Emotions of music listening in Finland and in India: Comparison of an individualistic and a collectivistic culture

Abstract

Music is appreciated for emotional reasons across cultures, but knowledge on the cross-cultural similarities and differences of music-evoked emotions is still sparse. The current study compared music-evoked emotions in Finland and in India, contextualizing them within the perceived psychological functionality of music in an individualistic versus collectivistic culture. Participants ( N = 230) answered an online survey on music-evoked emotions and related personal meanings. A mixed-method approach using factor analysis and qualitative content analysis was used to identify the concepts for cross-cultural comparison. Results show that both cultures value music for positive emotional experiences, but the prevalence of more detailed emotional nuances and underlying meanings is distinctively different. The highest-scoring emotion factor for Finns was Power-Empowerment while for Indians it was Peaceful-Transcendence. For Finns, the personal relevance of music was distinctively related to self-enhancement, self-reflective insights, and self-expression, while for Indians the relevance was particularly related to using music as a mood management tool for reaching positive, relaxed, and motivated affective states. Both cultures found music important for experiencing social connection. The results partly reflect the individualistic-collectivistic dimensionality of cultures and emphasize the relevance of contextualizing music psychological knowledge of music-evoked emotions in individuals’ culturally bound meaning-making processes.

“Help! I Need Somebody”: Music as a Global Resource for Obtaining Wellbeing Goals in Times of Crisis

“…Our findings show a universal use of music to obtain wellbeing goals during times of crisis, and by that, extend previous findings for universal functions of music across a large number of traditional communities (Mehr et al, 2019). Indeed, Juslin et al state that although they did find differences between individualistic and collectivistic cultures, these differences were small, such that cross-cultural similarities were larger than cultural differences (see also Saarikallio et al, 2020). Our findings largely echo this claim.…”

“…For example, highlight differences in music use for sociocultural functions of national and family identity-partially explained by the Individualistic-Collectivistic dimension (Boer and Abubakar, 2014). Similarly, Saarikallio et al (2020) point to differences between Finns and Indians in functions of music with self-related functions (self-expression, self-enhancement, self-reflective) rated highly by Finns, and mood management goals (relaxation, motivation) more prevalent among Indians. The cultural dimension of Individualistic-Collectivistic was also significant in Juslin et al (2016).…”

Music Listening in Times of COVID-19 Outbreak: A Brazilian Study

“…Furthermore, she suggests three psychological aspects related to music listening which were organized by observing the results of previous studies. The first is the use of music to express, experience, and/or regulate emotions (Juslin and Västfjäll, 2008;Saarikallio et al, 2020); secondly, music is used as a means for reflection, personal development, relaxation, and mental work; and thirdly, music is used as an element to enhance social bonding, social cohesion, and/or identity.…”

“…Another point is that studies have shown that, in collectivist countries, i.e., Brazil, which prioritizes the group's aims more than an individual's needs, the population uses music to reach relaxation, motivation, and happy states, in contrast with individualist countries where people look for sadnessmelancholy (Juslin et al, 2016;Saarikallio et al, 2020).…”

Groovin’ to the Cultural Beat: Preferences for Danceable Music Represent Cultural Affordances for High-Arousal Negative Emotions

“…Additionally, this could also reflect the down-regulation of HAN emotions, where individuals' high-arousal negative emotion states are cathartically released by listening to matching high-arousal music (i.e., discharge regulation: Saarikallio, 2008;Sharman & Dingle, 2015). For collectivistic cultures that prefer low-arousal music, such high-arousal regulatory mechanisms may not be as relevant, as initial evidence suggests that emotion regulation by music occurs through low-arousal relaxation and comfort-related mechanisms instead (Saarikallio et al, 2020). We propose that elucidating these mechanisms could aid our understanding of music preference as a reflection of socio-cultural affordances for emotions.…”