Fabian Greb

Personal and situational influences on the functions of music listening

On the one hand, the majority of research on the functions of music listening focuses on individual differences; on the other hand, a growing amount of research investigates situational influences. However, the question of how much of our daily engagement with music is attributable to individual characteristics and how much it depends on the situation is still under-researched. To answer this question and to reveal the most important predictors of the two domains, participants (n = 587) of an online study reported on questions regarding the situation, the music, and the functions of music listening for three self-selected situations. Additionally, multiple person-related variables were measured. Results revealed that the influence of individual and situational variables on the functions of music listening varied across functions. The influence of situational variables on the functions of music listening outweighed the influence of individual characteristics. On the situational level, main activity while listening to music showed the greatest impact, while on the individual level, intensity of music preference was most influential. Our findings suggest that research on music in everyday life should incorporate both – individual and situational – variables determining the complex behavior of people interacting with music in a certain situation.

Understanding music-selection behavior via statistical learning: Using the percentile-Lasso to identify the most important factors

Music psychological research has either focused on individual differences of music listening behavior or investigated situational influences. The present study addresses the question of how much of peoples listening behavior in daily life is due to individual differences and how much is attributable to situational effects. We aimed to identify the most important factors of both levels (i.e., person-related and situational) driving peoples music selection behavior. Five hundred eighty-seven participants reported three self-selected typical music listening situations. For each situation, they answered questions on situational characteristics, functions of music listening, and characteristics of the music selected in the specific situation (e.g., fast - slow, simple - complex). Participants also reported on several person-related variables (e.g., musical taste, Big Five personality dimensions). Due to the large number of variables measured, we implemented a statistical learning method, percentile-Lasso, for variable selection, which prevents overfitting and optimizes models for the prediction of unseen data. Most of the variance in music selection behavior was attributable to differences between situations, while individual differences accounted for much less variance. Situation-specific functions of music listening most consistently explained which kind of music people selected, followed by the degree of attention paid to the music. Individual differences in musical taste most consistently accounted for person-related differences in music selection behavior, whereas the influence of Big Five personality was very weak. These results show a detailed pattern of factors influencing the selection of music with specific characteristics. They clearly emphasize the importance of situational effects on music listening behavior and suggest shifts in widely-used experimental designs in laboratory-based research on music listening behavior.

Trends in Empirical Aesthetics: A Review of the Journal Empirical Studies of the Arts from 1983 to 2014

This article evaluates trends in empirical aesthetics by systematically reviewing the contents of the journal Empirical Studies of the Arts from its first issue in 1983 up to 2014. To sufficiently capture the wide distribution of art divisions, diverse approaches, and variety of methods involved in empirical aesthetics, 398 articles were examined in the following three categories: Art Domains, Topics, and Methods. In a second step, all 38 music-related articles were reviewed in terms of study design, participants, stimuli, analysis methods, results, and their relation to the field of empirical aesthetics. Based on this, distributions and longitudinal developments within the journal were identified and assessments regarding their relation to empirical aesthetics with special emphasis on music were made.