THE RELIABILITY O F MUSIC PREFERENCES UNDER
VARYING MOOD CONDITIONS
CAROL SCHULTZ AND GERHARD LANG
Fairleigh Dickimon University
PROBLEM those of their peers. They were then asked to
Many psychologists have noted the potential take the test once more in the hope that they
value of music as a stimulus for projective tests. could improve their scores.
This value reaides in the fact that music is RESULTS
naturally non-representational, that it has an
immediate connection with emotional experience, Duncan’s Range Test revealed no significant
that unconscious needs gain satisfaction through differences between means on the first adminis-
this medium, and that its lack of verbal content tration of the test, indicating that the three
makes possible the probing of emotional needs groups were initially equal with respect to their
without distortion by defense mechanisms. music preference scores. Productmoment cor-
The IPAT Music Preference Test of Person- relations com uted between test and retest scores
ality(*)represents one of the few attempts to use show a signiicant relationship on eight of the
music as the stimulus for a projective technique. eleven factors ranging from .31 to .63 for the con-
The test has shown promise as a diagnostic pro- trol group. The relaxation mood group and the
cedure in discriminating between normal and anxiety mood group sbow significant correlations
abnormal Bubjects and among various types of on ten of the eleven factors ranging from -31 to
abnormalities(5- 4). There is meager evidence, .86.
however, regarding the teat’s reliability. Re- TABLE1. PRODUCT-MOMENT CORRELATTONS
liability coefficients ranging from .38 to .58 are BETWEENTEST AND RE-TESTSCORESON THE
reported baaed on a Sam ling of only nine sub- IPAT MUSICPREFERENCETEST
jects who were retested after a two month inter-
val(‘). Projective tests presumably measure en- Group C Group R Group A
during aspects of personality and should not re- Factor (N = 41) (N = 46) (N = 45)
flect tem ora mood changes. A more stringent
test of t t e =%ability of a projective technique 1 .63** .31* .17
would go beyond the correlabon of test-retest 2 .36* .70** .51**
acores. It would involve the introduction of ex- 3 .45‘ * .59** .42**
perimental conditions which may or may not 4 .64** .86** .71**
vitiate the expression of a person’s enduring 5 .53** .35* .83**
features of personality. This study investigates 6 .28 .47** .38*
the reliabihty of music preferences in a larger 7 .23 .19 .49**
Sam le of normal subjects under Wering mood 8 .38* .35* .45**
concitions. 9 .59+* .32* .52**
METHOD 10 .31* .54** .44**
Subjects. Since previous research has shown 11 .19 .46** .39**
EX differences aasociated with music preference,
the study was limited to a representative sample *Significant a t the .05 level.
of male students attending Fairleigh Dickmson **Significant a t the .01 level.
University. These 132 subjects, aged 21-22 CONCLUSIONS
were randomly aasigned to a control group and The data suggest that The IPAT Music Pre-
two treatment groups. ference Teat of Personality measures reliably the
Procedure. The Music Preference Test was music preferences of normal subjects. This test
6rst administered, under normal testing condi- appears to be a promising projective technique
tions, to all groups. After two months, these because ita stimuli elicit responses which seem to
groups were retested. Group C, the control reflect the more enduring aspects of personality,
group, repeated the test under the same testing unaffected by temporary mood changes.
conditions. Before retesting Group R a mood of
relaxation and joviality was created. A mood of REFERENCES
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