Favorite Music Expresses Socially Engaging Emotions: The Role of Self-Construal Across Cultures

This research investigates how cultural differences in self-construal—the way individuals perceive themselves in relation to others—influence the emotions people perceive in their favorite music. While previous studies have explored how culture affects emotional experiences in everyday life, this paper extends that inquiry to the musical domain, testing whether interdependent (collectivistic) and independent (individualistic) self-construals predict the perception of socially engaging versus socially disengaging emotions.

The authors conducted two studies. Study 1 used an online questionnaire with 435 participants from various regions to explore the relationship between self-construal and perceived emotions in favorite music. Study 2 employed a controlled listening experiment with 309 participants from China, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. This study used mediation analysis to determine if self-construal explains the differences in emotion perception across these distinct cultural contexts.

The research provides consistent evidence that interdependent self-construal is a key predictor of perceiving socially engaging emotions (e.g., feelings of connection, friendliness) in favorite music. In Study 2, interdependent self-construal was found to mediate the relationship between country and the frequency of these emotions. Conversely, independent self-construal was associated with the perception of aesthetic emotions and, in some contexts, negative socially disengaging emotions (e.g., anger, resentment). These findings suggest that music serves as a universal tool for social bonding, but the specific emotional "flavor" perceived by a listener is filtered through their cultural sense of self.

This paper challenges the traditional reliance on Western-centric emotion models in music psychology. By integrating cultural variables like self-construal, the authors demonstrate that emotion perception is not just a product of musical cues, but a culturally embedded process. This work highlights the importance of using culturally informed frameworks to understand how music functions as a social and emotional resource across diverse populations.