Do Young People Misjudge Each Others' Musical Taste?

Abstract

Finnish upper level primary school pupils preference for different kinds of music ware compared with their estimates of their peers preference for the same kinds of mUsic. The results indicate fairly consistent trends of overestimating the peers preference for music of the tough, wild, protesting, loud and rock-oriented kind, and of underestimating their preference for classical music and music of a more "quiet kind. The tendency to overestimate others preference for the former kinds of music was more pronounced when judging the taste of a larger and more nroryros peer group, than when judging the taste' of one's own classmates. The teenagers false beliefs about each others musical taste may have SOme non-desirable consequences, and it could be seen as a task for the school to prevent and correct the misconceptions.

Relationship of Music Preference and Music Function With Coping in University Students

“…Personality characteristics and developmental issues were components factor analysis of responses to the measure of music preference revealed two factors with eigenvalues greater than 1. These factors ("light music" and "heavy music") contained the same items as were found by Finnas (1987) when the exam was originated.…”

“…They measured music preferences using a scale developed by Finnas (1987), which assesses the following thirteen qualities of music: romantic and dreamy, mild and quiet, sad and gloomy, peaceful and relaxing, soft and tender, serious and thoughtful, goodnatured and kind, upsetting and protesting, tough and hard, loud played at a great volume, wild and violent, played with many guitars, and played at a fast tempo. Participants rated their enjoyment of music described by each quality on a five-point Likert scale where 1=…”

Adolescents and Media Music

“…Dixon pointed out that these patterns of taste may result from different degrees of exposure to music industry promotion rather than from intrinsic qualities in the music that appeal to individuals of a particular race or gender. In a study of adolescents in Finland and Sweden, Finnas (1987) found that boys tend to prefer &dquo;tough/protesting/rock-oriented&dquo; music while girls' preference tends toward &dquo;quiet/contemplative/traditional/serious&dquo; music. As part of the same study, Finnas found that teenagers of both sexes tend to overestimate their peers' preference for &dquo;tough/protesting/rock-oriented&dquo; music and underestimate their peers' preference for quiet, popular music as well as for classical music.…”

Musical taste and the representativeness heuristic

“…should be evaluated according to their perceived similarity to stereotypical music fans rather than base-rate estimates of musical taste. The only previous study to investigate how people judge the musical taste of others was carried-out by Finnäs (1987), and is thought to provide indirect support for this idea. Finnäs (1987) showed that, when asked to estimate the likely musical tastes of their classmates, school children tended to misjudge others' preferences in keeping with broadly-shared stereotypes of musical taste.…”

“…The only previous study to investigate how people judge the musical taste of others was carried-out by Finnäs (1987), and is thought to provide indirect support for this idea. Finnäs (1987) showed that, when asked to estimate the likely musical tastes of their classmates, school children tended to misjudge others' preferences in keeping with broadly-shared stereotypes of musical taste. Participants consistently over-estimated their peers' preference for loud, rock-orientated music, whilst underestimating their preference for quiet, classical music.…”