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Abstract:
Nowadays music listening is an integral part of many people’s daily lives. Digitalization and technical developments, such as smartphones and music streaming services, provide individuals with almost absolute freedom to listen to any kind of music in any situation. In contrast to the widespread use of those technologies little is known about the processes underlying musical choices in everyday life. Furthermore, research on music-listening behavior either focused on individual differences or on situational influences. Hence, the present dissertation systematically addressed the question of how person-related and situational factors influence music selection in daily life and aimed to identify the most important factors of both domains. In addition, the role of the functions of music listening in the process of music selection was investigated. These questions and aims were approached by means of an online study and an experience sampling study using smartphones. Research findings were reported in three scientific papers, which are included in the dissertation.
The results indicate that music-selection behavior in daily life is predominantly shaped by the situation a person is listening to music. The investigations revealed detailed patterns of situational variables influencing musical choices. In particular, functions of music listening, mood, and attention were shown to play an important role in the selection of music in daily life. In addition, the results demonstrate that functions of music listening act as a mediator between the person, the situation and music selection. These findings suggest a need to shift the focus of music-listening research from individual differences to situational influences, including potential interaction effects of person and situation. Furthermore, the results suggest methodological and conceptual innovations within the field of typology research. Lastly, the findings hold several potentials to enhance music recommendation systems.
