynxwiler and Gay (2000)
 Participants who held conservative attitudes toward sexuality and those who
attended religious services disliked heavy metal and rap
 Glasgow and Cartier (1985)
 Conservatives prefer simple, familiar, and ‘safe’ artistic objects
Personality
 Rebelliousness and heavy metal / rap fans
 Another instance of reflection of personality rather than compensation
for it
 Robinson, Weaver, and Zillmann (1996)
 Undergraduates who scored highly on measures of psychoticism and
reactive rebelliousness enjoyed rebellious videos more than did participants
who scored low on these factors
 Bleich, Zillmann, and Weaver (1991)
 Highly rebellious participants consumed less non-defiant rock music
 Dillmann-Carpentier, Knobloch, and Zillmann (2003)
 Liking for defiant music was related to forms of rebelliousness
Personality
 Factors indicative of rebelliousness give rise to similar results
 McCown, Keiser, Mulhearn, and Williamson (1997)
 Psychoticism related to a preference for music with ‘exaggerated bass’
 Hansen and Hansen (1991)
 Heavy metal fans were higher on ‘Machiavellianism’ and ‘machismo’, and were lower on
measures of need for cognition than were non-fans
 Hansen and Hansen (1990)
 Experimental exposure to antisocial music videos increased participants’ tolerance of
antisocial behaviour (i.e. an obscene hand gesture) as compared with exposure to non-
antisocial videos.
 Yee et al (1988)
 Heavy metal fans have positive attitudes to pre-marital sex, drug and alcohol use, and
satanism
 Trostle (1986)
 Heavy metal fans have greater belief in witchcraft and the occult
 Arnett (1991)
 Heavy metal fans more prone to dangerous driving, shoplifting, and vandalism
Extra-musical information
Compliance effects
Informational influence effects
Compliance effects
 Some evidence that listeners will ‘go along’ with the musical judgements of the
majority
 Radocy (1975)
 Music students played a ‘standard tone’ and then three comparisons
 Four confederates answer first (sometimes incorrectly)
 Conformity to incorrect confederates on 30% of trials involving pitch judgements and 49% of
volume judgement trials
 Furman and Duke (1988)
 Similar method to Radocy
 No compliance in musical preferences when judging pop music
 Non-music students complied when judging orchestral (i.e. unfamiliar) music
 Inglefield (1968)
 School pupils’ compliance greatest in judgement of jazz (i.e. unfamiliar)
 Crowther (1985)
 Each person chooses continually between four channels (two liked, two disliked)
 (False) feedback on what others were listening to
 When person thinks the majority are listening to the disliked channel they tend to listen also
Informational influence
 Occur when we have little knowledge about the music and so base
judgement on external sources
 Rigg (1948)
 Six pieces (three by Wagner) rated for enjoyment
 Played again – one group told Wagner was a Hitler favourite, one told nothing, and
one heard a description of the music
 Enjoyment ratings increased in all cases, but least in the ‘Hitler’ group and most in
the ‘description’ group
 Alpert (1982)
 Approval of classical music by a teacher and a DJ increased liking for classical
music
 Fiese (1990)
 Misattributing pieces to Bach and Beethoven influenced judgements of musical
quality
 Geiger (1950)
 A programme of ‘popular gramophone music’ received only half the radio audience
when it was repeated a week later as a programme of ‘classical music’
Informational influence:
evaluation of music by females
 Lists of the ‘greats’ are male-dominated
 Farnsworth’s all-male top 10 classical composers
 One female (Annie Lennox) among 10 favourite pop musicians, and no female
classical music composer received more than a single nomination (North and
Hargreaves, 1996)
 A ‘special case’ of informational influence?
 Goldberg (1968)
 Females read articles attributed to males or females
 Articles allegedly by males were given higher ratings on 44 of the 54 measures
(e.g. competence)
 Colley, North, and Hargreaves (2003)
 Anti-female bias in new age music when people told composer’s (supposed) name
 North, Colley, and Hargreaves (2003)
 Specific reactions to the music (e.g. ‘gentle’ or ‘soothing’) influenced by gender
stereotypes
Informational influence:
evaluation of music by attractive people
 ‘What is beautiful is good’
 North and Hargreaves (1997)
 20 pieces of pop music and a picture of the ‘performer’
 Attractive performers more poised, sophisticated, emotionally warm, feminine,
intelligent, and likely to be popular (rather than talentless idiots)
 Music by attractive performers liked more, perceived as possessing more artistic
merit, and as being more sophisticated, intelligent, and likely to be popular
 Same effects for performers who were the same-sex as participant
 Wapnick, Darrow, Kovacs, and Dalrymple (1997)
 Evaluations of classical music singers higher when audiovisual (rather than
audio-only) performance presented
 Attractive females were judged to perform better than unattractive females even
when audio-only presented
 Several other studies repeat the latter
 Attractive performers must also receive better training
Music in everyday life
Music in everyday life
 Responses to music involve an interaction of four elements
 The music (e.g. arousal, prototypicality)
 The listening situation (e.g. arousal-evoking qualities, appropriateness)
 The listener (e.g. age, sex, personality)
 Extra-musical information (e.g. compliance, informational influence)
 We must study music in this complete context
 Cannot just isolate the music, listener, or listening situation
 Must study musical behaviour in everyday contexts
 Particularly important because of digital revolution
 Internet music retailers, high capacity portable music players, digital
broadcasting
 Can listen to whatever, whenever, wherever we want …
1. Music may be worth less as it is less scarce
2. High control over music means we might use music to achieve very specific
ends in very specific circumstances
Music in everyday life
 North, Hargreaves, and Hargreaves (2004)
 346 people sent one text per day over 14 days
 Questionnaire about who, what, when, where, and why
 Who?
 Only 26.3% of listening episodes occurred while participants were on
their own
 What?
 Classical music accounted for only 3% of listening episodes
 When?
 Music more commonly experienced in the evening (esp. 22.00-22.59),
and at weekends rather than weekdays
 Where?
 Only 50.1% of music listening episodes occurred within the home
Music in everyday life
 Why? Three predictions based on digital revolution
1. Music is common
 Could be heard on 38.6% of those occasions on which participants received their
text
2. Music perceived as being worth little
 Music was the main thing they were doing in only 26.4% of musical
experiences
 Only 11.9% of episodes occurred while participants were deliberately
listening to music either at home or in a concert
 Disinterested and passive attitude (e.g. ‘It helped to create the right
atmosphere’ rather that ‘It aided my attempts to do what I was trying to do’)
3. Music used to achieve very specific goals in specific settings
 Participants thought that music had different functions depending on who
they were with, what music they could hear, when they listened to it, and
where they were listening