Environmental Friendliness of a Person’s Musical Space as a Factor of Personality Disharmony Prevention

The article discusses correlations between a person’s musical space and the degree of personality harmony. The sound environment of a person always influences personality formation and his/her behaviour. By studying a person's musical preferences, a degree of harmony of his/her personality development can be understood. The article's purpose is to determine the correlation of musical preferences with the existence of personality disharmony and types of his/her relationships with others, as well as to determine the specifics of the impact of music on personality features of people with special needs. The authors started from the assumption that, depending on his/her personality traits, a person prefers certain patterns of musical discourse. The empirical study aimed to study relations of such personality features that testify the personality disharmony and are manifested in non-viable relationships with others. The personality manifestations in communications and educational activities were also analyzed. It was determined that music therapy plays an important role in the formation of their personalities for people with special needs. The correlation of personality traits with the perception of music has shown that persons with the external locus of control choose musical discourses that, as for their psychological content, reflect uncertainty, amorphy of world perception or its simplicity, primitiveness; on the contrary, persons with the internal locus of control choose energetic, purposeful music. Persons with the disharmonious type of relationships choose music whose psychological and emotional content reflects the next personality traits: possible aggressive behaviour; a life course that does not demand serious decisions, irresponsibility, and reluctance to resolve complex situations.

soziale Neustrukturierung des Opernpublikums

This article focuses on the changes in opera attendance based on representative population surveys in the German cities of Hannover and Nurnberg from the 1970s onwards. It can be demonstrated that the relationship between age and opera attendance has reversed over time: whereas in the 1970s attendance decreased with increasing age, it nowadays increases with increasing age. The reversal is the result of a decrease in opera attendance on the part of younger audiences and an increase on the part of older audiences. Due to the latter development the increase of the average age of opera audiences has been greater than one would have expected on the basis of the decline in the younger generation alone, and it is also greater than the increase in average age of the general population. At the same time, there are indications that people with higher academic qualifications (Abitur and university degrees) have become less likely to attend opera than in the 1970s. These trends are not characteristic of opera attendance alone. Similar processes have occurred in other areas of participation in "high" culture, such as theater and museums. Changes in musical preferences can only partially explain the reversal of opera attendance. The changes observed in Hannover and Nurnberg reflect a general reversal in age relationship that has affected (high-) cultural life in Germany as a whole.

Testing the Omnivore Hypothesis in Russia

In the last thirty years, a significant shift from the homology to omnivore argument has occurred in musical preference studies. Studies on the omnivore argument mainly come from North and South America, Western and sometimes Eastern Europe. To the best of our knowledge, there are no empirical tests of musical omnivorousness in Russia. The aim of this paper is to reveal omnivore musical preferences in Russia, and analyzes the links between musical preferences, social-demographic profiles, and tolerance. Our research also emphasizes the territory dimension. The research setting is the Perm Region. A survey of 2,400 Perm Region citizens is analyzed using principal component analysis and linear regression provides evidence for the research. Our findings do not indicate omnivore musical tastes in Russia that contradicts the conclusions of the research in other cultures. Instead of finding the omnivore pattern, we found Bourdieu-like patterns of classical versus pop music taste and nostalgic taste versus contemporary taste. Representatives of each taste pattern have a specific social-demographic profile. The urbanization factor influences musical preferences as well. The paper discusses the limitations of the research and directions for further work. Acknowledgements. The publication was prepared within the framework of the project “Intergenerational cultural dynamics” No 18-011-00548А supported by Russian Fundamental Research Fund.

Musical Preferences of Teenagers and Adults: Evidence from a Spanish-Speaking Sample

Music consumption is widely recognized as an important facet of everyday life, and the use of algorithms by online streaming services to suggest songs has aroused a growing scientific interest in how musical preferences are structured. However, existing studies have failed to include Latin genres of music. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop and validate a measure to assess the musical preferences of Spanish-speaking teenagers and adults. To do this, two independent studies were developed ( N1 = 312 Spanish teenagers; N2 = 345 Spanish-speaking adults) using an instrument based on a theoretical structure consisting of 20 musical genres, which reflects the MUSIC model. The results indicated the exclusion of reggaetón for both groups, and confirmed the proposed theory of five dimensions of musical preferences: (a) Intense: emphasis on low sounds and use of electronic instruments; (b) Sophisticated: complex musical structure, dissonant harmonies, and melodies that explore unconventional patterns and diversified rhythms; (c) Contemporary: striking rhythm, emphasis on percussion and electronic instruments, versatility in the prosodic construction of lyrics, and often linked to themes such as inequality and social injustice; (d) Moving: strong connection to dance, especially partner dances, with strong potential for socialization; (e) Unpretentious: music with strong cultural roots specific to the research context. In conclusion, the Scale for Musical Preferences Assessment proved to be an effective instrument for assessing the musical preferences of teenagers and adults, presenting a standard structure for both groups, although there were differences in their perception of musical genres.

Singing to infants matters: Early singing interactions affect musical preferences and facilitate vocabulary building

This research revealed that the frequency of reported parent-infant singing interactions predicted 6-month-old infants’ performance in laboratory music experiments and mediated their language development in the second year. At 6 months, infants (n = 36) were tested using a preferential listening procedure assessing their sustained attention to instrumental and sung versions of the same novel tunes whilst the parents completed an ad-hoc questionnaire assessing home musical interactions with their infants. Language development was assessed with a follow-up when the infants were 14-month-old (n = 26). The main results showed that 6-month-olds preferred listening to sung rather than instrumental melodies, and that self-reported high levels of parental singing with their infants [i] were associated with less pronounced preference for the sung over the instrumental version of the tunes at 6 months, and [ii] predicted significant advantages on the language outcomes in the second year. The results are interpreted in relation to conceptions of developmental plasticity.

The interplay of personal values and uses of music in explaining music listener preferences

Ample evidence suggests that people prefer types of music that allow them to portray an image to others, yet less is known about the process through which listeners’ characteristics influence musical preferences. This study, therefore, examined the association between values and musical preferences, and whether uses of music mediate, at least in part, this association in a sample of 364 participants. Multiple regressions revealed that values contributed differentially to the prediction of musical preferences. We also found that cognitive use of music partially mediated the association between openness to change values and preferences for music emphasizing both complexity and rebelliousness. Moreover, the association between conservation values, as well as self-transcendence values, and a preference for music emphasizing positive emotions was partially mediated by emotional use of music. These findings underscore the importance of accounting for specific uses of music when examining how musical preferences express the values of its listeners.