A. C. North

Curtin University · School of Population Health

There has been little quantitative research by psychologists concerning the music of The Beatles. The present research compared their music against a database of 169,909 songs for which data was obtained via the Spotify application programming interface concerning acousticness, danceability, duration, energy, key, loudness, mode, popularity, tempo,...

A recent examination of charting popular music before and during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic indicated that popular music lyrics during turbulent socioeconomic conditions had more negatively valenced words, providing support for the Environmental Security Hypothesis. However, the use of chart data alone cannot speak to what indivi...

We examine associations between prevailing weather conditions and music features in all available songs that reached the United Kingdom weekly top charts throughout a 67-year period (1953-2019), comprising 23 859 unique entries. We found that music features reflecting high intensity and positive emotions were positively associated with daily temper...

Several studies show that a concept or object is more popular when it is easier to process. The present research applies this notion of processing fluency to the lyrics of all 271 top 5 songs on the United Kingdom chart for each week from 1999 to 2014. The processing fluency of the lyrics was computer scored for readability, presence of rhyme, and...

Music-related decision making encompasses a wide range of behaviours including those associated with composition and performance, listening choices, and decisions involving music education and therapy. Although research programmes in psychology and economics have contributed to an improved understanding of music-related behaviour, historically thes...

A limited amount of previous research suggests that deteriorating socioeconomic conditions may be associated with greater popularity of music lyrics featuring negative emotional content and references to relationships. The present research considered this in charting popular music before and during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic. A d...

The majority of research on music aesthetics treats music and lyrics as discrete entities, despite the artistic imperative that they should relate to one another in some way. This research computer analyzed both the music and lyrics of the songs to have reached the weekly UK top five singles chart from January 1999 to December 2013 ( N = 1,414). Th...

Musical taste and uses of music correlate with age, although there has been little theoretical explanation of these relationships. The present research argues that musical behavior may be explained by chronological age and variations in life goals across the lifespan, and investigated the relationship between life goals, age, musical taste, and use...

While researchers have begun to examine how social and emotional investment in music is related to psychological well-being, very little research has considered how best to promote life-long participation in music across the lifespan. One particular gap in the existing literature concerns how and why individuals continue to participate or, instead,...

The present study investigated how the gender distribution of the United Kingdom’s most popular artists has changed over time and the extent to which these changes might relate to popular music lyrics. Using data mining and machine learning techniques, we analyzed all songs that reached the UK weekly top 5 sales charts from 1960 to 2015 (4,222 song...

A total of 172 participants completed an open-ended questionnaire in response to self-selected music pieces that were intended to evoke aesthetic experiences (by their selection of loved and “great/classic” pieces of music) in addition to control, nonaesthetic experiences (by their selection of disliked pieces of music). Word frequency analysis sug...

Based on their meta-analysis, Schäfer and Mehlhorn argue that the weak relationships identified indicate that personality is a poor predictor of musical taste. The present research challenged this by measuring personality aspects rather than the Big Five domains and also political orientation. A sample of 157 university students aged 17 to 55 years...

Background: A recent surge of research has begun to examine music investment and well- being; however, researchers have noted that particular challenges associated with this work are to test and theorize the benefits of music to well-being. Thus, the current research used self-determination theory as a framework to consider the perceived benefits t...

Stalking is a prevalent phenomenon that has major negative psychological, physical, social and financial sequelae. Although workplaces are creating and extending policies to respond to domestic abuse, little attention has been paid to workplace-based stalking. The present study took a mixed methods approach to examining and comparing 49 cases of st...

The present research employed computerised analyses of all those pieces to have achieved any degree of commercial success in either the United States or the United Kingdom in terms of energy, beats per minutes, and several emotion scores. Analyses showed differences between these two commercially-complete musical cultures in all variables except on...

A recent surge of research has begun to examine music participation and well-being; however, a particular challenge with this work concerns theorizing around the associated well-being benefits of musical participation. Thus, the current research used Self-Determination Theory to consider the potential associations between basic psychological needs...

This research investigated associations between the lyrics of every song to have reached the weekly U.K. Top 5 singles chart from 1960 to 2015 and the number of people responsible for recording each song. Following computerized content analysis of the lyrics of the 4,534 unique songs, the results showed that the number of musicians involved was neg...

While previous research has established relationships between perceived parenting styles and children’s deviant behaviours, and links between these behaviours and liking for intense and rebellious music, no research has explored the associations between perceived parenting styles and children’s liking for different music styles. Whereas previous re...

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 illustr...

The circumplex model of affect claims that emotions can be understood in terms of their relative positions along two dimensions, namely pleasant-unpleasant and active-sleepy; and numerous studies of small samples of music have yielded data consistent with this. The present research tests whether the energy and BPM (proxies for the arousal dimension...

A relationship between participation in musical activity and well-being has frequently been observed in recent research reports. Of these, some propose various well-being-related correlates of musical participation, but the varying samples and foci leave researchers without a reasoned appraisal of these correlates or a data-driven categorization of...

Several previous studies support the claim that liking for music can be predicted by its arousal-evoking qualities and typicality; and that emotional responses to music can be captured by two dimensions, namely sleepy-arousing and unpleasant-pleasant. The present research tests these ideas via all 204,506 pieces of music to have featured on sales a...

Social network sites (SNS) allow for interaction between musicians and fans, including parasocial relationships. The present research approaches the topic from the perspective of psychology and particularly previous research concerning attachment styles, celebrity interest, and their correlates. Using an online survey (N = 464), we considered wheth...

A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PARTICIPATION IN musical activity and well-being has frequently been observed in recent research reports. Of these, some propose various well-being-related correlates of musical participation, but the varying samples and foci leave researchers without a reasoned appraisal of these correlates or a data-driven categorization of...

Previous content analyses of pop music have considered the prevalence of misogynistic portrayals of interpersonal relationships but have used relatively small samples of music, and often neglected musician gender. Because cultural depictions create individuals’ musical identity, we expect the musical norms identified by previous content analyses to...

1. BACKGROUND Previous research on contextual correlates of musical taste has considered micro-level influences extensively, but has yet to consider macro-level factors, such as time of year. The literature concerning seasonal correlates of mood and behavior suggests that colder weather is associated with low activity and a reflective cognitive sty...

Background - The majority of content analyses of pop music lyrics and music videos have addressed levels of sexuality and misogyny in relatively small samples of music, establishing that depiction of these is prevalent. Given this, it seems appropriate that further consideration of (a wider range of) music lyrics should focus on how the prevalence...

The present research conducted a computerised analysis of the content of all lyrics from the United Kingdom’s weekly top 5 singles sales charts (Study 1, 1962–2011), and considered their macroeconomic correlates (Study 2, 1960–2011). Study 1 showed that coverage of interpersonal relationships consistently reflected a self-centred and unsophisticate...

The aim of the present research was to consider what particular features were significant predictors of whether music is present in a given situation, as well as what factors influenced 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...

A framework for organizing the semantic structure of aesthetic experience is proposed. The new framework is presented in an 'affect-space' and consists of three sets of dichotomous classifications: (1) internal locus (the felt experience) versus external locus (the description of the object), (2) 'affect-valence' — the attraction to (positive valen...

Previous research on contextual correlates of musical taste have considered microlevel influences extensively, but they have yet to consider macrolevel factors, such as time of year. The literature concerning seasonal correlates of mood and behavior suggests that colder weather is associated with low activity and a reflective cognitive style, where...

This study uses Mehrabian and Russell’s (1974) Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance (PAD) model to consider how responses to both the music heard and overall in-situ listening experience are influenced by the listener’s degree of control over music selected for a particular listening episode and the location in which the listening takes place. Following recr...

Research on musical preference has been dominated by two approaches emphasizing, respectively, the arousal-evoking qualities of a piece or its typicality of the individual’s overall musical experience. There is a dearth of evidence concerning whether either can explain preference in conditions of high ecological validity. To address this, the prese...

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-stereoty...

Research on playlists has focused on how usage is related to technological and music industry variables, and the demographic characteristics of users. However, it also seems reasonable to suspect a psychological component to playlist usage. The present research considered an individual’s propensity to devise and make use of playlists in terms of ti...

This chapter opens with a brief account of three meta-analyses of studies of the effects of background music, one of which looks specifically at its effects in retail settings. It next outlines the main theoretical explanations of these effects, namely the effects of music on physiological arousal, on the priming of certain thoughts and association...

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 on...

Research on playlists has focused on how usage is related to technological and music industry variables, and the demographic characteristics of users. However, it seems reasonable to suspect a psychological component to playlist usage also. The present research considered an individual’s propensity to devise and make use of playlists in terms of ti...

Previous research investigating emotions, has often used the circumplex model, which posits that emotions can be understood in terms of two dimensions: valence and arousal. While numerous studies have supported this, the research has employed small sample of music. In contrast, the present research 143,353 pieces of music to test whether the energy...

Opportunities for interacting with music in present-day, western society have become more varied due to digital technology (North, Hargreaves, & Hargreaves, 2004; O’Hara & Brown, 2006). Consequently, the range of places, times and ways in which people experience music has increased dramatically (Heye & Lamont, 2010; Juslin, Liljeström, Västfjäll, B...

Music congruity effects on consumer behavior are conceptualized in terms of cognitive priming of semantic networks in memory, and operationalized as congruent with a product's country of origin (Experiment 1), or congruent with the utilitarian (Experiment 2) or social identity (Experiments 2 and 3) connotations of a product. Hearing a specific genr...

Social networking sites regularly feature requests for assistance, although the massive number of users represents corresponding scope for diffusion of responsibility; and unlike most physical scenarios, the request for help is often made several days before assistance is offered. The present research used a specially-prepared imitation social netw...

Utilizing the Experience Sampling Method, this research investigated how individuals encounter music in everyday life. Responding to two text messages sent at random times between 8:00 and 23:00 daily for one week, 177 participants completed self-reports online regarding their experience with any music heard within a two-hour period prior to receip...

AVAILABLE AT: http://www.psywb.com/content/4/1/22 ABSTRACT: 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 crea...

Few data exist concerning older and younger stalkers. This study compares 3 age groups of stalker [aged 16 or under (n = 19), aged 17–59 (n = 1,499), aged 60 or over (n = 86)] on 83 variables pertaining to demographics, the stalking process, the impact of stalking, and victim and third party responses. Self-defined victims of stalking provided the...

Mehrabian and Russell’s (1974) Pleasure–Arousal–Dominance model states that a propensity to approach/avoid an environment can be conceptualized in terms of the pleasure and arousal it elicits and one’s degree of dominance therein. Using the Experience Sampling Method, 177 individuals provided responses concerning Mehra- bian and Russell’s model thr...

Please note that the abstract can be downloaded from the conference website: http://www.icmpc-apscom.org (see Proceedings page 10).

Despite rapid adoption of social media as a means of music listening, little is known about users’ motivations. This study applies the uses and gratifications approach to users’ motivations for using music listening applications on Facebook. Participants completed an online survey, and 153 out of 576 respon- dents indicated that they used a Faceboo...

Data on everyday music listening obtained via the Experience Sampling Method indicated that selection method was related to liking for and emotional re- sponse to the music, attention paid to the music, and perceived consequences of hearing the music. Individual listener’s characteristics (e.g., age and level of engagement with music) were associat...

This paper examines the idea that attraction to music is generated at a cognitive level through the formation and activation of networks of interlinked “nodes.” Although the networks involved are vast, the basic mechanism for activating the links is relatively simple. Two comprehensive cognitive-behavioral models of musical engagement are examined...

Background musical genres can have a profound influence on the perceived image of real and fictitious universities in television and radio advertisements. In this study, experiments showed how dance music enhanced (while classical music diminished) the desired image for the university as modern, exciting, and trendy. Classical music resulted in a m...

Most stalking literature reports on male stalkers and female victims. This work examines stalking experiences in 4 sex dyads: male stalker–female victim, female stalker–male victim, female–female dyads, and male–male dyads. Respondents were 872 self-defined victims of stalking from the United Kingdom and the United States who completed an anonymous...

Sociologists have argued that musical taste should vary between social groups, but have not considered whether the effect extends beyond taste into uses of music and also emotional reactions to music. Moreover, previous research has ignored the culture in which participants are located. The present research employed a large sample from five post-in...

Two experiments were carried out to investigate the impacts of musical 'fit' on the choice between two products when the opportunity and ability to consider their relative advantages were either limited (Experiment 1) or ample (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 asked participants to read complex descriptions of two watches within a short time. The watche...

Research concerning cross-modal influences on perception has neglected auditory influences on perceptions of non-auditory objects, although a small number of studies indicate that auditory stimuli can influence perceptions of the freshness of foodstuffs. Consistent with this, the results reported here indicate that independent groups' ratings of th...

Utilizing the Experience Sampling Method, this investigation aimed to update our understanding of everyday listening in situ. Self-reports regarding where, when, and how music was experienced, as well as ratings concerning affect before and after exposure to music and the perceived effects of what was heard were gathered over one week. Responding t...

This chapter focuses on whether pop music subcultures promote self-harming and other factors related to delinquency. Put simply, it considers whether listening to certain forms of pop music is related to a range of behaviours that society deems undesirable. It begins by briefly describing some of the instances where pop music has caused public outr...

In this chapter we look for regularities in the complex and ever-changing pattern of individual preferences, with a particular focus on age changes from early childhood through to adolescence. These questions are of vital concern to musicians, teachers, and audiences: and in this chapter, we approach them from our own perspective as psychologists....

This chapter discusses the notion of imagination and creativity in music listening, viewing perception as creative construction of knowledge. It proposes three networks of cognitive association. The first are networks of musical association: these are the connections that people make between different musical materials, pieces, and styles, and they...

Music that 'fits' with the attributes of commercial products should raise the salience of those products over others, and therefore prime their selection. Participants were presented with two advertisements for two competing petrol brands, which featured music that did (not) fit with those brands. Brand preferences were not affected by the advertis...

This study assessed the impact of the congruity between the actual age of the participants and the perceived age of narrator voices upon responses to a radio advertisement for a fictitious university. Attribute transfer caused by stereotypical age perceptions provided the explanation for results indicating that an incongruous (older) narrator signi...

Berlyne's theory of aesthetic response was investigated in two naturalistic music listening situations. Fifty participants in an aerobic exercise class, and 50 participants in a yogic relaxation class were presented with five three-minute musical excerpts representing a range of complexity. Participants rated these excerpts on scales of either liki...

The present research investigated how people judge the musical taste of others. In Study 1, participants were asked to judge the likely musical taste of 10 fictional individuals. Participants' judgements of musical taste exhibited a common bias in keeping with stereotypes of musical taste; this bias was believed to stem from the use of the represen...

Four 'uses and gratifications' studies investigated peoples' reasons for listening to music (Study 1); and whether these reasons differ significantly from those associated with other leisure activities (Study 2). In Study 3, an open-ended, qualitative research design was used to investigate why people listen to music. In Study 4, a cross-sectional...

This study investigated the impact of musical 'fit' on memory for items. Participants were asked to recall 20 items they had seen while listening to either rock music or classical music. Some of the 20 items were associated with either the rebellious stereotype of rock music or the affluent stereotype of classical music. More 'rock items' than 'cla...

Several studies have investigated the relationship between (usually a narrow set of) personality dimensions and liking for a small number of individual musical styles. To date there has been no attempt to investigate, within a single methodology, the extent to which personality factors correlate with liking for a very wide range of musical styles....

Previous studies have claimed that music can prime the selection of certain products and influence consumers’ propensity to spend because it activates related knowledge of the world and subsequently raises the salience of certain products and behaviours associated with that music. The possibility that music can raise the salience of associated...

Two experiments investigated the impact of musical “fit” on consumer choice. In Experiment 1, Malaysian participants of Malay, Indian, or Chinese ethnicity chose between Malay and Western food while either Malay or Western music played in the background. Participants tended to choose Malay food, irrespective of the type of music played. Experiment...

Previous studies have claimed that music can prime the selection of certain products and influence consumers’ propensity to spend because it activates related knowledge of the world and subsequently raises the salience of certain products and behaviors associated with that music. Music that corresponds with the attributes of certain products the...

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 and behave more favourably towards those perceived to share their musical taste than towards those who do not. The findings of t...

In this study, 2,894 participants rated attitudes toward their favorite public figure on the Celebrity Attitude Scale. It was noted whether each figure was alive or dead, and a panel of four independent judges assessed each in terms of their moral conduct and physical attractiveness. Dead figures appealed less and were subject to lower "intense per...

This study investigated the effects of the nature of music and a concurrent task on measures of task performance and musical preference. Subjects completed 5 laps of a computer motor racing game whilst listening to either arousing or relatively unarousing music in either the presence or absence of a backward-counting task. Both these manipulations...

Within the context of an undergraduate registration queue, this study confirmed perceived wait duration to be a significant, positive function of the tempo of background music, and a significant, negative function of musical liking. In addition, it identified how the presence of music significantly reduced mean perceived duration estimates. Slow-te...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a literature review that highlights significant findings from empirical research examining the impact of music within various real and simulated service environments. Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines the results of studies that have manipulated specific musical variables (genre, tem...

This article begins with a brief overview of two particular effects of music that have received a considerable amount of attention: the effect of music on the speed with which customers behave, and the impact of music on time perception. It then illustrates the many other commercially relevant processes that can be influenced by music. Music can ha...

Two studies assessed the relationship between celebrity worship and (i) addiction (n 01359) and (ii) criminality (n 02158). Overall Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS) scores correlated positively with Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Á Revised (EPQ-R) Addiction and Criminality sub-scale scores. In further support of the absorption Áaddiction model of...

Few western researchers have studied music in everyday life. Data were collected from 200 Pakistani participants to address whether Western findings could be generalized to non-Western samples. Music was heard in everyday life by a large number of participants; most musical experiences occurred while participants were with friends; Pakistani classi...

Several studies indicate that musical preferences provide a means of discriminating between social groups, and suggest indirectly that musical preferences should correlate with a variety of different lifestyle choices. In this study, 2532 participants responded to a questionnaire asking them to state their musical preference and also to provide dat...

Two studies were carried out to investigate the relationship between attributional style (Study 1), self-esteem (Study 2), and different forms of celebrity worship. Entertainment social celebrity worship (the most normal form considered) was unrelated to attributional style or self-esteem; intense personal celebrity worship was related positively t...

Several studies indicate that musical preferences provide a means of discriminating between social groups, and suggest indirectly that musical preferences should correlate with a variety of different lifestyle choices. In this study, 2532 participants responded to a questionnaire asking them to state their musical preference and also to provide dat...

Several studies indicate that musical preferences provide a means of discriminating between social groups, and suggest indirectly that musical preferences should correlate with a variety of different lifestyle choices. In this study, 2532 participants responded to a questionnaire asking them to state their musical preference and also to provide dat...

The increasing ease and frequency of digital music piracy and the global nature of the music industry make it important to understand why consumers in different national markets purchase music CDs. Study 1 identified 5 factors underlying CD purchasing, noting these differences between British and Japanese participants. Study 2 investigated relation...