User:Remcelveen/Psychology of music preference

Personality and Music Preference
The relationship between musical preference and personality has remained a long-standing topic of contention for researchers due to the variability in results and the low-predictive power that personality has historically demonstrated on music preferences. A meta-analysis conducted by Schäfer and Mehlorn, (2017) of previous studies trying to determine if experience seeking or any of the Big-Five personality traits predicted musical preferences revealed that the correlation coefficient between music genre and personality traits possessed a magnitude greater than 0.1 in only 6 out of the 30 studies they reviewed. Openness to experience was found to have the strongest correlation with a preference for three musical styles; however, this correlation was still relatively minor. The vast majority of the correlation coefficients were almost zero.

One shortcoming in attempting to establish a predictive relationship between music and personality is likely a result of researchers' tendency to utilize overly homogenized musical genres, failing to account for the variance within musical genres. In a study conducted by Brisson and Bianchi (2021), participants were provided a musical taste inventory and asked to rate their musical genre and sub-genre preferences. For example, electronic music is considered a genre and house music is a sub-genre of electronic music. Results indicated a high degree of variance between participant genre and sub-genre preferences. Enjoying one genre or sub-genre within a broader genre category often failed to consistently predict ratings for related genres and sub-genres with another related genre or sub-genre. Ultimately, only two consistent associations between genres and sub-genres were found, calling into question the reliability of musical genres in research. However, the investigation into this relationship  between the influence of personality on music preference remains ongoing despite these genre-based limitations in methodology and past discrepancies in research results.

Agreeableness
Agreeableness has also been shown to correlate with more easy-going, relaxed music preferences.

Mood
Depression also impacts perceptions and emotional responses generated from music. Depressed individuals rate their music-associated episodic memories lower than non-depressed individuals.

Cultural Influences on Music Preferences:
Research has shown culture can influence musical preferences. Humans tend to enjoy culturally similar music more than culturally atypical music. In a study conducted by McDermott and Schultz (2016), participants from three regions in Bolivia (La Paz, San Borja, and Santa Maria) and the United States were evaluated for differences in music preferences. The participants from the United States were divided into two groups, with one group possessing at least two years of experience playing an instrument and the other group having a maximum of one year of experience. Participants from Bolivia were divided into groups based off their region, with each region having experienced varying levels of exposure to Western culture. The group of participants from Santa Maria, the Tsimane, were of specific interest due to the substantial differences between their music and Western music in addition to their relative isolation from Western cultural influences. The participants were exposed to traditionally consonant and dissonant sounds from Western music and asked to rate how pleasant they found the sound. Results indicated that Americans, particularly trained musicians, demonstrated the strongest preference for consonances in their music. The groups from La Paz and San Borja also demonstrated some preference for consonance. However, the Tsimane enjoyed both consonant and dissonant chords equally, suggesting that consonance preferences in music are developed through cultural exposure and humans have no innate preferences for certain harmonies or chords.

Culture changes how music is perceived by an individual, and alters affective response to music, particularly in a social context. People feel more connected with one another when listening to culturally typical music than when they listen to culturally atypical music. Previous research has suggested that listening to familiar music might also aid in establishing more significant movement predictability, which can result in more movement synchronicity between individuals, further amplifying feelings of group connection and enjoyment of music. Culture also effects a person's ability to remember music. A study on cross-cultural music memory was conducted by Demorest and Morrison (2016). In the study, Western participants were played six musical excerpts. Three of the excerpts were from Turkish classical music, and the other three were from Western classical music. The music was presented in three different musical contexts (original, monophonic and isochronous).Once all of the excerpts were played, participants received a memory test. The memory test results indicate that participant memory was consistently better at recalling in-cultural music than unfamiliar music.

Movement's Influence on Musical Preference
Research suggests that body movement may play a role in determining musical tastes. Body movement can create either positive or negative feelings towards music depending on if the movement is associated with something positive or negative. A study conducted by Weigelt and Walther (2011) demonstrated that performing a positive physical movement while listening to a song led to an increased preference rating for that song compared to a negative physical movement. Movements associated with smiling muscles (both positive or negative) were found to have the largest effect on musical preference. .