Finding the Origins of Musical Taste

Why do some people claim to “listen to all music” while others prefer one genre? Existing research on musical tastes suggests there is a lot more than mere taste that influences an individual’s opinions of particular musical genres (Benzecry and Collins 2014; Peterson and Simkus 1992; Vuolo, Uggen, and Lageson 2014). To investigate this, I look to the theory of cultural omnivorousness (Peterson and Simkus 1992), which suggests that high status individuals may no longer prefer a select few musical genres, but conversely a broad and eclectic arrangement of genres. Using data on musical preferences likes from the 1993 General Social Survey of 828 respondents, I link literatures on cultural omnivorousness (Peterson and Simkus 1992), cultural capital (Bourdieu 1984), musical taste, and prestige by proposing that the patterns of an individual’s musical preference can be predicted through their educational attainment and income. Controlling for the age of the respondent, the multivariate regression analyses find educational attainment to be the only significant predictor of musical preferences, with neither income nor age having relationships with musical preferences. I suggest, therefore, that the theory of cultural omnivorousness is upheld, as respondents with higher levels of educational attainment liked more musical genres. RUNNING HEAD = ORIGINS OF MUSICAL TASTE Finding the Origins of Musical Taste Our world is as diverse as it is populated; no two individuals are the same, and no two individuals have the same preferences. Take musical genres, for example; it is common for an individual to have at least a handful of genres which they consider those that they like and it is equally common for individuals to have a genre or two that they dislike. This difference in cultural preference becomes a point of sociological debate when the question is asked; why do people dislike certain subjective art forms, assuming the agent’s distaste is solely aesthetically grounded? Are people's distastes for certain genres actually aesthetically grounded, or could there be other aspects of the genre that influence us in determining that which we like and dislike? There is a great debate in sociology over the origins of musical (or, more broadly, artistic) preference, which include the ideas of cultural omnivorousness (Peterson and Simkus 1992), symbolic exclusion, and cultural capital (Bourdieu 1984). Some literature suggests that artistic or cultural tastes are often deeply rooted in areas and opinions which can be entirely disconnected from the arts aesthetically. Specific literature even suggests that individuals may formulate their musical preferences around their prejudices, as some form of unconscious (or conscious) reinforcement of their beliefs. In the same literature, it is theorized that taste may act as a basis for exclusion by creating a barrier to resources, such as education (Weber 1968). So where do our cultural tastes actually come from? When someone claims to “listen to all kinds of music” for what purpose are they embellishing their own musical consumption? And regarding exclusion and omnivorousness, do individuals with higher family income and more years of education like a greater or lesser quantity of musical genres? I test the idea that patterns of musical genre “likes” and “dislikes” can be predicted on the basis of education and/or family income by using the 17 musical preference items on the GSS to Running Head = ORIGINS OF MUSIC TASTE 2 Formatted: Position:Horizontal: Right, Relative to: Margin, Vertical: 0", Relative to: Paragraph, Wrap Around test for alignments between the number of “liked” musical genres and the respondents family’s income and the respondent’s educational attainment. Through bivariate analyses, I examine the interrelationships of musical genre preference and education, as well as family household income. I have three hypotheses. First, I hypothesize that the higher the respondent’s family/household income, the more musical genres they will like. Second, I hypothesize that the higher the respondent’s educational attainment, the more musical genres they will like. And third, I hypothesize that educational attainment will be a stronger predictor for the number of musical genres liked by the respondent than family/household income. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK When someone claims to “listen to all music,” do they really? Or, do they just want others to think they do? Cultural omnivorousness (Peterson and Simkus 1992) holds that some individuals have an increased breadth of cultural taste and willingness to cross established hierarchical cultural genre boundaries on account of having a higher SES. Whether or not this is true remains to be seen, and it is important to test because prior to the introduction of the omnivore theory, an understanding of cultural taste disallowed the possibility of a omnivore because it merely suggested that high-brow culture was consumed by those of higher SES and low-brow culture was consumed by those of lower SES. This way of conceptualizing cultural taste is largely attributed to Bourdieu (1984), whose theories of cultural capital suggest that a piece of art can only be appreciated by someone who possesses the “cultural competence” to understand the art. In this regard, the theory of omnivorousness interacts frequently with the aforementioned theme of lowbrow and high-brow cultural consumption in that it suggests high-status individuals are no longer patterning their preferences such that exclusivity aligns with high social class, but rather the opposite––omnivorousness may now be a mark of high status. Running Head = ORIGINS OF MUSIC TASTE 3 Formatted: Position:Horizontal: Right, Relative to: Margin, Vertical: 0", Relative to: Paragraph, Wrap Around Ones level of cultural competence may not solely pertain to education in a formal sense, however. Homology Thesis claims that specified cultural tastes and specialized modes of appreciating such tastes are imbedded within each class position throughout the class hierarchy (Veenstra 2015). And specifically, Peterson and Simkus (1992) suggest that high status individuals have a wider, more “omnivorous” range of musical tastes and consumption than lower status ‘univores’ who are believed to adhere to more specific cultural spheres which are defined by race, age, and religion. Numerous studies have since attempted to illustrate the truth about cultural omnivores–– specifically whether or not they exist, and further, from where their preferences originate. It is drawing from past research that has informed the decision to operationalize the cultural omnivore theory's dependent variable by measuring respondents’ musical genre preferences, and to operationalize respondents’ SES by linking measures of income and education. LITERATURE REVIEW From where do individuals derive their musical preferences? At first glance the question may inspire only psychological consideration, but contrary to intuition, musical enjoyment is greatly a social experience and thus pertains primarily to sociological inquiry for answers. The three primary sociological and theoretical themes the matter deals with are cultural omnivorousness, low-brow and high-brow culture, and prestige. Cultural Omnivorousness The notion of the cultural omnivore has been a topic of sociological debate for several decades, as the debate has been continuously renewed in part by the rapid evolution of the music consumption industry of the 2000s. The notion is rooted in the observed contradiction that although high-status individuals are far more likely than others to consume fine arts, they are also more Running Head = ORIGINS OF MUSIC TASTE 4 Formatted: Position:Horizontal: Right, Relative to: Margin, Vertical: 0", Relative to: Paragraph, Wrap Around likely to be involved in a range of low-status activities (Peterson and Kern 1996). This observation holds significance because of the preexisting understanding it contradicts; namely, that high-status persons disregard cultural expressions that are not seen as elevated (Peterson and Kern 1996). Studies to test the validity of the cultural omnivore frequently use musical genres to operationalize cultural taste because while a significant majority of the population listen to and are familiar with the most popular musical genres, the differences between genres are unlike book genres because they are often deeply, consciously rooted in the culture from which they originated, which sets the stage for a complicated entanglement of peoples’ prejudices and objective taste. Therefore it is partly a genre’s culture of origin which makes it vulnerable to scrutiny regarding whether it is considered high or low-brow culture, because in the traditional understanding, the high-culture consumer cite their own biased conception of education and quality to form a notion that low-brow art is created and enjoyed by unsophisticated, uneducated creators who only create the art they create because they lack the understanding to create anything of higher-brow. In theory, one’s knowledge of an art form may be likened to possessing a key, according to Bourdieu (1984:2), because “A work of art has meaning and interest only for someone who possesses the cultural competence, that is, the code, into which it is encoded. ” The role of one’s educational attainment, therefore, must have an undeniable role in the theory of omnivorousness. To that end, an entire body of sociological literature suggests that education increases tolerance for political and religious nonconformity (Adorno et al. 1950; Davis 1975; Nunn, Crocket, and Williams 1979; Roebuck 2009; Stouffer 1955; Weil 1985) and racial integration (Greeley and Sheatsley 1971; Hyman and Wright 1979). So, although education may be employed by elites to form boundaries, it must not be overlooked as a true determinant or influencer of one’s cultural consumption. Running Head = ORIGINS OF MUSIC TASTE 5 Forma