Abstract
1993 US-American GSS data is analyzed using joint correspondence analysis in order to explore motivations governing musical preferences and identify differences in worldviews typically espoused by individuals who experience various degrees of upward and downward educational or occupational mobility. The sample is partitioned into classes based upon these types of mobility in order to cross-control the two constructs. Musical preferences of predominantly educationally mobile individuals are shown to be structured by a formal characteristic of the music (i.e. beat), whereas preferences of the occupationally mobile appear to be driven by status considerations. The predictability of strongly regimented music is hypothesized to be distasteful, or uninteresting, to individuals who desire intellectual stimulation, here represented by openness to ambiguity. The aversion to beat-laden musical genres is theorized to be better explained with recourse to stimulus-response theories, whereas it is proposed that expectancy-value theories, including rational choice, more accurately describe status-maximizing behavior and, therefore, musical preferences which are founded upon their general level of social acceptability. In other words, psychological theories of choice may not be universally applicable, but rather simultaneously inform and depend upon the social structure. As such, this article proposes that musical preferences can be fruitfully interpreted as a cognitive and social field displaying dynamic bidirectionality between micro (cognitive theories) and macro (social mobility) levels. Quantitative evidence of micro-macro links is a rarity in the literature, and while some assumptions of this article can, and should, be questioned, the conclusions drawn by this article open doors to corollaries in several lines of thought. A serendipitous discovery provides new insights into the omnivore hypothesis.
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