Liking unfamiliar music: Effects of felt emotion and individual differences.

We examined liking for excerpts of unfamiliar music taken from a wide variety of genres. The excerpts varied in tempo (fast or slow) and mode (major or minor). Listeners provided liking ratings for each excerpt as well as ratings of their emotional responses (intensity, happiness, and sadness). We also measured personality and history of music lessons. In general, listeners tended to like music associated with stronger feelings and happy feelings, and to dislike music that evoked sad feelings. Mixed happy and sad feelings were evoked by music with inconsistent cues to happiness and sadness. Listeners who scored high on Agreeableness had more intense emotional responses to music in general, whereas stronger sad feelings were evoked among those who scored high on Agreeableness or Neuroticism. Listeners who liked music that made them feel sad tended to score high on Openness-to-Experience or low on Extraversion, whereas liking for music that evoked mixed feelings was associated positively with music training. The results confirm that liking for music varies as a function of the emotions it evokes and individual differences in personality and music training.