Level of concern: COVID-19 threat and music preferences in college students

Introduction Music preferences can be influenced by a variety of factors, including feelings of environmental threat. The COVID-19 pandemic caused increased levels of stress and fear, which led to many behavioral changes in people’s everyday lives as they adjusted to the health crisis. For those more affected by the threat of the pandemic, music preferences may have changed, providing a unique opportunity to investigate musical preference influences. Methods From August 2021 to May 2022, a sample of 161 college students completed online surveys regarding the level of threat they felt because of COVID-19 and what music they had been listening to, using music categories from the Short Test of Music Preferences (STOMP-R). We predicted participants who felt more threatened by COVID-19 would prefer to listen to reflective and complex music more (classical, jazz, folk, opera, international/foreign and blues music), consistent with previous research related to the Environmental Security Hypothesis. Results and discussion Results followed these predictions and provided additional support for how the social environment can influence media preferences.