Abstract
This study seeks to discover stereotypes people may have about different music genres and if these stereotypes are projected onto an individual. Subjects (N = 388) were comprised of student members of the American Music Therapy Association (N = 182) and students from Florida State University who were not music majors (N = 206). Subjects were asked to listen to a recording and the complete a short survey. Subjects randomly assigned to the control condition heard only a person reading a prewritten script. Subjects randomly assigned to one of the four experimental conditions heard the same person reading the same script mixed with background music and ambient crowd noise, intended to simulate a live performance. Genres of music included in the study included: classical, country, jazz, and rap. Subjects were asked to rate the person in the recording on ten positive and ten negative personality descriptors and predict demographic information. There were no significant differences between music therapy majors and non-music majors on any variable.
It was shown that when in the presence of rap or country music, all subjects rated the personality of the person in the recording significantly more negative than when in the presence of classical, jazz, or no music. Subjects assigned to the classical, control, and jazz conditions perceived marriage to be significantly more likely for the speaker than did subjects assigned to the rap condition. Subjects assigned to the classical condition perceived marriage to be significantly more likely for the speaker than did those assigned to the country condition. Subjects listening to the country and rap condition perceived the speaker’s age as being young adult significantly more often than did subjects in the classical, jazz, or country condition. Subjects in the country and rap perceived the speaker to be renting an apartment significantly more than did those in the control and jazz condition who significantly more often perceived the person to own a house. There was no statistical significance in perceived education earned. In relation to ethnicity, 96.9% of subjects perceived the ethnicity of the person in the recording as Caucasian despite condition of background music.
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