Investigating Everyday Music Choice on Smartphones: The Role of Personality Traits and Mood States

Digitalization has created an unparalleled freedom of choice in music consumption, pronouncing inter- and intraindividual differences in everyday listening behavior. To shed light on the factors involved in natural music choices, the present study collected 1,631 music-listening events from 110 participants over 14 consecutive days using smartphones for both active and passive ambulatory assessments. We obtained smartphone-sensed music-listening records and experience-sampled mood states from participants’ smartphones, as well as their Big Five personality traits from traditional surveys. Using multilevel regressions, we predicted momentary music choice in terms of musical valence and energy from enduring personality traits, concurrent mood states, and their interactions. As preregistered, we expected to replicate past findings of trait- and state-congruent music choice and theory-based interaction effects. However, our models showed that personality and mood accounted only for a small fraction of variance in music choice, with one significant effect indicating that people in more activated mood states chose more energetic songs. Beyond that, our models failed to show any congruency or interaction effects for chosen musical valence and energy. We discuss methodological discrepancies to past studies as potential reasons for our lack of results and outline future avenues for smartphone-based research on everyday music choice.