Contextualized music listening: playlists and the Mehrabian and Russell model

Abstract

The present research considered everyday music listening in the context of eight situations, classified as high or low on Mehrabian and Russell’s (1974) Pleasure- Arousal-Dominance (PAD) dimensions. Completing a questionnaire, 344 participants considered the music they would select and created a playlist for a given situation. The music selected by participants (as playlists) for these eight situations differed along two dimensions, namely arousing and aesthetic. Rather than selecting music that would moderate arousal (Berlyne, 1971), results indicated that participants employed an arousal-optimization strategy. There were also differences in the music selected across situations on the aesth..