755886

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POM0010.1177/0305735618755886Psychology of MusicSusino and Schubert

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Psychology of Music

Cultural stereotyping of emotional

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© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0305735618755886
https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735618755886
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Marco Susino and Emery Schubert

Abstract
This study investigated whether emotional responses to a music genre could be predicted by
stereotypes of the culture with which the music genre is associated. A two-part study was
conducted. Participants listened to music samples from eight distinct genres: Fado, Koto, Heavy
Metal, Hip Hop, Pop, Samba, Bolero, and Western Classical. They also described their spontaneous
associations with the music and their spontaneous associations with the music’s related cultures:
Portuguese, Japanese, Heavy Metal, Hip Hop, Pop, Brazilian, Cuban, and Western culture,
respectively. Results indicated that a small number of specific emotions reported for a music
genre were the same as stereotypical emotional associations of the corresponding culture. These
include peace and calm for Koto music and Japanese culture, and anger and aggression for Heavy
Metal music and culture. We explain these results through the stereotype theory of emotion in
music (STEM), where an emotion filter is activated that simplifies the assessment process for a
music genre that is not very familiar to the listener. Listeners familiar with a genre reported fewer
stereotyped emotions than less familiar listeners. The study suggests that stereotyping competes
with the psychoacoustic cues in the expression of emotion.

Keywords
culture, emotion, evaluative conditioning, fandom, genre, musical culture, stereotyping

Stereotyping refers to an unrefined, socially-constructed association (see also Hilton & Von
Hippel, 1996; Sherman, Stroessner, Conrey, & Azam, 2005), and is highly relevant to various
aspects of music (Reeves, Gilbert, & Holman, 2015). In music psychology, studies investigat-
ing stereotyping have broadly focused on stereotypes concerning music fans and musical
preference (for a review, see Greasley & Lamont, 2016). Fans of a particular genre (or style)
of music can be so judged, such as Hip Hop followers being considered misogynistic. In fact,
Rentfrow and Gosling (2007) reported consistent labels for fans of particular music genres,

Empirical Musicology Laboratory, School of Arts and Media, University of New South Wales, Australia

Corresponding author:
Marco Susino, School of Arts and Media, The University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW 2052, Australia.
Email: m.susino@unsw.edu.au
2 Psychology of Music 00(0)

which include stereotyping related to personality, values, and alcohol and drug use, and
these stereotypes were largely identified regardless of national boundaries (Rentfrow,
McDonald, & Oldmeadow, 2009).
These relationships are explained by social identity and related theories (Smith, 2014;
Tarrant & North, 2004; Tekman & Hortaçsu, 2002), which focus on the cognitive process-
ing of an ‘in-group’ (e.g., White, middle-class Americans) in assessing the character of an
‘out-group’ (e.g., Black-Americans) and the music (e.g., Hip Hop) the out-group is believed
to practice and prefer (see Reyna, Brandt, & Viki, 2009). Rodríguez-Bailón, Ruiz, and Moya
(2009) examined Spanish people’s stereotypes towards Gypsy and North African people.
Participants responded to a series of items and had to associate them with either a pleasant
(peace) or unpleasant (vomit) word stimulus. In a later session, these words were replaced
with Flamenco and Classical music as the pleasant stimuli and noise as the unpleasant. By
comparing levels of prejudice between the word stimuli, Flamenco music, and Classical music
responses, the researchers reported how perception of Gypsy people was more positive when
associated with Flamenco music than when compared to Classical music. These results sug-
gest that the implicit attitudes towards Flamenco music changed the perception of partici-
pants towards Gypsy people. However, neither Flamenco nor Classical music had any effect
on the perception of North African people. The researchers concluded that the perception of
a culture can be mediated by means of a music genre, rather than the intrinsic features of
the music (e.g., timbre, tempo).
The extant research indicates that individuals can be stereotyped according to the music
genre they listen to. Might it therefore be possible that the music genre itself comes to be associ-
ated with particular emotions as a result of socially-constructed association? The current
research investigated this question.

Stereotypes can bias participants’ judgement of genre

Stereotyping may bias participants’ judgment of and evaluations about music genres. Neguţ
and Sârbescu (2014) asked participants to rate lyrics belonging to Rock and Hip Hop genres
using items measuring suggestibility and aggressive behavior. Beforehand, one group of par-
ticipants was informed that the songs contained obscene or violent lyrics and the other group
was not. Participants who were informed evaluated Rock and Hip Hop music to be more nega-
tive, consistent with Rock and Hip Hop stereotypes of anti-social behavior, substance abuse,
and sexual misconduct. The study suggests that when participants are primed with a plausible
generalization about a genre, it conditions their response to a particular music exemplar of that
same genre. Stated differently, priming the listener about a music genre appears to contribute to
how the music will be interpreted, and so could trigger stereotyping of other pieces of music of
the same genre.

Emotion associations with music genres

Zentner, Grandjean, and Scherer (2008) investigated emotional responses to music amongst lis-
teners with distinct music preferences. In one of four studies, participants responded to a survey
in which they rated their music preference and familiarity for five genres chosen by the research
team: Classical, Jazz, Pop/Rock, Latin American, and Techno. Based on these responses, the same
participants were then divided in five groups (one for each genre), which consisted of listeners
with high familiarity and high preference towards one of these five music genres. Participants
Susino and Schubert 3

were given a list of 146 ‘feeling’ labels and asked to rate, on a scale from 1 to 5, the frequency with
which they felt and perceived that feeling with regard to the music. The researchers concluded
that: Jazz and Classical music were associated with longing, amazement, spirituality, and peace-
fulness; Techno and Latin American with disinhibited, excited, active, agitated, energetic, and
fiery; and Pop/Rock with aggressive, angry, enraged, irritated, and revolted. The consistency of
emotion associations with genres raises the question of the potential role of stereotyping as a
predictor of emotional responses to music genre. That is, might the emotion label for a genre have
its bases in the stereotyped emotion of the culture with which the music is associated in addition
to psychophysical aspects that typify the music of each genre?
Balkwill and Thompson (1999) proposed a model of emotion perception in music in which
emotion is mediated by either the psychophysical cues of the music (i.e., timbre, tempo), the
culture-specific cues (i.e., additional expertise, such as expert cultural knowledge) or both.
There is well-established documentation of how emotion is evoked or expressed by psychophys-
ical cues (Gabrielsson & Lindström, 2010; Juslin, 2005; Juslin & Laukka, 2003) and culture-
specific cues (Argstatter, 2016; Demorest, Morrison, Nguyen, & Bodnar, 2016; Fritz, Schmude,
Jentschke, Friederici, & Koelsch, 2013). Because of the social construction of stereotyping, it
fits within the umbrella of culture-specific cues. But to better understand where it fits, we turn
to the BRECVEMA framework of emotion in music.
Juslin and Vastfjall (2008) explored the prevalence of underlying psychological mechanisms
when music elicits an emotion in a listener. Nine mechanisms were gradually developed (Juslin,
2013; Juslin, Harmat, & Eerola, 2014; Juslin, Liljeström, Västfjäll, & Lars-Olov, 2010) as the
BRECVEMA framework, specifically:

1. Brain stem reflex: An innate response to the psychophysical cues of the music, such as
increasing loudness.
2. Rhythmic entertainment: An adjustment of an internal rhythm (e.g., heat rate) towards
an external rhythm in the music, which in turn affects a listener’s emotion by means of
proprioception (i.e., variation of muscle contraction).
3. Evaluative conditioning: A process of regular pairing of a piece of music and other posi-
tive or negative stimuli resulting in a conditioned emotion.
4. Contagion: An internal ‘imitation’ of the perceived emotion in the music.
5. Visual imagery: Mental images conjured by a listener while listening to the music result-
ing in an experienced emotion.
6. Episodic memory: A conscious memory recollection made by the listener triggered by
the music.
7. Musical expectancy: An emotional response based on the satisfaction or disruption of
gradual unfolding of the music’s syntactical structure.
8. Aesthetic judgement: A subjective evaluation of the music’s aesthetic value based on a
personal set of criteria.

It is possible to explain emotional stereotyping of music genre through mechanism 3, evalu-

ative conditioning. A stereotype may emerge through repeated pairings of a music genre and
the culture from which it emanates. Stereotyping has mostly been examined in relation to neg-
ative associations and genres of problem music, including, Alternative Rock, Hard Rock, Heavy
Metal, Hip Hop, Rap, Punk Rock, Trance, House, Electro, and Techno (Kennedy, 2010; North &
Hargreaves, 2007). However, if formed through evaluative conditioning, the formation of
emotion stereotypes might not be just negative.
4 Psychology of Music 00(0)

Table 1. Working definitions of key terms used in this article.

Culture Schemas, practices, competencies and ideas shared by a group of people (Cohen, 2009).
Emotion Relatively intense affective responses generally involving sub-components such as
subjective feelings, action tendencies, and subjective expressions (Juslin & Vastfjall, 2008).
Genre Building on Gjerdingen and Perrott (2008), meaningful categorizations of distinct types of
music, based on subjective criteria, including age, culture, gender, ethnicity and class.
Stereotype An unrefined, socially-constructed association (see also Hilton & Von Hippel, 1996;
Sherman et al., 2005; Susino & Schubert, 2017).
Western Based on Eliot (2010), a broad term referring to a heritage of social norms ethics,
culture traditions, belief systems, political systems, and specific artefacts that have origin or
associations with Europe or countries and cultures strongly connected to Europe by
immigration, colonization, or influence.

The stereotype theory of emotion in music

In line with the evaluative conditioning mechanism, the stereotype theory of emotion in music
– STEM (Susino & Schubert, 2017) proposes that listeners can perceive emotion in music based
on stereotyped associations held by the listener about the encoding culture (i.e., the culture
representative of a particular music genre, such as Portuguese culture encoded in Fado music).
Consequently, some music genres may be spontaneously paired with a small set of emotions
directly influenced by a previously held stereotype.
For example, Japanese culture expresses anger less frequently than North American cultures
(Safdar et  al., 2009), and so prototypical Japanese music (i.e., music identified as typically
Japanese) may more likely be paired with emotions such as calm or peaceful rather than anger.
If this kind of evaluative conditioning of music and emotion is plausible it may, under some
circumstances, compete with emotions generated by the psychoacoustical cues of the music or
autobiographical associations.
According to STEM, a listener who reports a stereotyped association with the encoding cul-
ture will filter out the otherwise “intended” emotion in the music and instead activate a stereo-
typed emotion (for more information, see Susino & Schubert, 2017). Since stereotyping occurs
as a result of the perspective of the “other” (Sherman, Allen, & Sacchi, 2016), a limited familiar-
ity with the culture or object being stereotyped (in this case the music), should produce a stronger
stereotyping (unrefined, socially-constructed, categorical) response than an individual who is
highly familiar with the object in question. Therefore, low familiarity genres would more likely
produce stereotyped emotion responses, should emotion stereotyping be a driving force of our
responses to less familiar music. For the purpose of this research, Table 1 offers working defini-
tions of the key terms used in this article based on recent literature.

Aim
This study aimed to establish whether different music genres yield spontaneous, stereotypical
emotions and to compare results of the present study with those reported by Zentner and col-
leagues (2008). Two hypotheses were tested:

H1. Emotions used to describe a genre will overlap with the emotions used to describe the
culture of that music.
H2. Participants with low familiarity with a music genre will associate stereotypical emotions
more than participants with high familiarity.
Susino and Schubert 5

Method
Design
The design of the present study is based on Zentner et al. (2008), with some modifications.
Zentner and colleagues collected responses from listeners familiar with and fond of the
music genres investigated. However, by limiting responses only to listeners with a preference
towards a specific genre, emotion terms selected may skew towards positively-valenced emo-
tions, in particular because positive attitude to music increases with familiarity (Kreutz, Ott,
Teichmann, Osawa, & Vaitl, 2008; Pereira et  al., 2011; Schellenberg, Peretz, & Vieillard,
2008; Schubert, Hargreaves, & North, 2014). Furthermore, Gowensmith and Bloom (1997)
demonstrated how aversiveness (i.e., low preference) to a genre will induce specific nega-
tively-valenced emotions. By analyzing responses to Heavy Metal music from familiar and
less-familiar listeners, Gowensmith and Bloom (1997) concluded that listeners with low
preference to this genre reported higher levels of anger than listeners with higher prefer-
ence. This could explain why the participants recruited by Zentner and associates (2008)
had a lower mean rating for terms related to anger, fear, and sadness, all negatively-valenced
emotions (Unoka, Fogd, Füzy, & Csukly, 2011), than positively-valenced terms, such as joy
or amazed.
Asking listeners to “imagine” listening to music, as was the case in Zentner et al. (2008),
can also be problematic because the researcher cannot be sure what was imagined. One solu-
tion is to ask the listener to report the music they were thinking of. However, such a method
might lead to discovery of examples that were not intended by the researcher. Playing a small
number of related exemplars of an intended genre could address this issue because exem-
plars can evoke a general (“prototypical”) mental representation such as a music genre (Fei-
Fei, Fergus, & Perona, 2007). This approach has been adopted by a number of researchers
(Gjerdingen & Perrott, 2008; Nosofsky, Little, Donkin, & Fific, 2011; Storms, De Boeck, &
Ruts, 2000).
A further point of concern is classifying music into genres, an issue well documented in
the literature (Aucouturier & Pachet, 2003; Correa, Perez-Reche, & Costa, 2012; Panagakis,
Benetos, & Kotropoulos, 2008). There is no universal consensus on membership with any
particular genre of music (e.g., Eerola, 2011; Rentfrow & Gosling, 2003, 2006, 2007;
Zentner et al., 2008), in part because of an in-group/out-group effect (Allport, 1954). This
means that, for example, Brazilian listeners may rapidly distinguish the various subgenres
of Samba music, yet may think all Hip Hop music sounds alike. But Hip-Hop fans, in con-
trast, may recognize the subtle differences between Hip Hop and Gangsta Rap, yet may think
all Samba sounds the same (for a detailed explanation, see Gjerdingen & Perrott, 2008).
That is, in-group membership through culture or fandom informs the detail of genre catego-
rization. Thus, investigating such broad genre categories may represent different music to
different people, making the possibility of identifying a small set of emotions for each genre
problematic. Pop charts, for example, are saturated with many genres, including Electronic,
Country, Rock, and Hip Hop (Huq, 2007), not to mention that there is also a cultural-
dependent distinction within genre labels with different cultures representing the same
genre label differently, such as American Hip Hop and British Hip Hop, and different ways of
categorizing music are being used (e.g., by mood, by country). Nevertheless, while genre is a
fluid way of categorizing music, genre labelling remains widely used in music research,
music streaming services, and commercial charts. Interestingly, ordinary music listeners
can accurately label a commercial genre in as short as 250 ms (Gjerdingen & Perrott, 2008).
6 Psychology of Music 00(0)

We adopted the genre label used on the official Billboard music charts for each music stimu-
lus used in this study (http://www.billboard.com/charts) when possible. And for the music
pieces which were not identifiable in any of these charts, we relied on the label recommen-
dations of two expert musicians within their respective genre (see Table 2). Furthermore, we
let the participants use their own interpretation as triggered by the musical exemplars pro-
vided, rather than dictating a highly specified way of understanding genre. Thus, limitations
due to participant bias, imagining genre, and genre labelling are matters we attempted to
mitigate in the design of the present study.

Participants
Two hundred and twenty-two participants took part in the study. Their ages ranged from 18 to
42 years (M = 21.7, SD = 4.0); 79 participants were female and 143 were male. All partici-
pants were undergraduates at a multicultural university in Australia. Participants received
course credit for participating in the study.

Materials
Responses were collected using the survey software Key Survey (http://www.keysurvey.
com/). For the music genre phase, two short samples of music for each of eight music gen-
res (i.e., 16 samples) were selected to evoke each of the eight distinct genres. For the culture
phase, eight distinct cultures were presented to evoke associations corresponding with
each of the eight music genres (see Table 2). In this phase, the target cultures were assumed
to be the source associated with the music genre phases, such as Brazilian culture and
Samba music. The justification of the genres selected for the current study is presented in
Table 2.

Procedure
Ethics approval was obtained from the host university’s Ethics Advisory Committee. Participants
were distributed at random into two groups. For group 1, a music genre phase was presented
first, followed by a culture phase. The reverse was done for group 2, so that the culture phase
was followed by the music phase. Participants completed the study online, in the participants’
own time.
Prior to commencing the music or culture phases, participants were asked to report
their familiarity with each of the eight music genres using a five-point rating scale from
1 (Non-fan—Never listen to it) to 5 (Fan—Listen to it all the time). In the music genre phase,
participants were asked: “Please listen to these two short music excerpts, typical of [tar-
get music genre]. What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear this
music genre (not necessarily these two pieces)? Please provide just one or two words.”
The eight genres in the music genre phase were presented in different random order for
each participant.
For the culture phase, participants were asked to report their spontaneous associations to
the target cultures: “In one or two words, what comes to mind when you think of [target cul-
ture]? You are welcome to guess.” The eight cultures in the culture phase were presented in
different random order for each participant. Finally, participants reported demographic data,
including their nationality and cultural background.
 Susino and Schubert
Table 2. Proposed cultural stereotype source, genres investigated, and music excerpts used for each genre.
Culture Genre Description Notes Stimuli

Cuban Bolero A Cuban genre of music characterised by Under-investigated (Susino, 2015).* 1. Hernández, Rafael. Silencio [Recorded by
its slow-tempo, mostly 2/4 time signature Ibrahim Ferrer] (1999).
and the associated dance 2. Vera, María Teresa. Veinte Años [Recorded by
Omara Portuondo] (2000).
Portuguese Fado A popular Portuguese music tradition Considered highly emotional and under- 1. Moura, Ana. O Fado da Procura (2007).
investigated (Gray, 2007).* 2. Rodrigues, Amália. Barco Negro [remastered]
(2013).
Heavy Heavy A genre of rock music characteristically To compare findings with Zentner et al. 1. Slipknot. Opium of The People, (2004).
Metal Metal employing highly amplified distortion, (2008) and investigated in previous studies 2. Manowar. The Dawn of Battle, (2002).
Culture loudness and long guitar solos (e.g., Neguţ and Sârbescu, 2014).**
Hip Hop Hip Hop A genre of music characteristically To compare findings with Zentner et al. 1. Jay-Z. 99 Problems (2002).
Culture employing rapping, DJ-ing and beatboxing (2008) and investigated in previous studies 2. Missy Elliot [feat. Pharrell Williams]. WTF
(e.g., Bachorik et al., 2009).** (Where They From) (2015).
Japanese Koto Music played on a traditional Japanese Under-investigated (Susino, 2015).* 1. Kengyo, Yatsuhashi. Rokudan [Recorded by
stringed instrument (i.e., Koto) considered Shin’chi Yuize] (1955).
the national instrument of Japan 2. Torishirabe-Gakari, Ongaku. Sakura Sakura
[Recorded by Toshiko Yonekawa] (2011).
Pop Culture Pop A genre of music characteristically To compare findings with Zentner et al. 1. Coldplay. Hymn For The Weekend (2015).
employing short to medium length (2–4 (2008) and investigated in previous studies 2. Ronson, Marc [feat. Bruno Mars] Uptown
minutes) songs, repeated choruses and a (e.g., Ladinig & Schellenberg, 2012).** Funk (2015).
simple structure, with an aim to appeal to
a general audience
Brazilian Samba A Brazilian genre of music typically Under-investigated (Susino, 2015).* 1. Alcione. Não Deixe O Samba Morrer (1975).
employing a 2/4 time signature and a 2. Sargento, Nelson. Agoniza mas não more
fast and repetitive percussion ensemble (1979).
(Batucada)
Western Western Art music written in the musical tradition To compare findings with Zentner et al. 1. Bach, Johann Sebastian. Prélude.
Culture Classical of Western culture (2008) and investigated in previous studies Unaccompanied Cello Suite No.1. In G Major,
(e.g., Argstatter, 2016).* BWV 1007 [Recorded by Yo-Yo Ma] (1983).
2. Chopin, Frédéric. Nocturne. No.2 in E-flat,
Opus 9 [recorded by Maurizio Pollini] (2005).

Note. * Stimuli recommended by two expert musicians in their respective genre, each with over 20 years of professional experience.
**Represented in an official Billboard music chart specific to this genre.

7
8 Psychology of Music 00(0)

Results
Data pre-processing
The following data pre-processing steps were conducted for both the music genre phase and the
culture phase open-ended responses based on Augustin, Wagemans, and Carbon (2012):

1. Correction of spelling errors.

2. Extraction of task-related parts from a sentence. For example: “I feel agitated when I
hear this” was coded as “Agitated.” Or “makes me feel nostalgic and happy” was coded
to one count of “Nostalgia” and one count of “Happy.”
3. Removal of function words (articles and pronouns).
4. Removal of qualifiers. For example, “generally relaxing” was coded as “Relaxing.”
5. Consolidating singulars and plurals of the same noun.
6. Consolidating nouns and corresponding verbs (for example, meditation and meditate).
7. Consolidating words that have the same stem (i.e., part of a word) and synonyms using
Synonym (http://synonym.com), and a synonym search based on the dataset of
WordNet (https://wordnet.princeton.edu). For example, sad, sadness and saddened
have the same stem, “sad.” The term chosen to represent emotions with the same stem,
such as “sad/sadness” was the one with the highest frequency.
8. Finally, responses were separated in two categories: emotions and non-emotion terms
based on our working definition of emotion (see Table 1). In this paper we provide an
analysis of the emotion terms only.

Emotions in response to the music

In line with previous studies (e.g., Augustin et al., 2012; Jacobsen, Buchta, Köhler, & Schröger,
2004; Zentner et al., 2008), each emotion word reported with a frequency of more than 5% of
the total emotion words within its respective genre or culture was considered representative of
its respective music genre or culture.
As can be seen in Table 3, according to this criterion no emotion word is common to all eight
music genres. A total of 20 emotions were reported across genres. “Dancing” was the most
frequently reported emotion, appearing in Fado, Hip Hop, Pop, Samba and Bolero and with 85
counts reported for Brazilian Samba. It is worth noting that we treated the term “dancing” and
“sex” as emotion words to be consistent with Zentner et  al (2008) and other emotion word
databases (Bradley & Lang, 1999; Mohammad & Turney, 2013). The second most frequently
reported emotion associated with a genre was “Anger” (40 counts) for Heavy Metal music, fol-
lowed by “Relaxing” (36 counts) for Western Classical music.
We compared the emotions reported in our study to those obtained by Zentner et al. (2008)
for: (a) Western Classical music to Classical music; (b) Pop and Heavy Metal to Pop/Rock; and
(c) Brazilian Samba and Cuban Son to Latin. Calm and relaxed were the most frequently
reported emotions in both studies for the genres Western Classical music/Classical music.
However, the emotions joy and sadness were only identified in our study. Anger and aggressive
were the most frequently reported emotions in both studies for the genres Heavy Metal and Pop/
Rock. Yet, no negatively-valenced emotions were identified in our investigation for the genre
Pop. Lastly, Brazilian Samba and Cuban Bolero compared to the Latin genre generated mixed
results. While in our study dancing was the most frequent “emotion” recalled for both Samba
and Bolero, we did not find emotions related to the factor “Activation,” such as excited, active,
and energetic, prominent responses in the Latin genre reported by Zentner and colleagues.
Susino and Schubert 9

Table 3. Emotions counts reported 5% and above of total emotion words per genre by familiarity rating
level for the respective genre.

Genre Emotion Familiarity rating

1 2 3 4 5
Bolero Romantic 30 2 1
Sad 22 6
Dancing 19 4
Love 10 3
Relaxing 9 4
Calm 6 4
Fado Dancing 2 3 1 2
Romantic 9
Sad 3 5
Calm 4 2
Love 5
Longing 4
Happy 3
Heavy Metal Anger 24 9 6 1
Aggressive 6 3 1
Annoying 3 3
Powerful 5
Hip Hop Dancing 1 7 12 9 6
Anger 6 4 2 2
Rebellion 2 2
Koto Calm 17 6 1
Peaceful 13
Sad 5 3 4
Tranquil 8 2
Boring 9
Pop Dancing 1 1 9 20 21
Happy 1 1 4 14 12
Energetic 1 1 2 11 15
Excited 1 1 2 3 3
Samba Dancing 58 23 4
Happy 15 1
Sexual 20 11 2
Western Classical Calmness 42 13 9 2
Relaxing 12 12 6 4 2
Peaceful 4 4 7 2 1
Sadness 2 3 3 2
Joy 2 2 2 1

Emotions induced by music genre compared to emotions induced by culture

To test H1, that emotions used to describe a stereotyped genre will considerably overlap with
the emotions used to describe the source culture of the music, we compared the emotions
recalled by music genre with the emotions recalled by the culture the music was thought to
emanate from, for example, Cuban Bolero compared to Cuban Culture. Figure 1 illustrates how
10 Psychology of Music 00(0)

Figure 1. Venn diagram exemplifying Fado and Portuguese Genre/Culture pairing in Table 4, showing
most frequently reported spontaneous emotions with their respective counts in parentheses recalled for
Music Genre only (Music Genre Exclusive region), for Culture only (Culture Exclusive region), and for
both Music Genre and Culture inclusive (overlapping Music Genre and Culture Inclusive region).

the responses were categorized for one music-genre — culture pair (Fado—Portugese) using a
Venn Diagram and the results for all eight pairs are shown in Table 4.
Using a two-tailed Fisher’s exact test we examined the proportion of overlapping emotion
terms for each music-genre—culture pair. The expected distribution of emotions representing
each regions o the Venn diagram was set to be 25:50:25 (with 25% of the count expected for
the Music Genre Exclusive region, 50% for the Music and Culture Inclusive region and 25% for
the Culture Exclusive region). As shown in Table 5 results indicated a significant deviation from
the expected distribution (p = 0.05), except for Fado music and Portuguese Culture: χ2(1, N =
113) = 5.05, p = .08. Spontaneous emotions evoked by music and culture were not equally
distributed. Of the 1,177 emotion counts reported with a frequency of more than five percent
across all three regions, 907(77%) were reported in the Music and Culture Inclusive region,
176(15%) in the Music exclusive region and 94(8%) in the Culture exclusive region (p < .0001,
two-tailed). Therefore, emotions associated with a culture could be used to predict emotions
associated with music from the same culture, supporting H1.

Genre by familiarity
Using the raw familiarity ratings, Pop music was overall the most familiar genre (M = 4.14,
SD = .94), while Fado was the least familiar (M = 1.41, SD = .63). To test H2, we examined
if participants who reported the same emotions in both phases (Music and Culture) rated
the music as less familiar than participants who reported different emotions exclusively for
each phase. A Kruskal-Wallis test compared the median differences for familiarity ratings of
participants between the three regions: Music Genre Exclusive, Culture Exclusive and Music
Genre and Culture Inclusive. There was a statistical significant difference between the
three regions, (Χ 2 (2, N = 1232) = 9.712, P = .008. Median familiarity ranks were lower in
the Music and Culture Inclusive region compared to the Music Genre Exclusive and Culture
Exclusive regions. The highest-ranking familiarity score was 670.14 for the Culture
Exclusive region. The second highest median familiarity score was 669.05 for the Music
Genre Exclusive region. The lowest median familiarity score of 600.27 was observed for the
Music Genre and Culture Inclusive regions. These results support H2, that participants with
low familiarity with a music genre stereotype more than participants with high familiarity
and that the sources of the stereotype is that of the culture associated with the music genre.
Susino and Schubert 11

Table 4. Spontaneous emotions and counts reported for music genres and respective culture.

Music Genre– Emotion counts* Emotion counts* reported Emotion counts*

Culture pairing reported exclusively for both Genre and reported exclusively
for Genre respective Culture for Culture
Bolero–Cuban Love (13) Dancing (55) Happy (8)
Relax (13) Romantic (38)
Calm (10) Sad (32)
Passion (14)
Fado–Portuguese Sad (8) Dancing (32) Nostalgia (19)
Calm (6) Romantic (22) Passionate (8)
Longing (4) Happy (8) Mournful (6)
Heavy Metal–Heavy Annoying (6) Anger (106) Energetic (14)
Metal culture Powerful (5) Aggressive (28)
Hip Hop–Hip Hop Rebellion (4) Dancing (59) Sexual (5)
culture Anger (22) Excited (3)
Koto–Japanese Tranquil (10) Calm (39) Relaxed (4)
Boring (9) Peace (28)
Sad (16)
Pop–Pop culture Dancing (62) Sexual (4)
Energetic (51)
Happy (37)
Excited (18)
Samba–Brazilian Dancing (151) Passion (10)
Sexual (42)
Happy (24)
Western Classical– Peaceful (18) Calm (40) Sexual (4)
Western culture Joy (7) Relax (38) Romantic (3)
Sadness (13)

Note. *Counts of emotions are reported within parenthesis. Only emotions reported more frequently than 5% of the
total within a genre or culture are reported.

Table 5. Fisher’s exact test statistics.

Genre & Culture Fisher’s exact test statistics Observed percentage counts+
Bolero & Cuban χ2(1, N = 183) = 57.89** 28:62:10
Fado & Portuguese χ2(1, N = 113) = 5.05, p = .08 25:44:31
Heavy Metal χ2(1, N = 159) = 74.84** 11:82:7
Hip Hop χ2(1, N = 93) = 51.54** 6:83:11
Koto & Japanese χ2(1, N = 106) = 38.2** 18:74:8
Pop χ2(1, N = 173) = 153.68** 5:93:2
Samba & Brazilian χ2(1, N = 227) = 189.64** 1:95:4
Western Classical & Western χ2(1, N = 123) = 33.57** 31:62:7

Note. +25:50:25 is the proportion used for expected counts, where 50% is the intersecting region and the remaining two
25% are the exclusive music genre or exclusive culture regions respectively.
**p < .0001, two-tailed.

Ratings and spontaneously evoked emotions for participants with low genre familiarity
Table 3 shows the respondents’ familiarity ratings and the emotions they spontaneously associ-
ated with each music genre. Non-familiar listeners most frequently reported “calm” for both
12 Psychology of Music 00(0)

Western Classical and Koto music, while “romantic” was the most associated emotion with
Bolero and Fado by non-familiar listeners. “Anger” and “aggressive” were the most frequently
reported emotions for Heavy Metal by non-familiar participants, while both “dancing” and
“happy” were the most reported emotions by familiar listeners for Hip Hop, and the highest
reported for Samba by non-familiar listeners.

Discussion and conclusion

The aim of this research was to establish if cultural stereotyping affects emotional responses to
music. Specifically, we investigated whether emotions reported for a music genre could be
explained by emotions associated with non-musical, but related cultural stereotypes. Eight
music genres and their assumed encoding culture pairs were investigated. Seven encoding cul-
tures meaningfully predicted the emotions evoked in corresponding music genres. These
include anger and aggression for Heavy Metal music, common stereotypes associated with
Heavy Metal culture (Arnett, 1991) and romantic reported for Bolero music, a common stereo-
type paired with Cuban culture (Simoni, 2013). ‬Emotions associated with Samba music were
also common stereotypes ‬reported ‬for Brazilian culture, such as sexual (Ford, Vieira, & Villela,
2003) and happy (Rezende, 2008). The‬ STEM (Susino & Schubert, 2017) proposes that the
assessment of emotion in music can be influenced by a filter which activates a simple (emo-
tional) representation through stereotyping. Cultural stereotypes may trigger automatic emo-
tional associations with the music associated with a particular culture, and these may compete
with the emotions generated by psychoacoustic features or autobiographical associations.
We further hypothesized that low familiarity with a music genre will lead to more stereotyp-
ing than high familiarity, mediating the proportion of emotions overlapping in both the music
genre and encoding culture conditions. The hypothesis was supported, with less-familiar listen-
ers reporting a disproportionately larger number of like emotions for both music genre and
culture conditions, as opposed to highly familiar participants. These results, therefore, support
the idea that a listener with low familiarity with a music genre processes emotion through a
stereotype filter that allows assessment of the music to be made without requiring high cogni-
tive load (Sherman et al., 2016). In the STEM, ease of processing is represented by a filter which
can be bypassed if the listener has sufficient expertise (or familiarity) for the music genre in
question. The bypassing is possible because the knowledge the listener has acquired about the
music genre means that the simplifying, automated stereotyped cues need not be activated for
the purpose of making such assessments.
However, one of the music genre–culture pairs, Fado–Portugese, did not produce hypothe-
sized results. One reason could be that familiarity with Fado was so low in the sample that a
stereotyping filter was not activated because of absence of any notable mental representation
of the associated culture, rather than insufficiently refined knowledge. Some exposure or famil-
iarity would be required of the individual with the music and the stereotype to be able to form
some implicit, evaluative conditioned response.
Our results are in line with the cue-redundancy model (Balkwill & Thompson, 1999),
which suggests emotion perception in music is informed by psychophysical and culture-spe-
cific cues. However, whilst the cue-redundancy model offers a valuable distinction between
these cues, it does not explain the nature of these differences. STEM further develops the cue-
redundancy model because in addition to arguing for two broad sources of emotion, part of
the cultural source can now be specifically explained partly in terms of stereotyping. That is,
STEM develops the model by allowing more focussed predictions, and the present study sup-
ports those more specific predictions, namely that emotion in music is dependent to some
Susino and Schubert 13

extent on the cultural stereotyping of the music genre being perceived. Indeed this article
presents the first direct empircal test of STEM, and while supporting the theory, also recom-
mends a modification with regard to individuals who have very low familiarity with a culture
and/or genre, and therefore lack the capacity to make an emotional intepretation of a genre
based on a stereotype because of the absense of a mental representation of such a stereotype.
The finding also suggests a more nuanced interpretation of Juslin’s Evaluative Conditioning
mechanism of emotion in music (Juslin, 2013), by proposing that subconsious, automatic
learning of cultural stereotypes may also contribute to how one develops emotional responses
to music. The study has limitations. Future work should consider in more detail whether dif-
ferent music genres drawn from the same culture may also influence results, such as Taiko
Drumming or Gagaku for Japanese culture in contrast to Koto used in our study. Our intention
was to choose ‘typical’ genres of the culture in question, but, as this example shows, this is not
always a straight forward process.
This is to our knowledge the first study to measure the spontaneous emotions reported in
response to specific music genres and their associated culture. Our results supported the
novel theoretical position that emotion pairings in music by relatively less familiar listeners
can be explained by activation of a stereotype filter. It therefore has implications particularly
useful for cross-cultural studies in music and the study of emotion, and studies of dis/liking
genre, but also in the fields of music therapy, music education, social work, and cultural
studies.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article: The research reported in the article was support by the Australian Government
Research Training Program Scholarship (RTP2016LO1602) and the Australian Research Council
(DP160101470 and FT120100053).

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