Preference or choice? Relationships among college students' music preference, personality, stress, and music consumption

Research has consistently shown correlations between music preference and personality traits. However, the impact of situational factors, such as stress and music consumption, on this relationship has not been investigated, to our knowledge. Given the importance of music preference as a factor to explain the use of music in everyday life and its therapeutic effect, we investigated the relationship between music preference and personality traits when stress overload and music consumption were considered. We conducted an online survey with undergraduate and graduate students, measuring their music preferences (through the STOMP-R scale), personality traits (HEXACO test), stress overload (SOS-S), and music consumption (number of hours listening to music per day). Open-ended questions explored participants' uses of music and musical elements that most affect them. Results show similar relationships between music preference and personality traits as previous research, with no impact from situational factors. However, intentional uses of music and influence of specific music elements (i.e., rhythm) may indicate that music choices (i.e., the choice of music for a specific goal within a specific context), and not music preference in general may be a better indicator of therapeutic effect.