critique

In this study, researchers were interested in knowing if tendencies in musical engagement and preferences change from adolescence through middle adulthood. They emphasized that the possible main factors of different musical preferences and attitudes (dependent variable) over time are age and personality (independent variable). Musical preferences may be associated with personality traits and changes. The big five personality model: Openness to experience, Extraversion, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness was used in this research.
Methods - More than two hundred fifty thousand people participated in this study. Participants were part of Internet panels and were gathered by a global market research association called IPSOS. To measure the hypothesis, researchers asked these individuals to estimate the time they spent listening to music, to choose the best attitude toward it, and to report the degree of affinity for a particular music style. They used online surveys to collect the responses.
Results: Based on the results, intense and sophisticated music (eg. punk and Blues music genres), were associated with personality traits such as low conscientiousness and high openness (mainly present in adolescence). Unpretentious music (eg. religious genre) was connected with high conscientiousness (mostly present in adulthood) and contemporary music was related to extraversion. The results also showed that musical engagement decreases with age.
Discussion: The authors concluded that there are age differences in music engagement at many points in life and that people have different music preferences related to personality at distinct life stages. The hypothesis was supported by compelling evidence. However, due to focus only on preferences for pop music, it’s ambiguous how choices for other music styles vary by age.