The importance of music versus musical experience in music choice Lauren Mutispaugh and Mitch Beavers Dr. Christopher Buchholz (Faculty Advisor) Roanoke College Abstract This 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. Methods Participants 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 Blood, A.J., & Zatorre, R. J (2001, September). Intensely pleasurable responses to music correlate with activity in brain regions implicated in reward and emotion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the united States of America, 98(20), 11818-11823. Buchholz, C. T., (2006). Musical complexity, mood, and personality. Unpublished manuscript. Cacioppo, J.T., Petty, R.E., Feinstein, J.A., & Jarvis, W.B.G (1996). Dispositional differences in cognitive motivation: The life and times of individuals varying in need for cognition. Psychological Bulletin, 119(2), 197-253. Cattell, R. B., & Suanders, D. R. (1954). Musical preferences and personality diagnosis: A factorization of one hundred and twenty themes. Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 3-24. Gosling, S.D., Rentfrow, P.J., & Swann, W.B., Jr. (2003). A very brief measure of the Big-Five personality domains. Journal of Research in Personality, 37, 504–528. Gowensmith, N.W., & Bloom, L.J. (1997). The effects of heavy metal music on arousal and anger. Journal of Music therapy, 1, 33-45. Jourdain R. (1997). Music, the brain, and ecstasy: How music captures our imagination. New York: William Morrow & Co. Little, P., & Zuckerman, M. (1986). Sensation seeking and music preferences. Personality and Individual Differences, 7, 575–577. McNamara, L., & Ballard, M.E. (1999). Resting arousal, sensation seeking, and music preference. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs, 125, 229-250. North, A.C., Hargreaves, D.J., & O’Neill, S.A. (2000). The importance of music to adolescents. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 70, 255-272. Rentfrow , P.J., & Gosling, S.D. (2003). The do re mi’s of everyday life: The structure and personality correlates of music preferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(6), 1236-1256. Rentfrow, P.J., & Gosling, S.D. (2006). Message in a ballad: The role of music preferences in interpersonal perception. Psychological Science, 17(3), 236-242. Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the Adolescent Self-Image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 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.