David J. Hargreaves

Music and Adolescent Identity

Abstract This paper reports four studies which investigated the function of musical preference as an identifying ‘badge’ by which adolescents express their own self‐concepts and make judgements of others. Studies 1 and 2 indicated that older and younger adolescents, respectively, hold normative expectations about the values and characteristics of fans of particular musical styles. Study 3 showed that 13‐14‐ and 18‐19‐year‐olds hold normative expectations which influence their perception of the likely social consequences (e.g. having fewer friends) of being a fan of particular musical styles. The final study investigated hypotheses generated by the results of Studies 1‐3. It demonstrated a positive relationship between adolescents’ musical preference, self‐concept, self‐esteem, and normative expectations of the ‘typical’ fans of musical styles. This study also indicated that adolescents favour people who like the same musical style as they do, without necessarily denigrating those who do not. In conjunctio...

The effects of age, gender and computer experience upon computer attitudes

Summary The effects of age, gender and prior computing experience upon attitudes towards computers were investigated in 278 secondary school pupils drawn from the 11‐12 and 15‐16 years age‐groups. Males from both age‐groups reported greater experience with and more positive attitudes towards computers than females. Younger pupils, both male and female, were found to have greater experience with and more positive attitudes towards computers than older pupils. After controlling for ownership and use of a home computer by means of analyses of covariance, female and male pupils reported similar levels of enjoyment of computers, but age differences in enjoyment and gender and age differences in confidence with computers remained significant. Similar analyses using length of experience as a covariate did not significantly affect gender or age differences. The need to investigate and address the level of confidence of female pupils is briefly discussed.

Social Categorization, Self-Esteem, and the Estimated Musical Preferences of Male Adolescents.

Abstract The authors investigated the intergroup processes of male adolescents within the context of social identity theory (SIT; H. Tajfel, 1978; H. Tajfel & J. C. Turner, 1979). The participants were English male adolescents (age = 14–15 years). They estimated in-group and out-group musical preferences and evaluated the in-group and out-group along a series of scales. The results showed in-group favoritism effects along the musical preference and evaluative dimensions. The participants reported greater liking for the in-group. Compared with the out-group, they associated the in-group more with positively stereotyped music and less with negatively stereotyped music. Compared with the out-group, they rated the in-group as more fun, more masculine, more sporty, less boring, less snobbish, and less weird. The participants with lower levels of self-esteem showed greater differentiation between groups and greater derogation of the out-group. The results supported the predictions of SIT and demonstrated the applicability of SIT for the study of adolescent behavior.

In-store music affects product choice

Royalty payments for non-broadcast commercial uses of music in 1995 amounted to £53.8 million in the UK alone. Research on music and consumer behaviour has, however, almost completely ignored the potential effect of in-store music on purchasing and particularly on product choice. By investigating the purchasing of German and French wines we have found that musical ‘fit’ has a profound influence on product choice.

The Effects of Repetition on Liking for Music

An inverted-U theory of the relationship between the subjective complexity of and liking for different musical pieces was developed. The theory was then used to derive some predictions about the effects of repetition on liking for pieces of music of different styles chosen to represent contrasting levels of objective complexity. These predictions were tested in two experiments. The first experiment was a short time-scale study in which two pieces (“easy-listening” music and avant-garde jazz) were played to subjects three times during a single session. The second experiment involved repetition over 3 weekly sessions, as well as four times within sessions, of three pieces (popular, classical, and avant-garde jazz). The results of both experiments were interpreted as broadly supporting the inverted-U model although there were some surprising exceptions. These exceptions occurred when functions relating familiarity and liking were compared between musical styles, and they were tentatively explained in terms of attitudinal stereotyping.

The Effect of Musical Style on Restaurant Customers' Spending

Classical music, pop music, and no music were played in a British restaurant over the course of 18 evenings. The mean spend per head for each table was calculated for starters, main courses, desserts, coffee, bar drinks, wine, overall drink bill, overall food bill, and total spend. Total time spent in the restaurant was also measured. A MANOVA analysis revealed that there was an overall significant difference between the conditions with classical music leading to higher spending than both no music and pop music. Univariate analyses indicated that there were differences between the conditions on mean spend per head on starters, coffee, total spend on food, and overall spend. These findings were consistent with the limited previous research, which indicated that the playing of background classical music led to (a) people reporting that they were prepared to spend more and (b) higher actual spending. The results indicate that restaurant managers can use classical music to increase customer spending, and the results are discussed in terms of three possible explanations for this.

Listening to music at home and at school

This study investigated the differences between the functions of music listening at home and at school, and the potential effects of age and nationality on these differences. 120 participants completed an individual structured interview schedule, which consisted of ten open-ended questions. These covered the role of music listening in young peoples leisure interests as a whole, and more specific aspects of listening at home and at school. Sixty participants were from schools in the UK, and sixty from schools in Portugal: within each nationality group, thirty were aged 9–10 years and thirty aged 13–14 years. The findings showed that music listening was an important leisure activity, especially for the older children, and that most children showed moderate positive attitudes towards school music. Home music listening and school music fulfilled different functions: participants reported that home listening was linked with enjoyment, emotional mood and social relationships, whereas school music was associated with motivation for learning and being active, and particular lesson content. There were few clear-cut national differences, and music was generally undervalued in both countries.

Music and driving game performance

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 affected performance on the game with arousing music and backward-counting leading to slower lap times than relatively unarousing music and the absence of the backward-counting task. Backward-counting led to lower liking for the music than did the absence of this task. These results support the idea that music and the concurrent task competed for a limited processing resource. The results also indicated that liking for the music was positively related to task performance, and in conjunction these findings seem to suggest a direct link between music and the listening context.

The Effects of Music on Helping Behavior A Field Study

Several studies indicate that mood can influence the likelihood of an individual demonstrating instances of helping behavior, and one previous laboratory study has indicated that music can be used to bring about manipulations of mood to such an end. To investigate this in a naturalistic setting, 646 users of a university gym were played either uplifting or annoying music while theyworked out. Upon completion of theirworkout, they were asked to either sign a petition in support of a fictitious sporting charity (i.e., a low-cost task) or to distribute leaflets on their behalf (i.e., a high-cost task). Responses to the petition-signing measure indicated a ceiling effect with almost all participants offering to help. However, consistent with previous research on mood and helping behavior, uplifting music led to participants offering to help more on the high-cost, leaflet-distributing task than did annoying music.

Music education in the twenty-first century: a psychological perspective

Starting from Hargreaves’ (1986a) review of the relationship between developmental psychology and music education, we characterise the mid-1980s as a point at which the different main strands of music psychology – cognitive, developmental, and social – began to unfold. We move to the present day and beyond, suggesting that a major change has been the incorporation of a social perspective: it may now make more sense to talk about the developmental social psychology of music and music education. Four levels of social influence are distinguished – the individual ,t heinterpersonal ,t heinstitutional, and the cultural –a nd we suggest that the concept of identity may enable explanations of social influence at the individual level. We review some research on musical style sensitivity as an exemplar of this general approach, and conclude by applying the social– cultural perspective to current developments in music education. This gives rise to two new conceptual models: of the opportunities that are offered by music education in the twenty-first century, and the outcomes that might be derived from it. Music education is changing very rapidly in the UK, as in many other countries, as a result of rapid social and technological change. What should be taught and learnt at school? What is taught and learnt out of school? How much attention should be paid to instrumental tuition? How much of music is self-taught rather than learnt from others? What are the modern-day roles of conservatoires, universities, and community organisations in music learning? What constitutes being a musician in the digital era? All of these are questions to which the answers are changing very rapidly. If this is true of music education itself, it is hardly surprising that music education research is also changing rapidly. One obvious feature is that it has become increasingly interdisciplinary, drawing on theory and methods from various other specialisms – and so the publication of this special issue is very timely. This paper looks at theory and practice in music education from the point of view of psychology, and takes as its starting point ap aper that one of us wrote well over a decade ago on ‘developmental psychology and music education’ (Hargreaves, 1986a). This paper argued that developmental psychology had a great deal to contribute to music education, and came soon after the publication of The Developmental Psychology of Music (Hargreaves, 1986b), which represented a first attempt to set out what the main features of this field of study might be. Th ep resent paper is in four main parts. We start in the mid-1980s, characterising the state of play when the original article was written as a point at which the different main strands of music psychology – cognitive, developmental, and social – began to unfold.