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Feeling socially (dis)engaging emotions with favorite music: The role of self-construal across cultures.

Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Cross-cultural research on music and emotion has expanded in recent years; yet, our understanding of how culture shapes music-evoked emotions remains limited, partly because of narrow conceptualizations and operationalizations of culture. This article presents two studies that address these gaps by incorporating self-construal (one’s sense of self in relation to others, shaped by a cultural emphasis on interdependence or independence) and utilizing culturally informed emotion models (socially engaging vs. socially disengaging). Study 1 employed an online questionnaire, where participants from diverse cultural backgrounds reflected on the emotions elicited by their favorite music. Results revealed that independent self-construal was positively associated with the frequency of negative socially disengaging emotions and the intensity of positive general emotions. Study 2 involved a listening experiment with participants from Singapore, China, and the United Kingdom, who reported their emotional responses after listening to their favorite music. This study showed that interdependent self-construal directly influenced the frequency and intensity of socially engaging emotions and mediated cross-country differences in these emotions. Independent self-construal was positively linked to the frequency and intensity of positive socially disengaging emotions and aesthetic emotions, and the frequency of positive general emotions. These findings highlight the importance of specifying cultural variables and integrating culturally informed emotion models in cross-cultural research. Additionally, the studies suggest that different methodologies—listening to music versus reflecting on it—significantly affect results when examining music-evoked emotions between cultures. Overall, this research demonstrates the critical role of self-construal in shaping affective responses to music within and across cultures.
DOI: 10.1037/aca0000807
Language: English
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4415700422
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