Affective responses to European art music by Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews: A cross-ethnic study

Abstract

Most cross-cultural research on music and emotions is targeted at examining participants’ ability to perceive the emotional intent of the music or the musician. Fewer studies, however, have investigated participants’ affective responses to the music being played. This study seeks to explore the influence of ethno-cultural differences on both quality and quantity of emotions induced by the music, by examining whether individuals in two discrete ethnic groups who share similar musical backgrounds differ in their categorical judgments and the intensity of ratings representing their felt emotions while listening to familiar and unfamiliar music. Participants (N=236) were Israeli Arabs (IA) and Israeli Jews (IJ) who either lacked previous music education or who attended a music-appreciation course focused on ten excerpts from well-known European art music. Having listened to each excerpt, participants were instructed to make a categorical judgment by selecting the one of nine descriptors that best reflected the emotion they felt in response to the music, and to rate its overall intensity. Relatively small differences between the two ethnic groups were identified with regard to the categorical judgments, supporting previous cross-cultural research on perceived emotions in music. IA reported higher levels of intensity than IJ, however—particularly (in two cases) if they were familiar with the music, perhaps because of cultural characteristics and group-specific attributes.