Research Note: Affective Responses to Everyday Life Events and Music Listening

Abstract

This study investigated the relation between self-reported affective response to everyday life events and affective responses to music listening. The influence of formal music training on affective responses to music was also assessed. Undergraduate music and non-music majors (N = 107) first completed the Affect Intensity Measure (AIM), then a music-related survey assessing the subjects' affective attitudes to their preferred music (habitual responsiveness) and three similar surveys with corresponding listening examples (situational responsiveness). Two of the four AIM sub-scales showed small significant correlations with habitual responsiveness. AIM sub-scales did not reliably predict situational responsiveness, whereas preference ratings for the examples and habitual responsiveness did. Music majors reported significantly higher responsiveness than non-musicians; however, both groups did not differ reliably on AIM sub-scales. It is argued that reported affective response in music is partially mediated by expertise-related mechanisms.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Behne, K.-E. (1986). Horertypologien. Regensburg: Bosse.

Cattell, R. B. and Saunders, D. (1954). Musical preferences and personality diagnosis. Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 3-24.

Cattell, R. B. , Eber, H. W. and Tatsuoka, M. M. (1970). Handbookfor the sixteen personality factor questionnaire (16PF). Champaign, IL: Institute for Personality and Ability Testing.

Cooper, C. and McConville, C. (1993). Affect intensity: Factor or artifact. Journal of Personality and Individual Differences, 14, 135-143.

Dollinger, S. (1993). Personality and music preference: Extraversion and excitement seeking or openness to experience? Psychology of Music, 21, 73-77.

Dowling, J. W. and Harwood, D. L. (1986). Music cognition. Orlando: Academic Press.

Elbert, T. , Pantev, C. , Wienbruch, C. , Rockstroh, B. and Taub, E. (1995). Increased cortical representation of the fingers of the left hand in string players. Science, 270, 305-307.

Gabrielsson, A. and Lindstrom, S. (1994). On strong experiences of music. Musikpsychologie, 10, 118-139.

Gembris, H. (1991). Situationsbezogene Praferenzen und erwunschte Wirkungen von Musik. Musikpsychologie, 7, 73-96.

10.

Halpern, A. R. and Bower, G. H. (1982). Musical expertise and melodic structure in memory for musical notation. American Journal of Psychology, 95, 31-50.

11.

Kemp (1982). Personality traits of successful student music teachers. Psychology of Music, Special Issue, 72-75.

12.

Larsen, R. J. and Diener, E. (1987). Affect intensity as an individual difference characteristic: A review. Journal of Research in Personality, 21, 1-39.

13.

Larsen, R. J. , Diener, E. and Cropanzano, R. S. (1987). Cognitive operations associated with individual differences in affect intensity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(4), 767-774.

14.

Lehmann, A. C. (1993). Habituelle und situative Rezeptionsweisen beim Musikhoren oder: Versuchen wir, immer gleich zu horen? In: M. L. Schulten (Ed.), Musikvermittlung als Beruf (Musikpadagogische Forschung, 14, pp. 78-92). Essen, Germany: Die blaue Eule.

15.

Lehmann, A. C. (1994). Habituelle und situative Rezeptionsweisen beim Musikhoren: Eine einstellungstheoretische Untersuchung. New York: Lang.

16.

Madsen, K. and Geringer, J. M. (1990). Differential patterns of music listening: Focus of attention in musicians versus non-musicians. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, 105, 45-57.

17.

Madsen, K. , Brittin, R. and Capperella-Sheldon, D. (1993). An empirical method for measuring the aesthetic experience to music. Journal of Research in Music Education, 41, 57-69.

18.

Rotter, G. (1987). Die Beeinfluj3barkeit emotionalen Erlebens von Musikdurch analytisches Horen. New York: Lang.

19.

Sloboda, J. A. (1990). Music as language. In: Wilson, F. R. and Roehmann, F. L. (Eds.), Music and child development (pp. 28-43). St. Louis, MO: MMB.

20.

Sloboda, J. A. (1991). Music structure and emotional response: Some empirical findings. Psychology of Music, 19, 110-120.

21.

Sloboda, J. A. (1992). Empirical studies of emotional response to music. In: M. R. Jones and S. Holleran (Eds.), Cognitive bases of musical communication (pp. 33-45). Washington, DC: APA.

22.

Wagner, C. (1988). The pianist's hand: anthropometry and biomechanics. Ergonomics. 31, 97-131.

23.

Weinfurt, K. P. , Bryant, F. B. and Yarnold, P. R. (1994). The factor structure of the Affect Intensity Measure: In search of a measurement model. Journal of Research in Personality, 28, 314-331.

24.

Wubbenhorst, T. M. (1994). Personality characteristics of music educators and performers. Psychology of Music, 22, 63-74.