Music listening in everyday life: Devices, selection methods, and digital technology

Two studies considered whether psychological variables could predict everyday music listening practices more than those demographic and technology-related variables studied predominantly hitherto. Study 1 focused on music-listening devices, while Study 2 focused on music selection strategies (e.g. playlists). Study 1 indicated the existence of a one-dimensional identity based on music technology. Further, psychological variables (such as innovativeness and self-efficacy) predicted whether individuals possess such an identity. Moreover, while psychological variables predicted whether individuals preferred ‘familiarized’ advantages inherent to listening devices, a preference for ‘progressive’ advantages was predicted by technological behaviors. Study 2 supported the first study in terms of identity, and demonstrated that a different pattern of variables predicted playlist listening from listening to music via shuffle. More generally, the findings suggest the utility of applying constructs from consumer psychology to everyday music-listening behaviors

Music-related activities on Facebook

Despite the current prevalence of users performing musical activities on social media, and on Facebook in particular, little research has examined these behaviors from the perspective of consumer psychology. A cross-sectional, convenience sample of 400 participants (Mage = 22.56, SDage = 7.79) completed an online questionnaire. The findings illustrated that the constructs of opinion leadership, innovativeness, and self-efficacy within the consumer psychology literature were associated with performing music-related activities on Facebook, including the active creation/consumption of music content and use of music listening applications. Thus, music activities performed on Facebook have an overt consumer psychological component. These findings indicate that to understand music-related activities on social media, further research should consider psychological variables in explaining this common and economically important activity

Pleasure, arousal, dominance, and judgments about music in everyday life

The aim of the present research was to consider what particular features are significant predictors of whether music is present in a given situation, as well as what factors influence a person’s judgments about the music. Applying Mehrabian and Russell’s (1974) Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance model to everyday experiences of music, 569 people reported on their activity for the previous day via the Day Reconstruction Method (Kahneman, Krueger, Schkade, Schwarz, & Stone, 2004). Data concerning each event included the activity and location, and characterization of the experience using the Pleasure–Arousal–Dominance measure. Moreover, for those events where music was present, participants also indicated how they heard the music and made four judgments about the music. Results indicated that the location, activity, and the person’s perception of dominance were significant predictors of the presence of music during everyday activities and that person’s judgments about the music. Contrary to prior research that has considered predominantly situational pleasure and arousal variables, the present results demonstrate that dominance is arguably the important variable in contextualized music listening

Young people's musical engagement and technologies of taste

Bird, SP ORCiD: 0000-0002-9591-7932In this chapter I will explore flash mobs as a form of mediated youth culture that exemplifies the shifts occurring in the ways that we view and use ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ public spaces

Contextualized music listening: playlists and the Mehrabian and Russell model

The present research considered everyday music listening in the context of eight situations, classified as high or low on Mehrabian and Russell’s (1974) Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance (PAD) dimensions. Completing a questionnaire, 344 participants considered the music they would select and created a playlist for a given situation. The music selected by participants (as playlists) for these eight situations differed along two dimensions, namely arousing and aesthetic. Rather than selecting music that would moderate arousal (Berlyne, 1971), results indicated that participants employed an arousal-optimization strategy. There were also differences in the music selected across situations on the aesthetic dimension. The findings also suggest that music chosen for situations is subject to injunctive norms, such that there was considerable variation between the music chosen for listening to on public transport or when washing dishes, whereas music selected for a wedding was perceived as more homogeneous. While previous research has considered music preference in terms of pleasure and arousal, the apparent role of injunctive norms may be related to dominance and requires additional research. More generally, the results indicate that Mehrabian and Russell’s PAD dimensions offer a useful framework for considering the relationship between music and the environmental context in which it is experienced