The social psychology of music and musical taste

This thesis is concerned with the social psychology of music and musical taste. It deals with four main research questions: (1) Why do people listen to music? (2) Do stereotypes of musical taste influence how individuals judge other people and themselves? (3) Do people exhibit in-group favouritism towards those who share their musical taste? and (4) Do stereotypes of musical taste influence how individuals perceive other people? The findings of this thesis serve to highlight musical taste as an important socio-cultural construct that is likely to influence social cognition, perception and intergroup behaviour. The thesis also provides further insight as to why people listen to music, and why it is so important to them. This thesis serves to highlight the potential for music psychologists to use well-established theories from mainstream social psychology to understand musical behaviour

Musical taste, in-group favouritism and social identity theory: Re-testing the predictions of the self-esteem hypothesis

Musical taste is thought to function as a social ‘badge’ of group membership, contributing to an individual’s sense of social identity. Following from this, social identity theory predicts that individuals should perceive those who share their musical tastes more favourably than those who do not. Social identity theory also asserts that this in-group favouritism is motivated by the need to achieve, maintain or enhance a positive social identity and self-esteem (i.e., the ‘self-esteem hypothesis’). The findings of the present study supported both of these predictions. Participants rated fans of their favourite musical style significantly more favourably than fans of their least favourite musical style. The present findings also offer, for the first time, evidence of significant positive correlations between an individual’s self-esteem and the in-group bias shown to those who share their musical tastes. However, significant relationships with in-group identification also indicate that self-esteem is unlikely to be the sole factor responsible for this apparent in-group bias. Together these findings suggest that those who share our musical taste are likely to be regarded as in-group members and will be subject to in-group favouritism according to our self-esteem and how strongly we identify with our fellow music fans.

Are the psychological benefits of choral singing unique to choirs? A comparison of six activity groups

The present study compared the psychological well-being of choral singers to those who took part in five other activities: solo singers, band / orchestra members, solo musicians, team sport players and solo sport players. These comparison groups were chosen because they each share (or lack) three key features of choral singing: (1) singing; (2) the production of music; and (3) membership of a social group or team. 194 participants completed an online questionnaire to assess their well-being and the extent to which their chosen activity satisfies their psychological needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness. Analysis indicated that participants who sang in a choir reported similar levels of psychological well-being, happiness, anxiety, depression and self-esteem to those who took part in the other five leisure activities. Significant differences were found on measures of autonomy and relatedness, but participants in all six groups also reported experiencing similar levels of competence when engaged in their chosen leisure activity. These findings suggest choral singing may not be uniquely beneficial and any leisure activity that offers opportunities for improvement, mastery of a new skill or a sense of accomplishment might have a positive effect on our psychological well-being

Emotional intelligence, alexithymia, stress and peoples’ reasons for listening to music

The present study investigated the relationship between people’s reasons for listening to music, trait emotional intelligence and alexithymia whilst also controlling for the effect of participants’ gender, age and perceived stress levels. In keeping with previous research, initial findings indicated that emotionally intelligent individuals were less likely to use music to relieve and alleviate negative moods, whilst those who had high scores on a measure of alexithymia were more likely to use music for the same reasons. However, when the effects of gender, age and perceived stress were controlled for these relationships were no longer significant and previously non-significant relationships between trait emotional intelligence and using music to manipulate arousal and to reminisce about the past were found to be significant. Together these findings suggest that emotional intelligence is related to the reasons why people listen to music but not in the way that previous research had suggested, and the apparent links between emotional intelligence and mood management might be might be better explained by the stress experienced by participants at the time of questioning

Self-to-stereotype matching and musical taste: Is there a link between self-to-stereotype similarity and self-rated music-genre preferences?

Musical taste is believed to function as a social ‘badge’ of identity that might develop according to a process of ‘self-to-stereotype matching’. For this reason, individuals were expected to like musical styles that are stereotypically associated with fans that were similar to them. Three studies, each using a different measure of self-to-stereotype similarity, found that similarity to stereotypical music fans correlated significantly with participants’ self-rated musical tastes. These findings suggested individuals were more likely to prefer a musical style if they were similar, or at least perceived themselves similar, to the stereotypical fans associated with that musical style. In all three studies, evidence was also found to suggest that an individual’s similarity to stereotypical music fans might be used to predict their favourite musical style

What factors predict students’ final-year dissertation grades? The results from two small pilot studies

Two small pilot studies were conducted to identify factors that might be used to predict students’ performance on their final-year dissertation project. Over the course of these two studies several significant correlations were observed that suggested the characteristics of the student (i.e., conscientiousness, procrastination & grade expectations) and behaviour of their project supervisor (i.e., years of experience & task-oriented supervisory style) were significantly associated with the mark achieved for their dissertation project. In Study 2 it was also found that self-reported procrastination and student’s own grade expectations might be used to predict the mark achieved for their final-year research project. The use of small, self-selected student samples and the timing of questionnaire administration mean that these findings are insufficient to recommend the routine use of these questionnaire measures to identify those at-risk of under-achieving. However, the results from these two pilot studies highlight several variables that might be used in future studies to predict student outcomes on their final-year dissertation

It’s better together: The psychological benefits of singing in a choir

Previous research has suggested that singing in a choir might be beneficial for an individual’s psychological well-being. However, it is unclear whether this effect is unique to choral singing, and little is known about the factors that could be responsible for it. To address this, the present study compared choral singing to two other relevant leisure activities, solo singing and playing a team sport, using measures of self-reported wellbeing, entitativity, need fulfilment and motivation. Questionnaire data from 375 participants indicated that choral singers and team sport players reported significantly higher psychological well-being than solo singers. Choral singers also reported that they considered their choirs to be a more coherent or ‘meaningful’ social group than team sport players considered their teams. Together these findings might be interpreted to suggest that membership of a group may be a more important influence on the psychological well-being experienced by choral singers than singing. These findings may have practical implications for the use of choral singing as an intervention for improving psychological well-being

VLBI detection of an Infrared-Faint Radio Source

Infrared-Faint Radio Sources represent a new and unexpected class of object which is bright at radio wavelengths but unusually faint at infrared wavelengths. If, like most mJy radio sources, they were either conventional active or star-forming galaxies in the local Universe, we would expect them to be detectable at infrared wavelengths, and so their non-detection by the Spitzer Space Telescope is surprising. Here we report the detection of one of these sources using Very Long Baseline Interferometry, from which we conclude that the sources are driven by Active Galactic Nuclei. We suggest that these sources are either normal radio-loud quasars at high redshift or abnormally obscured radio galaxies.Comment: accepted by MNRA

Spectroscopic Confirmation of Two Massive Red-Sequence-Selected Galaxy Clusters at z ~ 1.2 in the SpARCS-North Cluster Survey

The Spitzer Adaptation of the Red-sequence Cluster Survey (SpARCS) is a deep z'-band imaging survey covering the Spitzer Wide-Area Infrared Extragalactic Survey (SWIRE) Legacy fields designed to create the first large homogeneously selected sample of massive clusters at z > 1 using an infrared adaptation of the cluster red-sequence method. We present an overview of the northern component of the survey which has been observed with Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT)/MegaCam and covers 28.3 deg^2. The southern component of the survey was observed with Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO)/MOSAICII, covers 13.6 deg^2, and is summarized in a companion paper by Wilson et al. We also present spectroscopic confirmation of two rich cluster candidates at z ~ 1.2. Based on Nod-and-Shuffle spectroscopy from GMOS-N on Gemini, there are 17 and 28 confirmed cluster members in SpARCS J163435+402151 and SpARCS J163852+403843 which have spectroscopic redshifts of 1.1798 and 1.1963, respectively. The clusters have velocity dispersions of 490 ± 140 km s^(–1) and 650 ± 160 km s^(–1), respectively, which imply masses (M_(200)) of (1.0 ± 0.9) × 10^(14) M_⊙ and (2.4 ± 1.8) × 10^(14) M_⊙. Confirmation of these candidates as bonafide massive clusters demonstrates that two-filter imaging is an effective, yet observationally efficient, method for selecting clusters at z > 1