A Comparison between Young People's Privately and Publicly Expressed Musical Preferences

Abstract

In two samples of Finland-Swedish comprehensive school pupils tage 12-14), some pupils made private preference ratings of items representing traditional (i.e. classical and folk) and rock music, while others rated the items publicly in front of their classmates. Analyses of covariance showed the results to agree with the assumption that the pupils would tend towardls lower preference ratings for the traditional types of music when announcinlg their ratings publicly than when making them privately. The assumption that publicly made preference ratings of rock music would exceed private ratings was not confirmed. Considering some earlier research and some secondary explorative data of the current study, it could be hypothesised that the pupils' public preference behaviour is influenced both by their beliefs about the typical preference level in the peer group and by the extent to whicth preference for a certain music is related to social status. poptolarits, Mud similar socio-psychological variables.

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