Is there a peak in popular music preference at a certain song-specific age? A replication of Holbrook & Schindler’s 1989 study

Abstract

This is a replication and further interpretation of Holbrook and Schindler’s study “Some Exploratory Findings on the Development of Musical Tastes” from 1989. Holbrook and Schindler’s investigation has been widely acknowledged in music psychology as well as in consumer research and has helped further the assumption that people generally cling to music and other cultural objects they get to know in late adolescence/early adulthood. In the current replication study, a peak in musical preference across song-specific age could be confirmed, but it shifted from 23.47 years in the original study to 17.36 years in the replication. This could possibly be explained by subjects’ earlier exposure to music and increased media familiarity. However, it could be shown that preferences at these peaks do not significantly differ from preferences at other ages. Also, the inverted U-shaped curve featured in the original study could not be observed among individuals’ ratings, which tend to prefer music which is either gradually older or else gradually younger than themselves. The U-shaped curve seems to emerge as an artefact of combining two types of rather linear data into one chart. In fact, no empirical evidence remains to sustain the overall cultural assumption which has its basis in Holbrook and Schindler’s study. It might still be valid, as evidenced by people having experienced the generation effect individually, but alternative research strategies will have to be developed to provide its empirical confirmation.