Use it or lose it : Music preferences and uses related to psychosocial functioning among adolescents and young adults

“Music corrupts the minds of our young”. This allegation has generated numerous studies investigating the ‘music taste’ and psychosocial functioning of popular music audiences. Youth are considered to be susceptible to messages promoting sexual promiscuity, substance use, violence and sometimes suicide. The most notorious music genres in this regard are rap/hip hop, and harder forms of rock such as heavy metal and punk. This thesis focused on the role of ‘music taste’ by; analyzing the consistency of music preferences over time investigating the behavioural correlates of different music tastes among adolescents and young adults (twelve to twenty-nine year olds); and exploring the positive effects of music on listeners. The first study showed that, at the intra-individual level, taste consistency varied substantially. Overall, however, musical taste in terms of genre and style ratings is surprisingly consistent for the age-group twelve to seventeen, and is even more consistent among older youth and young adults. Music preferences were found to be consistently associated with problem behaviours. Especially relevant was music that can be described as non-mainstream. Non-mainstream refers to both music that tends towards the deviant and subversive (e.g., punk/hardcore, techno/hardhouse), as well as music that can be qualified as elitist and adult-oriented (e.g. jazz, classical music). Preference for ‘harder’ types of music was associated with substance use and externalising problems, while preference for ‘adult-oriented’ music was positively associated with internalising problems. In addition, young people that displayed low or no involvement with predominant youth cultures appeared to belong to a non-mainstream sub-group and displayed higher rates of social problems. Youth that liked popular, accessible music types, such as the music found in the charts, reported an absence of problem behaviours. In these studies other factors associated with the problem behaviours under study, such as school functioning and relationship with parent were controlled for. Nevertheless, music preferences remained uniquely associated with problem behaviours. In the studies on the relationship between music preferences and substance use one important factor was the substance use behaviour of peers. Both music preference and reported substance use by peers showed partial and sometimes complete overlap in explaining self-reported substance use. Although it was not possible to test with cross-sectional data, it is likely that simultaneous processes of selection and influence of both music and friends were at work. Finally, these studies indicated a unique association between music taste on the one hand, and externalising and internalising problem behaviours on the other. Regardless of specific music preferences, music appeared to have a positive effect on most of its listeners. Even those that indicated the frequent use of music to act out negative emotions showed no evidence of sustaining negative states, as had been suggested previously in the literature. Instead, music listening appeared to help resolve those negative states. Music may be associated with psychosocial problems, but “without music, life would be a mistake” (F. Nietzsche, 1886)