Psychological Approach To Studying Individual Musical Tastes Flashcards
What are 2 approaches to studying music?
Object-centered
Person-centered
What is the object-centered approach about?
Focusing on the structural features of music itself
Infer that certain features of music prompt liking
What is a limitation of the object-centered approach?
Not everybody likes the same music. If the features of music are solely responsible for determining how much we like music, then we would all agree on the same things. There would be no dissent. But this isn’t the case - we all have different musical tastes.
What is the person-centered approach about?
Looking at differences between individuals
What do people like or prefer?
The idea that personality could predict which type of music people like because of the features of the music
What is the typical format of a psychological study of musical taste?
Participants played excerpts of music from a variety of genres
Asked to rate music on Likert-type scales
Ratings are then correlated with personality trait variables
What do researchers aim to recover?
A relationship between musical features or genres with personality characteristics
E.g., up-tempo dance music with a positive, uplifting mood might tend to be appreciated more by people who are higher in extraversion
Describe the study by Rentfrow & Gosling (2003)
Tested American students
Examined their liking for 14 genres
The genres were clustered into 4 broad factors by the authors
What 4 factors were labelled by Rentfrow & Gosling (2003)?
Reflective and complex
Intense and rebellious
Upbeat and conventional
Energetic and rhythmic
What genres come under the reflective & complex category?
Blues, classical, jazz, folk
What is a problem with this categorisation?
Are classical and blues anything alike? How can they fall under the same category?
The focus on genre is extremely limiting.
None of these clusters really capture anything more than a small subfield of each of the genres.
What is the rationale for lumping together those 4 genres in that particular way?
Alternative could be rebellious but could also be deeply conservative
Is religious music always upbeat? Is pop music always upbeat? What does pop cover? The word pop has evolved over the years.
Electronica is not at all rhythmic.
Rap can be more laid back.
What genres come under the intense and rebellious category?
Rock, alternative, heavy metal
What genres come under upbeat & conventional?
Pop, country, soundtracks, religious
What genres come under energetic & rhythmic?
Rap, soul, electronica
What did Rentfrow et al. (2011) do?
Follow-up study with a more diverse US sample
Used more genres (26 genres)
Reduced these genres to 5 broad factors
What are the 5 broad factors that Rentfrow et al. (2011) came up with in their follow-up study?
Mellow (smooth and relaxing)
Unpretentious (varying styles)
Sophisticated (complex)
Intense (loud and energetic)
Contemporary (rhythmic)
