Investigating the role of psychoticism and sensation seeking in predicting emotional reactions to music

Abstract

Recent studies have examined reactions to music within the framework of the circumplex model of emotion. The present study employed questionnaire measures of psychoticism (P) and impulsive sensation seeking (ISS) to explore the relationship between personality and reactions to music selected to produce the emotions in the quadrants of the circumplex. The 65 female and 27 male undergraduate students listened to four excerpts of music representing each of the four quadrants, with music in each quadrant selected to reflect classical/contemporary and familiar/unfamiliar distinctions. Participants rated each excerpt with respect to liking, familiarity, pleasantness and arousal potential, and on seven pairs of emotion-related adjectives. P was associated with the tendency to enjoy music that was unsettling and boring: that is, in the `unpleasant' half of the circumplex. P was also linked with negative emotional responses to music that was relaxing and exciting: that is, in the `pleasant' half of the circumplex. There were few significant correlations with ISS, although high scorers reported being sadder, and less happy, than low scorers when listening to relaxing/peaceful music. The results provided general support to previous studies relating psychoticism to liking for music sometimes characterized as `problem' or `deviant'.