Music preferences and personality among Japanese university students

Transcription

1 This article was downloaded by: [R. A. Brown] On: 06 November 2012, At: 01:57 Publisher: Psychology Press Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: Registered office: Mortimer House, Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK International Journal of Psychology Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: Music preferences and personality among Japanese university students R. A. Brown a b a Department of Information and Communication Studies, Bunkyo University, Chigasaki, Japan b Faculty of Letters, Arts, and Science, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan Version of record first published: 17 Jan To cite this article: R. A. Brown (2012): Music preferences and personality among Japanese university students, International Journal of Psychology, 47:4, To link to this article: PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

2 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY, 2012, 47 (4), Music preferences and personality among Japanese university students R. A. Brown 1,2 1 Department of Information and Communication Studies, Bunkyo University, Chigasaki, Japan 2 Faculty of Letters, Arts, and Science, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan Downloaded by [R. A. Brown] at 01:57 06 November 2012 L ittle research has been conducted outside of the European North American cultural area concerning the personality-based determinants of musical genre preferences The present research investigated the personality profiles and general music genre preferences of 268 Japanese college students. Six dimensions and 24 facets of personality, and 12 music genres, were assessed. Results indicated that, consistent with much previous research, openness (to experience) and particularly the facet of aesthetic appreciation were associated with a preference for reflective music (jazz, classical, opera, gospel, enka), while one extraversion facet (sociability) was associated with the preference for pop music. Other personality dimensions were less consistently associated with musical preferences, pointing to cultural differences and the need to assess both personality and music genres at more specific levels. Keywords: Personality; Music; Genre; Preferences; Japan; HEXACO. P eu de recherche a e té réalise ea` ce jour hors de la zone culturelle europe enne et nord-américaine sur les de terminants de la personnalite responsables des pre fe rences pour les genres musicaux. La pre sente étude examinait les profils de personnalite et les pre fe rences pour les genres musicaux ge ne raux auprès de 268 e tudiants colle giaux japonais. Six dimensions et 24 facettes de la personnalite, ainsi que 12 genres musicaux ont e te analyse s. Les résultats ont indiqué que, en accord avec les études ante rieures, l ouverture (à l expe rience) et plus particulie` rement la facette de «l appre ciation esthe tique» e taient associe es avec une pre férence pour la musique «re flective» (jazz, classique, ope ra, gospel, enka), tandis qu une facette d extraversion (la sociabilite ) était associe e avec la préférence pour la musique populaire. Les autres dimensions de personnalite e taient associe es de manie` re moins constante avec les pre férences musicales, signalant des diffe rences culturelles et un besoin d e valuer a` la fois la personnalite et les genres musicaux a` des niveaux plus spe cifiques. S on escasos los estudios que se han llevado a cabo fuera del a rea cultural euro-norteamericana acerca de los determinantes de las preferencias de género musical basados en la personalidad. El presente estudio investigo el perfil de personalidad y las preferencias generales de género musical de 268 estudiantes universitarios japoneses. Se evaluaron seis dimensiones y 24 facetas de la personalidad, y 12 ge neros musicales. Los resultados indicaron que, consistentemente con la mayorı a de las investigaciones previas, la apertura (a la experiencia) y, en particular la faceta de apreciacio n este tica se asociaron con una preferencia por la mu sica reflectiva (jazz, clásica, o pera, gospel, enka), mientras que una de las facetas de extraversio n (sociabilidad) se asocio con la preferencia por la mu sica pop. Otras dimensiones de la personalidad se asociaron de manera menos consistente con las preferencias musicales, apuntando a diferencias culturales y a la necesidad de evaluar la personalidad y los ge neros musicales en niveles ma s especı ficos. Correspondence should be addressed to R. A. Brown, East Heights # 103, Higashi Kaigan Kita, Chigasaki-shi , Japan. ( rabrown_05@hotmail.com). I am indebted to Kondo Yoko for assistance with translation and advice. ß 2012 International Union of Psychological Science

3 260 BROWN To the Ancient Greeks, number was the key to the universe, and music was number in audible form. According to Cicero, music is a form of communion with divine truth (Reilly, 2001, p. 14). Music in early modern Europe was thought to be a conduit for the word of God or a weapon against the Devil (Blanning, 2008, p. 10). Music appears to be no less important an element in most (Blanning, 2008), if not all (D. E. Brown, 2000), contemporary human societies. Researchers are divided as to whether music has survival value (S. Brown, 2000; Miller, 2000), but it is unquestionable that music serves a wide variety of human purposes, mostly based on the simple facts that people enjoy making and hearing music (Huron, 2006; Salimpoor, Benovoy, Larcher, Dagher, & Zatorre, 2011), and appreciate the effects that music can produce (Blanning, 2008; Juslin & Västfjäll, 2008; Khalfa, Dalla Bella, Roy, Peretz, & Lupien, 2003; North, Hargreaves, & McKendrick, 1999, 2000; Pelletier, 2004; Toomey, 1996). Not surprisingly then, music listening, voluntarily or otherwise, occupies major portions of many people s daily lives, adolescents in particular (Mehl & Pennebaker, 2003; Tarrant, North, & Hargreaves, 2001), and is instrumental in creating identities and maintaining group cohesion (Abbey & Davis, 2003; Bakagiannis & Tarrant, 2006; Tanner, Asbridge, & Wortley, 2008; Tekman & Hortac su, 2002). This alone makes music a topic of psychological interest. Prior to Rentfrow and Gosling (2003), most if not all studies involved specific music genres and a narrow set of personality traits (see Lamont & Greasley, 2008; Rentfrow & McDonald, 2009, for reviews). In one of the earlier studies, Litle and Zuckerman (1986) found that sensation-seeking (a facet of extraversion) was associated with liking rock music and disliking blander styles among American university students. Dollinger (1993) found associations between extraversion and liking jazz, between sensation seeking and liking hard rock styles, and between openness and liking less popular musical styles among American university students. Rawlings and Ciancarelli (1997) found associations between extraversion and liking pop music, and between openness and eclecticism (liking a wider variety of musical styles) among English college students. Subsequently, Rawlings, Barrantes i Vidal, and Furnham (2000) found associations between openness and a taste for complex music (such as jazz) among English and Spanish participants and a positive association between liking hard rock styles and some facets of extraversion. Rentfrow and Gosling (2003) undertook to relate broad-band personality dimensions in the form of the Big Five (openness to experience, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability) to similarly broad-band dimensions of musical genre preference, concurring with Cattell and Anderson (1953, p. 446) that music preferences might reveal important aspects of personality. Rentfrow and Gosling identified four dimensions underlying 14 musical genres that were determined to be generally familiar to American university students (at least in Austin, TX). They labeled them Reflective and Complex (classical, jazz, blues, and folk), Intense and Rebellious (alternative, rock, and metal), Upbeat and Conventional (country, pop, religious, and soundtracks), and Energetic and Rhythmic (rap/hip-hip, soul/funk, and electronica/dance). In the interests of brevity these will henceforth be called Reflective, Intense, Upbeat, and Energetic, respectively. Rentfrow and Gosling found a number of associations between genre preferences and personality dimensions among two large samples of university students. (Correlations are positive unless indicated otherwise.) Liking Upbeat music was correlated with extraversion and agreeableness, and was negatively correlated with openness. Liking Reflective music was correlated with openness and agreeableness. Liking Intense music was correlated with openness and (in one sample only) with agreeableness. Liking Energetic music was correlated with extraversion and agreeableness. Zweingenhaft (2008) found a nearly identical pattern of correlations in a small sample of university students in the Southeastern United States, differing from Rentfrow and Gosling s findings only in that liking Energetic music was negatively rather than positively correlated with agreeableness. George, Stickle, Rachid, and Wopnford (2007) studied the genre preferences of Canadian university students. Their target genres overlapped partially with Rentfrow and Gosling s. They found that students who liked Rebellious music (grunge, metal, punk, alternative, classic rock) and Rhythmic and Intense music (rap/hip-hop, pop, R&B, reggae) were lower in conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability, while those who liked Classical were higher in Openness. In a study of Canadian high school students, Miranda and Claes (2008) found that liking Soul (rap/hip-hop, R&B, and reggae) was positively correlated with Extraversion, and that liking Metal, Classical, and many genres ( eclecticism ) was correlated with openness.

4 Additionally, they found that, among girls, liking pop music was correlated with conscientiousness. In a study of Dutch adolescents, Delsing, Ter Bogt, Engels, and Meeus (2008) found that liking Rock music (metal, punk, gothic, rock) was positively correlated with Openness but negatively correlated with conscientiousness. Liking Elite music (jazz, classical, gospel) was positively correlated with conscientiousness and openness but negatively correlated with emotional stability. Liking Urban music (rap/hip-hop, soul/r&b) and dance/pop music (trance/techno, Top 40/Charts) was positively correlated with extraversion and agreeableness. In a study of German college students, Langmeyer, Guglho r-rudan, and Tarnai (2008), using Rentfrow and Gosling s four genre dimensions, found positive correlations between liking Reflective and Intense music and openness, between liking Upbeat music and conscientiousness, and between liking Energetic music and extraversion. Negative correlations were found between liking Upbeat music and conscientiousness, and liking Intense music and openness. Pimentel and Donnelly (2008) investigated the preferences of Brazilian college students for 20 styles of music, which included most of Rentfrow and Gosling s (2003) genres, along with a number of distinctive Brazilian styles, from which they identified three general dimensions of music genre preferences. They found positive correlations between liking Mass Music (sertaneja, pagode, pop, funk, forro, samba, ax_e, and brega) and extraversion, but a negative correlation with openness. They also found that Refined music (MPB, classical, blues, opera, and jazz) was correlated with openness and negatively correlated with emotionality (neuroticism). Alternative music (rap/hip-hop, metal, punk, reggae, and electronica) was also negatively correlated with emotionality. Rentfrow and Gosling pointed out that a general theory of music preferences requires studies from a wide range of cultures. Chamorro- Premuzic, Swami, Furnham, and Maakip (2009) examined Malaysian university students personalities in relation to uses of music, not preferences. The closest to a relevant study of broad-band personality dimensions in relation to music genre preferences is the Pimentel and Donnelly study cited above. The present study is the first to investigate broad dimensions of personality in relation to music preferences in a culture that is unrelated to (albeit not superficially uninfluenced by) Anglo-America Europe, namely, Japan. In addition, Zweigenhaft s (2008) results indicated PERSONALITY AND MUSIC 261 that in some parts of the United States, some music genre preferences reveal personality more perspicuously than others. It is not unreasonable to suspect that such might also be the case in Japan. Thus the present research sought to elucidate the relations between personality (broad-band dimensions as well as more specific facets) and preferences for various music genres in a country that has heretofore been neglected, namely, Japan; thereby contributing to a more universal theory of musical preferences. PRELIMINARY STUDY Rentfrow and Gosling (2003) concluded that music was best studied at the level of genre and subgenre. They selected genres based largely on the music listening habits of North American (and specifically, it seems, Austin, TX) university students. However, as discussed above, researchers have used a variety of different genres appropriate to their samples and accordingly have often found a differing number of factors. Boer (2008), for example, found three factors among nine genres in samples of Brazilian, German, New Zealand, and Philippine students, and four factors in 16 genres among Chinese students. Scha fer and Sedlmeier (2009) found six factors in 25 genres among Germans. It is entirely possible that the listening preferences of Japanese university students cluster in ways unlike those of students in other countries, as their listening experiences and stereotypes associated with various styles undoubtedly differ from those of Americans and others. The music dimensions underlying genres obviously will be influenced by the genres included in the analysis, and the genres that can or should be included depend on the actual listening habits of the target participants. Therefore the primary task at hand was to ascertain what genres participants listen to. To identify the genres of music that Japanese participants are familiar with, 173 students (109 males, 63 females, one unspecified), similar in every respect to those who participated in the main study, were requested to list any musical genre that they liked and listened to. The question format was open-ended and no examples were offered. Only eight genres were listed by two or more participants. Boer (2008) and Scha fer and Sedlmeier (2009), using the same procedure, selected for further analysis genres listed by 75% and 10% of participants, respectively. In the present case, that would have limited the genres to two only (pop and rock), so a less stringent

5 262 BROWN criterion was used, namely, any genre mentioned by at least two individuals. These were pop, or specifically J-pop (n ¼ 83), rock (n ¼ 43), jazz (n ¼ 9), hip-hop or rap (n ¼ 7), metal (n ¼ 6), classical (n ¼ 6), punk (n ¼ 5), and reggae (n ¼ 4). In order to achieve a broader level of coverage, additional genres were included, inspired partly by Rentfrow and Gosling s revised Short Test of Musical Preferences, and others chosen to reflect indigenous listening habits (based on Kitagawa, 2009; Yano, 1997, 2005, as well as the author s 17 years of residence in Japan between 1983 and 2011, the fact that they were mentioned by at least one participant described above, and the fact that small local record/cd shops devote precious labeled shelf space to most of them). These were alternative, bluegrass, blues, country, folk, dance, folk, funk, gospel, world, healing (hiringu, similar to American new age ), opera, religious, soul/r&b, bossa nova, natsumero (roughly, Japanese pop from the 1960s through 1980s), anison (songs for animated cartoons and video games), and enka. These were included on the questionnaire, described below; however, initial analyses indicated that only five of them were familiar to more than half of the participants. The exceptions were gospel, opera, natsumero, anison, and enka. Of these, natsumero and anison were excluded because they are not distinct genres but rather simply older pop songs (natsumero) and applications of other genres (mostly rock and pop) as background music to animated cartoons and video games (anison). In contrast, enka is a distinct musical style deliberately created by Japanese talent agencies as a commercial alternative to Western pop music and is targeted at, and appeals to, older Japanese (Kitagawa, 2009; Yano, 1997, 2005). It was expected that enka would not be highly correlated with pop, but might be associated with genres that are less identified with youthful listeners, for example, classical or jazz. Consequently, the Main Study questionnaire included the 12 genres of rock, jazz, classical, metal, punk, rap/hip-hop, reggae, enka, opera, gospel, pop, and soul/r & B those that were familiar to a sizable majority of participants. Method MAIN STUDY Participants Participants were 268 (153 male, 115 female) Japanese college students, attending two universities in the Tokyo area. Although there were some differences between the two groups with regard to personality, these between-group differences were not the focus of the present research, hence data from the two groups were pooled for most analyses. All participants were enrolled in English language classes, which are either compulsory or semielective for all students and do not necessarily indicate a great interest in, or knowledge of, foreign cultures (Hashimoto, 2007). Average age was 19.3 years (SD ¼ 1.4). The male average age was slightly higher due to three older males (aged, 24, 27, and 29). Questionnaires were provided for voluntary completion on a takehome basis in exchange for bonus class points. There was no overlap in participants between the Preliminary and Main Studies. Instrument Participants indicated how much they liked the target genres on a seven-point response scale ranging from 1 (very much dislike; totemo kirai) to 7 (very much like; totemo suki), with a labeled midpoint option (can t say one way or the other; dochiratomo ienai). Participants were instructed to indicate with 0 any genres that they were unfamiliar with to minimize the chances that they would simply skip genres out of haste to complete the task. Unfamiliar genres were subsequently treated as missing (not as random) data. Genre names were written in both Japanese and English for the convenience of participants who might be familiar with a genre but not recognize its name in a different language. Finally, participants completed the HEXACO-100 (Ashton & Lee, 2008; Lee & Ashton, 2008). The HEXACO was used in order to investigate more specific aspects of personality that might be associated with preferences for supergenres as well as specific subgenres. The HEXACO model assesses six personality domains (Humility Honesty, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness), each subsuming four more specific facets. Honesty Humility subsumes the facets of sincerity, fairness, greed avoidance, and modesty. Emotionality subsumes fearfulness, anxiety, dependence, and sentimentality. Extraversion subsumes social self-esteem, social boldness, sociality, and liveliness. Agreeableness subsumes forgiveness, gentleness, flexibility, and patience. Conscientiousness subsumes organization, diligence, perfectionism, and prudence. Openness to experience subsumes aesthetic appreciation, inquisitiveness, creativity, and unconventionality. A five-point response scale was provided,

6 which ranged from 1 (doesn t apply to me/i don t think so) to5(applies to me/i think so). Following procedures outlined by Ashton and Lee (2007), items were summed (after reversing negatively keyed items) to provide scores for each personality domain and facet. The translation used in the present research was provided by Ashton and Lee (personal communication, April 2010). Initial analyses indicated that the six HEXACO subscales had adequate internal consistencies (Cronbach s a values were: Honesty Humility ¼.76, Emotionality ¼.76, Extraversion ¼.85, Agreeableness ¼.81, Conscientiousness ¼.75, and Openness ¼.77). Scale intercorrelations were low or nonsignificant, ranging from.20 (between Extraversion and Conscientiousness) to.14 (between Honesty Humility and Extraversion). Scale means were reasonably close to the scale midpoint (ranging from 2.97 to 3.40), indicating that scores were not highly skewed. Overall, the psychometric properties of this translation are very similar to those reported for the well-validated Korean version by Boies, Yoo, Ebacher, Lee, and Ashton (2004), and suggest that the Japanese version is adequate for its intended purpose. Results Participants (both males and females) reported spending roughly 10% (1.8 h) of their waking time (17.5 h) listening to music, about the same as American college students (Mehl & Pennebaker, 2003) and English adolescents (Tarrant et al., 2001). This suggests that Japanese college students are about as interested in listening to music as their Western counterparts, and that differences in association are probably not the result of differences in musical interest. Supergenres The 12 genres were submitted to a principal axis factor analysis. The Kaiser criterion (eigenvalues 1.0) with Varimax rotation was applied (Equamax and oblique rotations yielded the same factors with nearly identical factor loadings). The initial analysis yielded four readily interpreted factors, accounting for 53.35% of the variance. However, one factor consisted of a single genre, pop. The analysis was rerun without pop. The same three multigenre factors emerged. Factor loadings are given in Table 1. The first factor consisted of classical, gospel, jazz, opera, and enka, corresponding to Rentfrow and Gosling s TABLE 1 Factor loadings of 11 music genres Music genre preferences Commonalities Opera Gospel Classical Jazz Enka Rap/Hip-hop Reggae Soul/R&B Metal Punk Rock Factor loadings >.40 are in boldface. PERSONALITY AND MUSIC 263 Reflective dimension. The second factor consisted of rap/hip-hop, reggae, and soul/r&b, corresponding to Rentfrow and Gosling s Energetic dimension. The third factor consisted of punk, metal, and rock, corresponding to Rentfrow and Gosling s Intense dimension. Rentfrow and Gosling s Upbeat dimension was represented in the present data by the single genre pop. Repeating the factor analysis with anison, country, and religious genres included revealed that none of the three genres loaded on the same factor with pop. (Of the three, only country correlated significantly, r(196) ¼.17, p <.05, with pop, and that is probably because participants associate country with a single song, which was in fact a pop hit in the USA, namely, Take Me Home Country Roads, by John Denver.) As anticipated, enka loaded on the Reflective genre rather than the more youth-oriented genres. It should be noted that identical factor loadings were not expected, as only six of Rentfrow and Gosling s 14 genres were used in the present study (jazz, classical, rap/hip-hop, soul, rock, metal, and pop), while the other six were not used by Rentfrow and Gosling. These however were related in similar ways in the two studies. Cronbach s a values were.73 for Reflective,.81 for Energetic, and.73 for Intense. Scaled scores were calculated for use in subsequent analyses. Music genre preferences As shown in Table 2, pop was the most generally favored genre and metal the least. Only two genres were rated below the scale midpoint (metal and enka), and the females rated pop, classical, jazz,

7 264 BROWN Downloaded by [R. A. Brown] at 01:57 06 November 2012 TABLE 2 Preference ratings for music genres Overall Males Females Pop 6.03 (1.17) 5.72 (1.22) 6.49 (0.93)*** Rock 5.41 (1.46) 5.36 (1.48) 5.46 (1.45) Classical 5.26 (1.14) 5.03 (1.10) 5.57 (1.13)*** Jazz 5.01 (1.26) 4.71 (1.20) 5.40 (1.23)*** Soul 4.98 (1.43) 4.80 (1.53) 5.21 (1.27)* Rap 4.65 (1.81) 4.69 (1.86) 4.60 (1.75) Gospel 4.57 (1.34) 4.40 (1.27) 4.81 (1.32)* Reggae 4.27 (1.66) 4.25 (1.75) 4.29 (1.55) Punk 4.15 (1.58) 4.29 (1.53) 3.98 (1.63) Opera 4.08 (1.27) 3.76 (1.28) 4.46 (1.15)*** Enka 3.56 (1.32) 3.40 (1.32) 3.77 (1.29)* Metal 3.19 (1.77) 3.31 (1.84) 3.07 (1.62) *p <.05, ***p <.001, independent-sample t-tests between male and female means, two-tailed. Standard deviations are in parentheses. opera, and to a lesser degree, soul/r&b, gospel, and enka higher than the males did. Personality dimensions and music genre dimensions. At the most general level, the primary finding was that participants higher in openness were more likely to prefer Reflective music, r(165) ¼.46, p <.001. Openness was also associated with not liking rap/hip-hop. In addition, participants with higher scores in honesty humility preferred Reflective music, r(164) ¼.21, p <.01. Participants with higher scores in emotionality were significantly more likely to prefer pop, r(165) ¼.16, p <.05. Although significant, these last two correlations are modest and may be spurious. No other significant correlations between personality dimensions and musical preferences were found. Personality facets and genre preferences One aim of the present study was to test whether specific personality facets reveal music preferences more than others in Japan, as found by Zweigenhaft (2008) in the (Southeast) United States. Because most of the significant associations, and the largest in the present study involved openness and Reflective music, it seemed reasonable to focus primarily on the openness facets and Reflective genres. All five Reflective genres were associated with aesthetic appreciation, but they differed in the other facets that were involved. Liking classical music was associated with aesthetic appreciation and inquisitiveness, while liking jazz was associated with aesthetic appreciation, TABLE 3 Correlations between openness facets and reflective genres Classical Gospel Jazz Opera Enka OPENNESS.33***.19**.32***.31***.19** Aesthetic appreciation.36***.18**.33***.34***.22*** Inquisitiveness.25*** *.12* Creativity.16*.09.26***.25***.09 Unconventionality.16*.20**.24*** *p <.05, **p <.01, ***p <.001. creativity, and unconventionality. Classical but not jazz was associated with inquisitiveness; jazz but not opera was associated with unconventionality. Jazz and opera were associated with creativity, but gospel and enka were not, and so on. The pattern of associations is given in Table 3. Concerning facets and specific genres, there were few positive associations, other than those described above involving the openness and Reflective dimensions. Since there were 24 facets and 12 genres, a total of 288 tests were possible, requiring a Bonferroni adjustment to p ¼.0017 to maintain a constant p <.05 Type I error rate. At this level there were no significant associations. At the more permissive probability level of p <.05, 11 correlations were significant, but only one appeared to be theoretically meaningful. Rentfrow and Gosling (2003) and Zweigenhaft (2008) found positive correlations between extraversion and Upbeat music. No such association was found in the present data between pop, presumably one of the Upbeat genres, and extraversion. However, an association was found between the extraversion facet of sociability and pop, r(165) ¼.22, p <.01. Suggesting that if an association between broad-band personality dimensions and broad-band music genre preferences is not universal, associations between specific personality facets and particular music genres might be (neither Rentfrow & Gosling nor Zweigenhaft examined these more specific possibilities.). Other correlations were also on the small side, ranging from.16 to.23, and did not suggest any general pattern of theoretical relevance. In the interests of brevity they will not be discussed further here (interested readers can contact the author for details, if desired). DISCUSSION The present findings support the hypothesis that musical preferences are related to aspects of personality, and specifically that preferences for

8 PERSONALITY AND MUSIC 265 TABLE 4 Correlations between broad-band personality dimensions and preferences for musical dimensions and genres Honest Humility Emotionality Extraversion Agreeableness Conscientiousness Openness REFLECTIVE.21** *** Classical.12.13* *** Gospel.15* ** Jazz.02.16** *** Opera.14* *** Enka.15* *.07.20*** ENERGETIC Rap * *** Soul Reggae * INTENSE Punk **.00 Metal * Rock Pop.10.16** Downloaded by [R. A. Brown] at 01:57 06 November 2012 *p <.05, **p <.01, ***p <.001. REFLECTIVE, ENERGETIC, and INTENSE are composite scores. general musical dimensions (in Rentfrow and Gosling s 2003 conceptualization) are related to some of the five (or six) broad bands of personality (openness, emotionality, conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, and possibly honesty humility). The present results contribute to the existing literature in three ways: first by examining music preferences in relation to more specific personality facets, second by examining personality dimensions as well as facets in relation to specific musical genres, and third by extending the research into a hitherto neglected cultural area, Japan. One association appears to be, if not universal, at least present in every country that has so far been studied, and that is the positive relationship between openness and liking Reflective music. This has been documented in the United States (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2003; Zweigenhaft, 2008), Canada (George et al., 2007; Miranda & Claes, 2008), The Netherlands (Delsing et al., 2008), Germany (Langmeyer et al., 2008), Brazil (Pimentel & Donnelly, 2008), among others, and now in the present study, in Japan. Evidence of other associations is sketchier, and depends on part on which specific genres are concerned. Because few of the relevant studies reported information about specific genres (Zweingenhaft, 2008 being one exception), comparisons are difficult. Tentatively and cautiously, it might be noted that the association between extraversion and Upbeat genres found by Rentfrow and Gosling (2003) may also occur in Japan, as suggested by the correlation between sociability and pop. We do not know which extraversion facets were associated with which specific Upbeat genres in Rentfrow and Gosling s samples. Closer examination might (or might not) reveal that it is specifically sociability and pop that are associated, rather than other personality facets and other Upbeat genres. Perhaps personality and music genre dimensions are excessively general levels of analysis at which to detect these relationships. Zweigenhaft (2008), for example, found no significant correlations between any of the six Big Five extraversion facets in relation to the general Upbeat genre dimension, but did not look at the particular genres. It remains to be investigated how more specific aspects of personality are related to preferences for particular genres. Again, because different studies have used different genres, and accordingly have found different factors, and have in general not reported genre-specific results, generalization across studies is problematic. Important generalizations may have been missed by focusing on genre dimensions made up of disparate genres that happen to cluster together for mostly unknown reasons. With that caveat in mind, some similarities and differences can be noted. Rentfrow and Gosling (2003), Zweigenhaft (2008), and Langmeyer et al. (2008) all found positive correlations between Energetic music and extraversion. This association was not found in Japan, but there were significant positive correlations between two of the Energetic genres (rap/hip-hop and reggae) and extraversion. Rentfrow and Gosling, and Zweigenhaft, but not Langmeyer et al., found positive correlations between Intense music and openness, while the sole positive significant correlation among the Intense genres in Japan was between openness and rock (r ¼.14, p <.05). As can be seen in Table 4,

9 266 BROWN most and the largest correlations involve either the personality dimension of openness and its facets and the Reflective music dimensions and its genres, or both. CONCLUSION The present research indicates that to a considerable degree the same aspects of personality are associated with similar music preferences in Japan as in the United States, Canada, Holland, Germany, and Brazil, among other countries where less data are available. The present research was limited in aim to delineating patterns of association between major aspects of personality and music genre preferences in Japan. Many questions of course remain to be answered. Mood regulation, for example, is clearly related to music listening choices and may be the primary function of music (Hunter, Schellenberg, & Schimmack, 2010; Juslin & Västfja ll, 2008). Individuals with particular personality profiles may accordingly have differing needs for mood management. Similarly, individuals use music for a variety of additional purposes. For example, almost all Japanese college students (and some professors) spend several hours per day commuting to and from school on crowded trains and buses, often standing up. Many can be observed listening to music through headphones or earplugs, and informal inquiry suggests that perhaps most student music listening takes place while commuting. It is known that musical preferences interact with time of day and situation (Schäfer & Sedlmeier, 2009). How the stresses of commuting interact with personality to influence music listening choices remains to be investigated. Also, as pointed out by Rentfrow and Gosling (2003) and many others (Abbey & Davis, 2003; Bakagiannis & Tarrant, 2006; Delsing et al., 2008; Tanner et al., 2008; Tarrant et al., 2001; Tekman & Hortac su, 2002), music preferences can be used to claim identities and group memberships, as well as advertising one s personal characteristics (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2006). Music preferences, or at least explicit liking ratings, may be neurologically sensitive to popularity effects (Berns, Capra, Moore, & Noussair, 2010). In addition, preferences may be influenced by factors as prosaic as simple frequency of exposure (Szpunar, Schellenberg, & Pliner, 2004). Participants overwhelming preferences for pop and rock (as described above) may indicate limited exposure to a wider variety of musical styles. It is possible that they might prefer different genres if they had more opportunity to hear them. Another possible personality trait, rather more narrow-band than the Big Five (or Six, according to Ashton & Lee, 2007, 2008), that could be considered is musical neophilia (desire for novelty in music experiences). Individuals high in musical neophilia, for example, might gravitate to genres in which extended improvisation or harmonic invention is salient jazz and classical, for example rather than genres where adherence to relatively few successful formulas is more the norm. These questions have not been addressed in the present research but merit investigation. Finally, it should be noted that the present study used the genre listing method, whereby participants indicate how much they like certain genres. This is widely used method, but others are also possible; for example, providing lists of representative songs or artists, or playing music samples. The last two have the advantage of being relatively unambiguous, but the disadvantage of being overly particular it is difficult to know whether participants are judging the genre, the artist, the song, the arrangement of the song, the particular performance, the situation in which they are listening, or any combination of these. All three methods have the limitation that they abstract music preferences from music listening functions. For example, even within the limited category of music for dancing, one could reasonably prefer one genre for one kind of dancing but another genre for another kind of dancing, depending on the situation or one s interactional or self-presentational objectives. These are issues that need to be addressed in future work. Manuscript received September 2010 Revised manuscript accepted June 2011 First published online January 2012 REFERENCES Abbey, E., & Davis, P. (2003). Constructing one s identity through music. In I. E. Josephs (Ed.), Dialogicality in development (pp ) [Abstract]. Westport, CT: Praeger. Ashton, M., & Lee, K. (2007). Empirical, theoretical, and practical advantages of the HEXACO model of personality structure. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11, Ashton, M. C., & Lee, K. (2008). The prediction of honesty humility-related criteria by the HEXACO and Five-Factor models of personality. Journal of Research in Personality, 42, Bakagiannis, S., & Tarrant, M. (2006). Can music bring people together? Effects of shared musical preference on intergroup bias in adolescence. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 47,

10 Berns, G., Capra, C., Moore, S., & Noussair, C. (2010). Neural mechanisms of the influence of popularity on adolescent ratings of music [Abstract]. NeuroImage, 49, Boer, D. (2008). Music makes the people come together: Social functions of music listening for young people across cultures. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand. Boies, K., Yoo, T., Ebacher, A., Lee, K., & Ashton, M. (2004). Psychometric properties of scores on the French and Korean versions of the HEXACO Personality Inventory. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 64, Blanning, T. (2008). The triumph of music. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Brown, D. E. (2000). Human universals and their implications. In N. Roughly (Ed.), Being human: Anthropological universality and particularity in transdisciplinary perspectives. New York, NY: Walter de Gruyter. Brown, S. (2000). Evolutionary models of music: From sexual selection to group selection. In F. Tonneau, et al. (Eds.), Perspectives in ethology, Vol. 13: Evolution, culture, and behavior (pp ). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic. Cattell, R., & Anderson, J. (1953). The measurement of personality and behavior disorders by the I. P. A. T. Music Preference Test. Journal of Applied Psychology, 37, Chamorro-Premuzic, T., Swami, V., Furnham, A., & Maakip, I. (2009). The big five personality traits and uses of music: A replication in Malaysia using structural equation modeling. Journal of Individual Differences, 30, Delsing, M., Ter Bogt, T. F. M., Engels, R., & Meeus, W. (2008). Adolescents music preferences and personality characteristics. European Journal of Personality, 22, Dollinger, S. J. (1993). Personality and music preference: Extraversion and excitement seeking or openness to experience? [Abstract]. Psychology of Music, 21, George, D., Stickle, K., Rachid, F., & Wopnford, A. (2007). The association between types of music enjoyed and cognitive, behavioral, and personality factors of those who listen. Psychomusicology, 19, Hashimoto, K. (2007). Japan s language policy and the lost decade. In A. B. M. Tsui, & J. W. Tollefson (Eds.), Language policy, culture, and identity in Asian contexts (pp ). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Hunter, P. G., Schellenberg, E. G., & Schimmack, U. (2010). Feelings and perceptions of happiness and sadness induced by music: Similarities, differences, and mixed emotions. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 4, Huron, D. (2006). Sweet anticipation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Juslin, P. N., & Västfja ll, D. (2008). Emotional responses to music: The need to consider underlying mechanisms. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31, Khalfa, S., Dalla Bella, S., Roy, M., Peretz, I., & Lupien, S. J. (2003). Effects of relaxing music on PERSONALITY AND MUSIC 267 salivary cortisol level after psychological stress [Abstract]. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 999, Kitagawa, J. (2009). Music culture. In Y. Sugimoto (Ed.), Modern Japanese culture (pp ). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Lamont, A., & Greasley, A. (2008). Musical preferences. In S. Hallam, I. Cross, & M. Thaut (Eds.), Oxford handbook of music psychology (pp ). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Langmeyer, A., Guglho r-rudan, A., & Tarmai, C. (2008, July). What is your music preference telling us about your personality? Poster presented at the 14th European Conference on Personality, Tartu, Estonia. Lee, K., & Ashton, M. C. (2008). The HEXACO personality factors in the indigenous personality lexicons of English and 11 other languages. Journal of Personality, 76, Litle, P., & Zuckerman, M. (1986). Sensation seeking and music preferences. Personality and Individual Differences, 7, Mehl, M., & Pennebaker, J. (2003). The sounds of social life: A psychometric analysis of students daily social environments and natural conversations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, Miller, G. (2000). Evolution of human music through sexual selection. In The origins of music (pp ). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Miranda, D., & Claes, M. (2008). Personality traits, music preferences and depression in adolescence. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 14, North, A., Hargreaves, D., & McKendrick, J. (1999). The influence of in-store music on wine selections. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84, North, A., Hargreaves, D., & McKendrick, J. (2000). The effects of music on atmosphere in a bank and a bar. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 30, Pimentel, C. E., & Donnelly, E. D. O. P. (2008). The relation between music preference and the big five personality traits. Psicologia, Ciencia e Profissao, 28, Pelletier, C. L. (2004). The effect of music on decreasing arousal due to stress: A meta-analysis. Journal of Music Therapy, 41, Rawlings, D., Barrantes i Vidal, N., & Furnham, A. (2000). Personality and aesthetic preference in Spain and England: Two studies relating sensation seeking and openness to experience to liking for paintings and music. European Journal of Personality, 14, Rawlings, D., & Ciancarelli, V. (1997). Music preference and the five-factor model of the NEO Personality Inventory [Abstract]. Psychology of Music, 25, Reilly, R. R. (2001). The music of the spheres, or the metaphysics of music. Intercollegiate Review, May, Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2003). The do re mi s of everyday life: The structure and personality correlates of music preferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2006). Message in a ballad: The role of music preferences in interpersonal perception. Psychological Science, 17,

11 268 BROWN Rentfrow, P. J., & McDonald, J. A. (2009). Preferences, personality, and emotion. In P. N. Juslin, & J. A. Sloboda (Eds.), Handbook of music and emotion: Theory, research, applications (pp ). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Salimpoor, V. N., Benovoy, M., Larcher, K., Dagher, A., & Zatoore, R. J. (2011). Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music. Nature Neuroscience, 14, Schäfer, T., & Sedlmeier, P. (2009). From the functions of music to music preference. Psychology of Music, 37, Szpunar, K. K., Schellenberg, G., & Pliner, P. (2004). Liking and memory for musical stimuli as a function of exposure. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30, Tanner, J., Asbridge, M., & Wortley, S. (2008). Our favorite melodies: Musical consumption and teenage lifestyles. British Journal of Sociology, 59, Tarrant, M., North, A., & Hargreaves, D. (2001). Social categorization, self-esteem, and the estimated musical preferences of male adolescents. Journal of Social Psychology, 141, Tekman, H. G., & Hortaçsu, N. (2002). Music and social identity: Stylistic identification as a response to musical style. International Journal of Psychology, 37, Toomey, L. (1996). Literature review: The Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music. Journal of the Association for Music & Imagery, 5, [Abstract]. Yano, C. (1997). Inventing selves: Images and image making in a Japanese popular music genre. Journal of Popular Culture, 31, Yano, C. (2005). Covering disclosures: Practices of intimacy, hierarchy, and authenticity in a Japanese popular music genre. Popular Music & Society, 28, Zweigenhaft, R. L. (2008). A do re mi encore: A closer look at the personality correlates of music preferences. Journal of Individual Differences, 29,