The present study used self-determination theory to examine adolescents' motivations to engage in charitable donating and community volunteering and to abstain from sexual intercourse and marijuana use. The sample consisted of 419 late adolescents recruited from across the country through an online survey panel. Participants completed online measures of motivations to engage in donating and volunteering, motivations to abstain from sex and marijuana, and single-item indexes of the four behaviors. Variable-centered analyses (correlation and regression) found evidence for a general motivational factor, motivational specificity by behavioral domain (positive and negative behaviors), motivational specificity by particular behavior (charitable donating, volunteering, sexual risk-taking, and marijuana use), and a stronger relative role for autonomous motivations than controlled motivations. Person-centered analyses (cluster analysis) found four motivation profiles (low motivation, medium motivation, high motivation, and mixed motivation) for all four behaviors and suggested that level of autonomous motivation was a key factor differentiating the groups on levels of behavior. The findings suggest different levels of motivational specificity and highlight the importance of autonomous motivations in predicting behaviors as compared to controlled motivations. Further, similar patterns were found for motivations to engage and to abstain.
Ensemble music performance requires musicians to achieve precise interpersonal coordination while maintaining autonomous control over their own actions. To do so, musicians dynamically shift between integrating other performers’ actions into their own action plans and maintaining a distinction between their own and others’ actions. Research in laboratory settings has shown that this dynamic process of self-other integration and distinction is indexed by sensorimotor alpha oscillations. The purpose of the current descriptive case study was to examine oscillations related to self-other integration and distinction in a naturalistic performance context. We measured alpha activity from four violinists during a concert hall performance of a 60-musician orchestra. We selected a musical piece from the orchestra’s repertoire and, before analyzing alpha activity, performed a score analysis to divide the piece into sections that were expected to strongly promote self-other integration and distinction. In line with previous laboratory findings, performers showed suppressed and enhanced alpha activity during musical sections that promoted self-other integration and distinction, respectively. The current study thus provides preliminary evidence that findings from carefully controlled laboratory experiments generalize to complex real-world performance. Its findings also suggest directions for future research and potential applications of interest to musicians, music educators, and music therapists.
Palgrave Studies in Sound is an interdisciplinary series devoted to the topic of sound with each volume framing and focusing on sound as it is conceptualized in a specific context or field. In its broad reach, Studies in Sound aims to illuminate not only the diversity and complexity of our understanding and experience of sound but also the myriad ways in which sound is conceptualized and utilized in diverse domains. The series is edited by Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard, The Obel Professor of Music at Aalborg University, and is curated by members of the university's Music and Sound Knowledge Group.
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