Ever discovered a new band and just had to tell your friends? Or more accurately, tweet about it or share it on Facebook then slovenly watch the shares roll in?
How about showing off your far-reaching music collection and knowledge through curated playlists, or from the other end, keeping your guilty pleasure for listening to Kenny G a secret ’til the grave?
Well, you’re only human, but a new global survey of people’s listening tastes has shown that there might be a deeper psychological reason for our need to show off our music listening habits. Showing that that Australians – and our Kiwi cousins – are more likely to listen to music to please friends and be fashionable than other countries.
Compared to five other major regions in the world, a new study has found that “people in Australia and New Zealand were most likely to use music to create an impression with other people,” so says Psychologist Dr Adrian North, of Curtin University, who along with music researcher Dr Jane Davidson of the University of Western Australia, is behind the study that finds Aussies listen to music to impress others, as ABC News reports.
Their findings on musical taste, published in a recent issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, found that “people in quite similar cultures are using music for different reasons from one another,” according to Dr North, whose previous research includes the study of background music’s effect on the taste of wine and has acted as consultant for the music industry and in-store music providers previously.
While music researches often study musical taste in relation to social groups and their individuals, North and Davidson’s research – the largest study of its kind – looked at the differences between regions, surveying around 29,000 people from North America, Scandinavia, UK and Ireland, France and Germany, and the musically posing Australians and New Zealanders. A new study has found that “people in Australia and New Zealand were most likely to use music to create an impression with other people.”
While Australians and New Zealanders primarily listen to music to show off (with North America, UK and Ireland the least bothered with impressing others by contrast), the study finds most regions used music as a form of mood management, rather than for pure enjoyment, using music to deal with tension, stress, reduce loneliness, alleviate boredom, and as an overall emotional soundtrack.
“It’s almost like using music as an emotional bandaid,” says North. “It’s using music to help you get through the day.”
As well as looking at how music was being used, North and Davidson also wanted to know what styles of music each cultures preferred, exposing their global sample to 104 different musical styles – including rock, ballads, classical music, and more. The results showed distinctive musical preferences regardless of their education or employment background.
For instance, while the Antipodes listened to music to show off and liked all styles fairly evenly, jazz was given a higher rating from respondents than in the other five surveyed regions (maybe there’s more people listening to Kenny G in secret than first thought). Other examples included North America’s preference for classical music above others, including in its historical European birthplace of France and Germany, who preferred ‘rebellious music’ – like rap and dance music. By contrast, Scandinavians preferred rock over rebellion.
North and Davidson say that its logical that people in different cultures use music for different reasons, but want to conduct further research to probe into how cultures can shape those preferences. For instance, what is it about Australian and New Zealand culture that feeds the compulsion to use music to please friends, be fashionable, or create a personalised image.
So next time you get called a hipster over your taste in music, telling your accuser that you’re just being ‘True Blue’ might just be a valid excuse. Just be sure to keep your Black Eyed Peas obsession to yourself.
