Social Differentiation of Musical and Literary Taste Patterns in Finland

Abstract

Music and literature are analysed in terms of liking different cultural genres following a three-step analytical strategy. First, the distributions of likes/dislikes of different music and literary genres are examined. Second, we examined how the genres are interrelated. Third, we investigated how interrelating genres condensed into different taste patterns can be explained by five background variables: gender, age, education, income and residential area. In addition, there is a short analysis of the connections among taste patterns across the two cultural areas. The results suggest clear social differentiation in tastes, both in music and in literature, in Finland. Age and especially gender proved to be at least as important as education in explaining musical and literary taste patterns in general and highbrow tastes in particular. Three major correlations representing ‘highbrow’, ‘popular folk’ and ‘popular action’ tastes across the two cultural areas were found, indicating clear homologies between musical and literary taste.

Attitudes toward sad music are related to both preferential and contextual strategies.

“…In comparison with the population, the sample had an underrepresentation of young men (Ͻ33 years) and an overrepresentation of older women (Ͼ50 years of age, see Table 1). These two departures from population demographics, however, are similar to those observed in other survey studies on music and literary preferences, where older women tend to respond more frequently (Purhonen, Gronow, & Rahkonen, 2009).…”

Personality and musical preference using social-tagging in excerpt-selection.

“…which supposedly boasts the largest number of metal bands per capita in the world ("A World Map of Metal Bands Per Capita," n.d.). Notably fewer people dislike metal in Finland than in the United Kingdom (Purhonen et al, 2009). Since previous research has found a relationship between familiarity and liking (e.g., North & Hargreaves, 1995), the Finnish population may be predisposed to enjoy metal more than other populations due to greater exposure.…”

“…Both rap/hip-hop and country are often associated with mainstream American culture and complex historical and socioeconomic extramusical factors therein (Mann, 2008; Shevy, 2008; Sullivan, 2001; Watkins, 2001), and while one cannot assume the same associations for a Finnish population, Tervo (2014) suggests rap/hip-hop has been adapted by Finnish culture and maintains themes of marginalization and oppression (albeit sometimes humorously). Purhonen et al (2009), however, found socioeconomic variables like education and income explained very little variance in liking for hip-hop and electronic music, but that there were significant negative correlations between education and liking for their music dimension popular folk (similar in many ways to Rentfrow and Gosling’s Upbeat and Conventional; see Purhonen et al, 2009, Table 2, p. 43 for details), as well as positive correlations between liking for this dimension and living in “village” or “country” areas, suggestive of sociocultural influences at least for the negative loadings on the current Rebellious factor.…”

Why imaginary worlds? The psychological foundations and cultural evolution of fictions with imaginary worlds

“…In a study on the correlation between literary taste patterns and social differentiation in Finland, age was the only variable which significatively decreased the liking of speculative fictions (a proxy for fictions with imaginary worlds; see sect. 2), whereas age had no such effect on other fictional genres (Purhonen, Gronow, & Rahkonen, 2009). In Dubourg et al (2021), we found a significative and negative correlation between age and a preference for movies with imaginary worlds: such movies tend to be liked by younger people.…”

“…Because this study is based on a selected sample, we lack data to compare these results with the socioeconomic status of readers of other fictional genres, but it still confirms that consumers of fictions with imaginary worlds fit this general prediction. In another study, in Finland, speculative fictions were found to be significantly more read by people with higher income, whereas income as a variable had no such effect on the consumption of other genres (Purhonen et al, 2009).…”