Researcher Degrees of Freedom in the Psychology of Religion

There is a push in psychology toward more transparent practices, stemming partially as a response to the replication crisis. We argue that the psychology of religion should help lead the way toward these new, more transparent practices to ensure a robust and dynamic subfield. One of the major issues that proponents of Open Science practices hope to address is researcher degrees of freedom (RDF). We pre-registered and conducted a systematic review of the 2017 issues from three psychology of religion journals. We aimed to identify the extent to which the psychology of religion has embraced Open Science practices and the role of RDF within the subfield. We found that many of the methodologies that help to increase transparency, such as pre-registration, have yet to be adopted by those in the subfield. In light of these findings, we present recommendations for addressing the issue of transparency in the psychology of religion and outline how to move toward these new Open Science practices

The Psychology of Metal Music, Culture, and Dis/Ability

This chapter explores the psychological functions that metal culture helps provide for community members with dis/abilities. Explanations are provided for how individuals with dis/abilities are able use metal culture as a potential source for mood and symptom maintenance, representation, social relatedness, a sense of belonging, and as an outlet for sharing their experiences. The underlining cultural and historical contextualization of dis/ability in rock, punk, and metal cultures is discussed, including depictions that could be considered exploitative, exaggerative, or inaccurate in order to understand the extent to which metal culture is inclusive towards people with dis/abilities. It is proposed that the embracing of societally taboo topics like dis/ability in heavy metal music and culture can serve a destigmatizing role towards the dis/abled, and when combined with an overlapping ‘outsider’ identity, it fosters a welcoming environment in metal culture for people with dis/abilities. This theoretical framework is applied through qualitative interviews with metal community members that have firsthand experience with dis/ability in metal

Music industry in crisis: The impact of a novel coronavirus on touring metal bands, promoters, and venues

In March of 2020 the world began to take widespread preventative measures against the spread of a novel coronavirus through travel restrictions, quarantines, and limitations on group gatherings. These restrictions resulted in the immediate closing of many businesses, including concerts venues, and also put an abrupt end to live music performances across Europe and the United States. This had immediate implications for touring bands, as bands earn most of their income touring, and many found themselves in a situation where they experienced substantial financial losses alongside negative affective ramifications. This article utilized evidence from qualitative interviews and public statements to draw inferences about the impact of COVID-19 on the music industry, with a particular focus on touring musicians and their respective managers, promoters, booking agencies, and record labels. Musicians reported negative affective and financial ramifications as a result of COVID-19, but they also reported overwhelming support from metal music fans that made the fallout from the pandemic less severe

Metal for the masses: how indie metal labels have adapted for the digital era

One of the areas that has most readily adapted to the changing musical environment is within metal music culture. Dedicated fans have taken responsibility upon themselves to create smaller record labels that specialize both in bringing attention to new, rising bands, as well as to do the laborious work that is needed to make sure that historical, out-of-print metal albums continue to receive new listeners. Their dedication has resulted in tightly-woven communities between these labels, the bands, and music fans, and this has contributed to the resurgence of physical mediums including vinyl and cassettes. Strategies are discussed that help push sales of physical media, including the release of special and elaborate versions of albums, often with unique packaging, or with limited color variants of vinyl editions. This article includes interviews with individuals that run underground metal labels and that host metal music streams, and they share their experience of how metal has changed as the music industry and the consumption of music has moved into the digital era, and the pros and cons that come with that, including perceptions about streaming and streaming services. Comparisons are made between major corporate labels and indie record labels, and the proactive role of indie labels in keeping musical subcultures thriving is assessed

The Contextualizing of Misogyny in Metal Culture

The aim of this research is to investigate the way in which men and women in metal culture contextualize, interpret, and affectively react to metal lyrics and imagery that depict violent acts towards women. Even though some subgenres of metal, such as brutal death metal and slam, almost exclusively depict acts of violence and sexual violence towards women in their lyrics and artwork, these are not subgenres that have strictly male fanbases. Female fans of these subgenres buy posters, albums, and shirts with graphic depictions of depraved acts towards their own gender. It is not clear how women in the brutal death metal and slam scenes resolve the conflict between their gender and the seemingly misogynistic depictions of violence in images and lyrics within those subgenres. This research will help us gain insight into this unique cultural environment to see the extent to which misogyny exists within metal extreme metal scenes

A psychological exploration into compulsive collecting

This exploratory study is intended to provide details about similarities and differences between different subgroups of collectors through the following variables: shopping addiction, excessive buying, the influence of COVID-19 on purchasing behaviors, how buying behaviors strain interpersonal relationships, obsessive behaviors associated with buying behaviors, buying as a compulsive behavior, meaning-making properties of collecting material items, and plans associated with the items after death

Through the Looking Glass: Kraftwerk’s Influence on Music Technology & German Cultural Identity

Although the band Kraftwerk have been extensively noted for their pioneering musical style, what has been given less attention is their broader cultural impact, how they served as a source for German identity in a time of crisis, and the conditions under which their music was formed and changed over time. This article examines their influence through the sense of cultural identity Kraftwerk provided for Germanic peoples post-World War II, their fundamental influence on future musical acts that would incorporate electronics into their music, their innovation in their creation of new musical instruments/technologies, and the application of those instruments in novel performance and recording settings

The role of moral reasoning & personality in explaining lyrical preferences

Previous research has supported that personality traits can act to a precursor to media preferences. Due to the ongoing association between morality and media preferences in public and political discourse (e.g., blaming immoral behaviours on media preferences), this research sought to expand the knowledge about factors that contribute to media preferences by investigating if moral reasoning styles explain some of the variance that was not already explained by personality traits. A specific form of media preferences were chosen - lyrical preferences in metal music - as claims between metal lyrical themes and behaviour have been ongoing since the 1980s, despite a lack of empirical evidence to support these claims. A lyrical preferences scale was developed, and utilizing this scale, it was found that different types of metal fans exhibit different moral reasoning styles dependent on their metal sub-genre identification. Further, it was found that moral reasoning styles explain a portion of the variance in lyrical preferences that weren't already explained by personality traits. In particular, lyrical preferences were often thematically consistent with moral reasoning content and personality traits, such as that individuals that preferred lyrics about celebrating metal culture and unity had higher levels of the group loyalty moral reasoning domain alongside being higher in extraversion. The implications of moral reasoning styles and personality traits as being precursors to media preferences are discussed

The experiences of metal fans with mental and developmental disorders in the metal music community

A series of interviews were conducted to explore the experience of what it is like to be a member of metal music culture living with mental health conditions and/or developmental disabilities. Ten participants were interviewed, three of which had schizophrenia, four with autism spectrum disorder, two had bipolar affective disorder and one had borderline personality disorder. Thematic analysis was utilized to explore the experiences of people living with various types of mental illness and developmental disabilities in the context of metal, which resulted in the development of three overarching themes. It was found that participants felt that the metal music community was more welcoming to them due to the broad use of lyrics about mental health topics and the prevalence of metal musicians that have mental health concerns. The broad application of mental health topics in metal was seen as having a de-stigmatizing effect towards mental health concerns, but at the cost of accuracy, as topics like schizophrenia are seen as fetishized and inaccurately depicted. Participants reported that the metal community affords its members with mental health conditions and developmental disabilities a number of benefits including a sense of belonging, the facilitation of mood maintenance and the management of lesser symptoms. Symptom management appeared to be mitigated by symptom severity and influenced how participants experienced metal music