Social Support and Music Preference

Social Support and Music Preference Abstract Stress is an emotion all college students know, and it can be detrimental to their academic success and overall well-being. College students need to know stress reduction strategies that are effective and accessible to them. Research has suggested that music results in positive emotional and psychological responses, and can be utilized as a stress-reducing strategy after experiencing a stressful situation. It is known that listening to self-selected or classical music can increase the likelihood that the listener will experience feelings of relaxation, but there is a gap in research about how people’s favorite genre of music may also be mitigative in that way. In addition to listening to music as a stress reducing strategy, research also shows that social support can help reduce perceived stress. Several studies have found that feeling supported by an individual, group, or community can result in lowering perceived stress levels. In this study, it is hypothesized that (1) classical or self-selected music genres would be associated with lower perceived stress. (2) Higher social support will be significantly associated with lower perceived stress among college students. (3) Since there are no clear patterns about which strategies are mostly used by college students, we hypothesize that social support from friends would be mostly endorsed and associated with lower perceived stress as compared to music listening or family support. With a correlational design, this study uses a survey with three included measures: (a) Music Genre Preference Scale, (b) Perceived Stress Scale, and (c) Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. The participants were college students enrolled in general psychology (PSY 180) at Murray State University with an end goal of ~70 participants. This study is still ongoing and results will be presented during scholar’s week. Keywords: Social Support, Stress, Music Preferenc