Effects of applause magnitude and musical style on listeners’ evaluations of choral performances

Abstract

Applause, an overt expression of approval from audience to performer, is one of the most common forms of audience response to live musical performances. In this study, we examined the effects of applause magnitude (high, low, or no applause) and musical style (motet or spiritual) on listeners’ ratings of choral performances. A secondary area of interest was the degree to which these effects might differ between music majors and non-music majors. University singers (N = 117) listened to six excerpts recorded by a university choral ensemble and rated the performance quality of each excerpt. Across these recordings, they heard three identical recordings of a motet and three identical recordings of a spiritual with unique applause conditions attached. Listeners’ ratings were influenced by the magnitude of audience applause to a limited degree, but this effect interacted with musical style and presentation order. We observed no differences between the ratings of music and non-music majors, however. Results are interpreted in light of previous research on majority effects, and implications of these results regarding performance evaluation and concert programming are discussed.

Keywords

applause choral music majority effect musical style perception social influence

Applause functions as a form of communication between an audience of listeners and performers. Purportedly, the applause itself can be considered an approval, an expression of enjoyment (Lupyan & Rifkin, 2003; Pitts, 2005). Yet, there is another level of communication that occurs among audience members themselves, who are influenced by numerous social and environmental variables related to the persons themselves and the characteristics of the performance space (Pitts & Burland, 2014). It seems a worthwhile endeavor to examine these variables more closely, in order to allow music educators, performers, and conductors to gain greater insight into the opinions of their audiences and how they respond to musical performances. An understanding of how listeners’ evaluations of music performances may be swayed by the opinions of a majority (i.e., an audience of other listeners) might well be framed within the perspective of majority effects.

Social psychologists have examined and documented various trends related to the effects of majority pressure on individuals for many years. Conformity, defined as “behavior intended to fulfill normative group expectancies as presently perceived by the individual” (Hollander & Willis, 1967, p. 64, emphases in original), occurs when individuals yield their opinion to that of a majority. Studies of conformity have indicated that individuals modified their own opinions and judgments based on those of a majority, and these majority influences occurred even when there was no explicit need for group consensus (Levine & Russo, 1987).

Asch (1951, 1956) documented how individuals conceded to group pressure in a simple line-length matching task. He reported that participants provided inaccurate responses when a unanimous majority of confederates stated deliberately-incorrect responses (1951). Radocy (1975) designed an experiment based on Asch’s framework to examine how listeners’ pitch and loudness judgments were impacted by the opinions of others. His results demonstrated that trained musicians yielded to a unanimous majority, even when those responses were intentionally incorrect. Similarly, Furman and Duke (1988) found that listeners’ preferences were also affected by the preferences of a majority but that music majors and non-music majors responded differently (with non-music majors demonstrating more compliance to majority opinion). Other researchers have found that listeners’ preferences were swayed by the opinions of others as well. For example, in an early study (Rigg, 1948), listeners reported lower preference ratings when music was associated with unfavorable propaganda (i.e., Hitler and German Nationalism). Researchers have indicated that listeners’ preferences were also affected by peer influence (Furman & Duke, 1988; Inglefield, 1972) along with approval delivered by adults (Greer, Dorow, Wachhaus, & White, 1973), disc jockeys (Alpert, 1982), and music teachers (Alpert, 1982; Droe, 2008).

Social influences have not only been found to affect musical preference but also music performance evaluations. For example, listeners were swayed by an expectation of the performer’s level of expertise (Duerksen, 1972), by false information describing a performer’s ability/background (Radocy, 1976), and even by the physical attractiveness of the performer (Ryan & Costa-Giomi, 2004; Ryan, Wapnick, Lacaille, & Darrow, 2006; Siddell-Strebel, 2007; Wapnick, Campbell, Siddell-Strebel, & Darrow, 2009). Therefore, performance evaluations seem to be noticeably affected by a number of variables unrelated to the aural performance itself.

Although some studies have examined social influences on listeners’ perceptions (North & Hargreaves, 2008), there are other factors in concert performance settings that may affect listeners’ perceptions, such as audience applause. The experience of attending a classical musical performance (in the Western custom) involves the interaction of a large number of personal and environmental factors, such as the appearance of the performance venue, the decisions influencing ticket purchasing, rituals of audience behavior (e.g., applause, cheering, chanting, booing, and standing ovations), social interactions among audience members and performers, and responses to the music being performed, among others (Pitts & Burland, 2014). Some authors (Coutinho & Scherer, 2017; Finnäs, 2001; Radbourne, Johanson, & Glow, 2014) explained that audience responses to music were more amplified during live performances (as compared to recorded or live-streamed performances). Attendees at classical music performances have indicated that participating in the performance among an audience of other listeners influenced their sense of inclusion/belonging (Pitts, 2004) and enjoyment of the performance (Dobson, 2010).

In Western classical performance, applause is generally considered to be an appropriate audience response following the performance of a complete work, although applause practices have changed throughout history (Ricks, 1995; Ross, 2010). For example, reports have indicated that applause occurred frequently during performances in the 18th century—even within the performance of a single movement or work (Ross, 2010). During this time, many modes of audience applause were acceptable, including stamping feet, hissing, and calling performers by name (Brandl-Risi, 2011). In current practice, applause usually consists of uninterrupted group clapping (sometimes accompanied by cheering, chanting, or whistling); this behavior has been the dominant form of audience response since the 19th century (Brandl-Risi, 2011). Applause can be interpreted as a measure of the audience’s reception of musical performances (Brandl-Risi, 2011; Pitts, 2005) and other performance presentations such as political speeches (Bull & Wells, 2002; Heritage & Greatbatch, 1986). Lupyan and Rifkin (2003), in describing the omnipresence of applause in the human experience, explained that “the desire to express approval through a culturally-specified display has been in existence for millennia” (p. 1378). Thus, even though audience applause is a multifaceted social-psychological phenomenon, it could be one factor influencing listeners’ evaluations of music performance.

Does the approval generated by an audience influence listeners’ evaluations of ensemble performances? Historically, applause was considered to be a prime measure of an audience’s reaction to a performance such that certain individuals (known as claques) were actually paid to solicit and prolong applause at music and theatre performances (Brandl-Risi, 2011; Lupyan & Rifkin, 2003; Rosselli, 1992). Although these effects of audience applause have been discussed anecdotally, they have not been examined empirically until recently.

Springer and Schlegel (2016) reported that listeners’ evaluations of wind band performances were influenced by the magnitude of audience applause, but that effect differed based on the musical style of the stimulus. In that study, participants rated the performance of a march highest when it was followed by high magnitude applause (an audience response characterized by continuous clapping and prominent vocal sounds like cheering and whistling), yet they rated a ballad performance highest when it was followed by no applause. Therefore, participants may have interpreted different magnitudes of applause to be an expression of differing levels of audience approval. However, results of that study indicated that those effects did vary among contrasting musical styles.

To what extent do the effects of audience applause transfer to different musical contexts, particularly contexts that include the presence of sung text? Prior research indicated that listeners’ intonation judgments (Geringer, MacLeod, Madsen, & Nápoles, 2015; Geringer, MacLeod, & Sasanfar, 2015) differed between vocal and instrumental contexts and that listeners’ affective responses (Gfeller, Asmus, & Eckert, 1991; Gfeller & Coffman, 1991) varied in the presence of audible text (compared to instrumental music alone). Thus, the effects of applause magnitude might vary in different music performance settings, such as choral ensemble performances. It is important for music educators to understand how audience applause—a universal feature and common practice of audience response in the Western classical tradition—might affect performance evaluations because such knowledge could inform ensemble directors about factors that influence the evaluations and impressions of their listeners. Furthermore, such knowledge would augment prior research highlighting those non-musical factors that influenced listeners’ evaluations of musical performances (e.g., Duerksen, 1972; Howard, 2012; Siddell-Strebel, 2007; Wapnick et al., 2009).

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the effects of applause magnitude (high magnitude applause, low magnitude applause, or no applause) and musical style (motet or spiritual) on listeners’ evaluations of choral performances. A secondary purpose of the study was to investigate whether or not the effects of applause and style differed on the basis of major, because prior research has indicated a different tendency to submit to the effects of majority pressure between music majors and non-music majors (Furman & Duke, 1988). Furthermore, because researchers indicated that music majors and non-music majors attended to different musical elements while listening (Geringer & Madsen, 1995/1996; Madsen & Geringer, 1990), we anticipated that these different listening patterns might result in differences in performance ratings. The study was guided by the following research questions: (1) What are the effects of applause magnitude and musical style on listeners’ ratings of choral performances? (2) Are music majors and non-music majors affected by applause magnitude and musical style differently?

Method

Musical stimuli creation

For stimuli, we chose two a cappella choral works of contrasting styles. We sought to identify a representative motet and spiritual because these styles demonstrate notable differences in tempo, characteristic vocal and expressive qualities, and variations in tone quality. We only considered works that were included in the Teaching Music Through Performance in Choir series (Buchanan & Mehaffey, 2005, 2007) because we deemed the authors of the series to be experts in choral literature, thereby enabling our selection of well-known, respected choral works. We selected Sicut Cervus by Palestrina (henceforth “motet”) and The Battle of Jericho, arranged by Moses Hogan (henceforth “spiritual”), as stimuli. Sicut Cervus is in a moderate tempo, with mostly stepwise motion and melodies that begin in one voice part and are passed to the others in succession as the texture thickens. The Battle of Jericho is a standard up-tempo spiritual that functions well as a concert closer; it has a wide range of pitches and dynamics, gradually increasing throughout the piece leading to a forte and very thick final chord. We then identified a live performance recording by a university choral ensemble whose program contained both of these works, a recording that also included the audience’s applause for each work. After selecting this live recording of the motet and spiritual, we identified the last musical idea (approximately 40 seconds in length), which we used to create the stimuli for this study.

In order to determine the effects of applause on choral performance evaluation, we investigated three levels of applause magnitude: no applause, low magnitude applause (operationally defined as continuous audience clapping), and high magnitude applause (continuous audience clapping accompanied by extraneous vocal sounds such as cheering and whistling). The “no applause” condition functioned as a control condition. From the same live recording, we extracted low and high magnitude applause recordings, which were each approximately 20 seconds in length. Three university choral conducting faculty members who were unaffiliated with this study listened to the applause recordings and successfully matched the high and low magnitude applause examples with the high and low magnitude operational definitions, respectively, thereby validating that the applause recordings were authentic examples of high and low magnitude applause as defined for this investigation.

Using Audacity software, we paired each of the applause conditions (no applause, low magnitude, high magnitude) with the end of the last musical idea of the motet and spiritual. Because the musical excerpts and applause recordings were drawn from the same live performance, the stimuli included a consistent audience profile across applause conditions (i.e., the same audience members responding to the music in the same performance space). In order to avoid an unpleasant and sudden onset, a fade-in effect was inserted at the beginning of each stimulus and at the point of applause condition elision to allow a natural and musically-plausible amount of silence between the end of the piece and the beginning of the applause. Results of a pilot test indicated no perceived artificiality resulting from the inserted fade effects.

Consistent with procedures used in a prior study (Springer & Schlegel, 2016), an additional rendition of the motet and spiritual performed by a different university ensemble was also included and presented in the control (no applause) condition. This practice provided a more varied musical experience for the participants while listening and evaluating; it also reduced the likelihood that they would notice the experimental manipulation due to the similarity of the musical stimuli. Thus, eight stimuli were created, and each was approximately 60 seconds in length. The final stimulus recording included all eight stimuli with 20 seconds of transition time between excerpts. The entire running time of the stimulus recording, including instructions, was approximately 12 minutes. All stimuli were exported as .wav files (44,100 Hz sampling rate and 16-bit stereo), which were used for subsequent presentation to participants.

Participants and procedures

Before recruiting participants for the study, we conducted an a priori power analysis using G*Power software, version 3.1.9.2 (Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, & Buchner, 2007). Based on our research design, we conducted the power analysis for a repeated-measures ANOVA (within-between interaction) using an alpha level of .05. We applied the small effect size (partial η² = .02; Cohen, 1988) reported in a previous applause study (Springer & Schlegel, 2016) as the projected effect size and a high power level (1 – β) of .95 to identify a sample size with enough statistical power to detect a small effect, if it was present (Cohen, 1992). Results of the analysis suggested a minimum sample size of 82. To achieve this minimum sample size, we chose to sample from four choral ensembles, two ensembles each at two universities.

Participants (N = 117) were members of choral ensembles from two institutions in the United States, one in the northwest and one in the west. The mean age of participants was 22.72 years (SD = 7.76), with 76 women and 41 men. There were 61 music majors and 56 non-music majors. Participants reported an average of 6.97 years (SD = 5.43) performing in a school choral ensemble. Our choice to include singers as research participants was based on the assumption that they would likely attend choral concerts with some level of frequency and, as expected, they indicated attending a mean of 4.15 (SD = 3.10) choral concerts as an audience member within the previous 12 months.

In Springer and Schlegel’s (2016) applause study, participants rated wind band excerpts on eight performance dimensions (e.g., articulation, balance, and blend). In that study, the observed variation in listeners’ ratings across applause magnitude conditions and musical styles was interpreted as an indicator of two overarching performance dimensions: technical performance and expressive/interpretive performance. Based on this interpretation, we selected these two dimensions for use in this study and developed operational definitions for each. “Technical performance” was defined as “the degree to which the ensemble sings with accuracy and precision,” while “expressive performance” was defined as “the degree to which the ensemble sings with musicianship, style, and expression.” We included these operational definitions on the evaluation form developed for this study to encourage a consistent interpretation of these terms. Participants rated each dimension on a scale anchored by 1 (poor) and 6 (excellent), a convention that eliminated the possibility of a neutral midpoint response (recommended by Garland [1991] and Moors [2008]).

Following the completion of a short demographic questionnaire, participants heard the following recorded instructions for the evaluation task, which were also printed on the first response page:

You will now evaluate some choral ensemble performances. In just a moment, you will hear 8 brief recordings of live choral performances. Each recording will be 1 minute in length. The recordings will be of two contrasting selections sung by different ensembles. Listen carefully to each excerpt. After you listen to each brief excerpt, you will be given a few moments (approximately 20 seconds) to rate the ensemble’s performance by circling your ratings on several rating scales. There are no right or wrong answers, so be honest in your ratings. Throughout this packet, we ask that you only rate each excerpt after you hear the instructions to do so. Do not turn the page until you hear the instructions to turn the page. Please remain quiet throughout the remainder of the procedures so there will be no distractions to other listeners. Because we know that preferences and listening patterns are different for everyone, we want to be sure that you are as quiet as possible and that you refrain from making comments or noises that might distract and/or sway other listeners.

The recorded instructions reminded participants to respond only after they heard the prompt to turn the page and rate the performances, which ensured that evaluations of the performance occurred after participants heard the applause condition. A statement on the bottom of each page also reminded participants not to turn the page until instructed to do so. All instructions were pre-recorded to avoid any variation in experimenter presentation effects and to control the testing environment at all data collection sites.

The choral stimuli were presented in one of two randomly-generated orders (summarized in Table 1) at each site, one per ensemble. Thus, our decision to use two orders nested within two institutions for the present study allowed us to test for the unique influence of presentation orders and school effects. The recorded instructions and choral music stimuli were played on audio equipment available at each data collection site.

Table 1.

Presentation orders for stimulus recordings.

Order	Excerpts
Order 1	SH, MN, SL, S, MH, M, SN, ML
Order 2	MN, SL, MH, SN, S, M, SH, ML

Note. Excerpts are labeled by style (M = motet, S = spiritual) and applause condition (H = high applause, L = low applause, N = no applause) by abbreviation. An asterisk (*) refers to additional recordings that were included simply to reduce potential fatigue effects associated with listening to repetitions of the same performance. Ratings of these additional recordings were not included in data analyses.

Results

Prior to analyzing data, we added each participant’s ratings of technical performance and expressive performance for each excerpt. This practice yielded a total composite score for three applause conditions (none, low, and high magnitude) in each of the two musical styles (spiritual and motet). We only included ratings of the six stimuli drawn from the original live recording in data analyses (i.e., we did not include ratings of the two additional performances that were intended to reduce possible fatigue effects). We established an alpha level of .05 a priori for all statistical analyses.

We then examined data from the two schools to determine whether or not they could be treated as one population. There was no significant school effect (p > .05), and the school variable did not interact with any other variables included in the model (p > .05). Consequently, we combined the two schools’ data into a single dataset. Out of a possible 12 points, means ranged from 9.31 (SD = 1.88) for the spiritual in the low applause condition to 9.82 (SD = 1.64) for the motet in the low applause condition. Means and standard deviations for all applause and style conditions are presented in Table 2.

Table 2.

Means and standard deviations for all styles and applause conditions.

Style	No Applause		Low Applause		High Applause		Overall
Style	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
Spiritual	9.61	1.88	9.31	1.88	9.47	1.79	9.47	1.53
Motet	9.65	1.56	9.82	1.64	9.69	1.57	9.72	1.21
Overall	9.63	1.45	9.57	1.43	9.58	1.32

Note. Means are expressed as composite ratings, which could range from 2 to 12 with higher ratings representing a more favorable performance evaluation.

In order to answer our research questions (and to investigate possible order effects), we conducted a four-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures. There were two between-subjects factors (order and major) and two within-subjects factors (applause condition and musical style). Results indicated a significant main effect of style, F(1, 113) = 4.10, p = .04, partial η² = .04, in addition to a significant three-way interaction among style, applause, and order, F(2, 226) = 3.99, p = .02, partial η² = .03. There were no other significant interactions or main effects. Regarding the main effect of style, participants provided higher ratings for the motet (M = 9.72, SD = 1.21) than the spiritual (M = 9.47, SD = 1.53).

We conducted simple effects tests (with a Bonferroni correction to control for Type I error) to determine the source of the significant style × applause × order interaction. Results of these pairwise comparisons indicated significant differences between the orders only in response to the motet excerpt in the no applause condition (p < .001); participants rated this excerpt higher in the first order (M = 10.25, SD = 1.54) than in the second order (M = 9.13, SD = 1.40). Presentation orders are specified in Table 1, and the three-way interaction effect can be seen in Figure 1. Although mean ratings for the spiritual in the high applause condition were virtually identical for both orders (like the observed ratings for the spiritual in the no applause condition), the significant difference in ratings for the no applause condition of the motet is apparent. In Order 1, it was presented second and was rated higher than any other excerpt. However, in the second order, it was presented first and was rated among the lowest. It is important to observe that, for this interaction, the effect size was small (partial η² = .03; Cohen, 1988).

Figure 1.

Significant three-way interaction among applause, style, and order. Error bars represent standard errors.

Our second research question was focused on potential differences in ratings between music majors and non-music majors. We observed no significant differences between these two majors, F(1, 113) = .01, p = .94. Music majors (M = 9.61, SD = 1.11) and non-music majors (M = 9.59, SD = 1.28) provided nearly equal performance ratings. As noted above, no significant interactions were found between major and any other variable (p > .05).

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of applause magnitude and musical style on listeners’ evaluations of choral performances, and results indicated a significant main effect of style and a significant interaction among style, applause, and order. Related to the style variable, listeners rated the performance of the motet higher than that of the spiritual, suggesting that they perceived a higher performance quality for the ensemble’s motet performance. Because style was also observed in a higher-order interaction (applause by style by order), an examination of that interaction provides a more meaningful explanation of evaluation trends.

The interaction of applause, style, and order indicates that listeners’ performance ratings were influenced by the magnitude of audience applause, but that effect varied within the context of contrasting styles and presentation orders. This interaction effect is largely consistent with results of a prior study (Springer & Schlegel, 2016), which indicated an interaction between applause and style, in addition to a main effect of presentation order. Also consistent with the previous study, the observed effect size for the interaction was small. Thus, it appears from these results that different magnitudes of audience applause may influence listeners’ ratings to a limited degree, but that effect depends on the musical style of the works performed.

Presentation order also interacted with these variables, however. As displayed in Figure 1, differences in responses based on order were most obvious in the motet excerpt with the no applause condition. It is unclear what characteristics of the presentation orders resulted in their interactive effect with the main independent variables of interest. Because the study was primarily constructed as a within-subjects design, carryover effects are possible. In other words, the placement of certain conditions (e.g., the high magnitude applause conditions) could be remembered by participants, which could affect their behavior in later conditions. High magnitude applause is possibly the applause condition that demonstrated the greatest risk of carryover effects. As shown in Table 1, Order 1 began with a high magnitude applause condition (paired with the spiritual), while Order 2 began with a no applause condition (paired with the motet). It could be that certain features of this first excerpt may have primed listeners in a way that influenced their expectations—and, thus, their ratings—of subsequent excerpts. Because these presentation orders were generated randomly, any fundamental differences between the orders were unsystematic. Furthermore, although presentation order interacted with the primary variables of interest, the results were not influenced by a school effect.

Because the magnitude of audience applause can serve as an indicator of public approval (Brandl-Risi, 2011; Pitts, 2005), the observed effects of audience applause could be related to the majority effects described in earlier studies. In these studies, individuals demonstrated that they could be swayed by the influence of others in perceptual judgments such as line-length matching tasks (Asch, 1956) and pitch/loudness comparison tasks (Radocy, 1975). They also demonstrated modified musical preferences based on the expressed opinions of a majority (Furman & Duke, 1988). The observed differences in performance ratings in the present study could be due to some sort of majority influence (Levine & Russo, 1987) related to audience applause, and it is possible that this type of influence could have affected listeners’ evaluations in this study.

Certain musical styles may warrant more boisterous (i.e., higher magnitude) audience responses than others, and as such, some types of audience responses may seem more authentic in the performance of certain styles. In a previous study (Springer & Schlegel, 2016), listeners provided highest performance ratings for a march when it was followed by high magnitude applause, and they provided highest ratings for a ballad when it was paired with no applause. In the present study, highest ratings were provided for a motet performance in the low magnitude applause condition, with highest ratings for a spiritual provided in the no applause condition. We did not predict these results. Our expectation, based on Springer and Schlegel’s findings, was that high magnitude applause would have generated the highest rating for the spiritual and that the no applause condition would have generated the highest rating for the motet. Given these unexpected findings, it is clear that there are other collative variables beyond the scope of this study that influenced listeners’ ratings. In future studies, researchers may consider collecting additional data related to factors that could have affected these results, such as listeners’ novelty/familiarity with the stimulus or liking/disliking of the stimulus. A qualitative measure may also be useful in better understanding listener judgments.

It is perhaps noteworthy that major (music versus non-music) was not found to be a significant main effect or interaction effect in the present study. Because prior research (Furman & Duke, 1988) has identified a stronger influence due to majority pressure among non-music majors than music majors, we anticipated that non-music majors might be more susceptible to the effects of audience applause. Even though these two types of listeners attended to different elements while listening in previous studies (Geringer & Madsen, 1995/1996; Madsen & Geringer, 1990), no differences in ratings were found between groups based on major. The lack of an effect due to major could be a result of the common ensemble experience among all participants and their high level of interest in singing and attending concerts. Even though we included both music majors and non-music majors in this study, all were members of choral ensembles. A likely outcome of participating in ensemble performance is active listening, in which one listens beyond a sensuous and surface level for just enjoyment, but instead notices details of musical performance. It is possible that this common ensemble experience may have lessened potential effects from applause magnitude.

Results of this study carry important implications for performing musicians and educators. It is clear that there are numerous variables that impact listeners’ evaluations. Music educators will continue to grapple with these issues as they endeavor to expand their students’ style ranges and listening patterns. Given the ubiquitous nature of music festivals and adjudication and the consequential impact these ratings can sometimes have on teacher evaluations, it is important for music educators to continue to examine how listeners evaluate music performances. Although it would be too simplistic to state that greater applause is equated with a certain style (and neither did our results support that conclusion), applause interacts with other variables in key ways. For example, where a piece of music is programmed among others can affect listeners, especially if that music is presented in such a way that one style is more or less enjoyable than the prior or subsequent style. Note in particular that the motet presented first was perceived differently than when that same motet in the same applause condition was presented second, after listeners had just listened to the spiritual (see Figure 1). Listeners may also carry certain biases about whether a particular style of music functions as more of an “opener” or “closer” within the program. The director who programs an up-tempo selection to close the concert may be seeking a certain response that differs from closing the concert with a more reflective, slow-tempo selection. In either case, audience enjoyment may be expressed through different levels of applause. These responses could potentially affect performance ratings.

Generalizability of these findings is subject to certain limitations. First, listeners evaluated two musical selections in this study, which included two contrasting styles (a motet and a spiritual). Findings could be expected to differ in the context of other musical selections and styles. It is possible that participants simply preferred a particular selection based on familiarity or preconceived notions about appropriate blend and other characteristics unique to the style. Second, participants listened to repetitions of the same motet and spiritual performance to allow for an investigation of the influence of applause magnitude. It is possible that some participants may have noticed the experimental manipulation, but we believe our inclusion of two additional performances of the same pieces reduced the likelihood of this occurrence. In our conversations with participants after data collection, no participants commented that they detected the experimental manipulation, and we confirmed that no participants provided identical ratings of the repeated performances. We also acknowledge that the use of a rating scheme with two performance criteria (technical performance and expressive performance) could have been one reason that such small effects were observed because a more refined measure (i.e., one that included more performance criteria) could have revealed more variation in performance evaluations.

Additionally, participants listened to stimuli in an audio-only condition in an effort to isolate the primary independent variables of interest (applause magnitude and style). For this reason, we can only discuss how applause magnitude affected participants’ performance ratings in one setting: intact group listening to recorded stimuli for two specific selections. The lack of a significant main effect due to applause magnitude may be more about the experimental setting—recorded performances—in which the music was presented. Live listening settings would likely result in greater applause magnitude effects because researchers previously reported that audiences’ responses to music were amplified in live listening settings (Coutinho & Scherer, 2017; Finnäs, 2001; Radbourne et al., 2014). In addition, attending live musical performances as an audience member creates an inherent social scenario as individual listeners consume music with others. Perhaps it is in a live performance setting that applause magnitude elicits a more pronounced type of social influence due to effects of majority pressure. It is important to consider the results of this study in this experimental context in which the data were collected. Future studies of the effects of audience applause in live concert settings are needed.

Beyond setting and ensemble experience, performance quality may not be the only dependent variable that warrants investigation in this line of research. Applause has been described as an overt expression of approval that influences listeners’ evaluations of performance quality, but this type of approval might also affect listeners’ enjoyment. In future investigations, researchers may consider including a measure of enjoyment as another dependent variable, a variable that certainly warrants further investigation by our research community. Could it be that applause magnitude is most influential in live musical performance settings among audience members who have little to no formal ensemble experience? Future research in this line could investigate how applause magnitude affects less-experienced listeners’ evaluations, which could include evaluations of performance quality and musical enjoyment. Because applause occurs as a common aspect of many types of musical performances, additional study of the effects of applause in other settings would be valuable, particularly in settings where applause happens while music is being performed (e.g., jazz ensembles). Understanding these effects would provide music educators a more broad, thorough understanding of the listening experience.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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