Music Preference as a Predictor of Cognitive Reappraisal and Expressive Suppression The Moderating Role of Loneliness in Young Adulthood

Abstract

The wide usage of music is to regulate affect but its effectiveness might differ depending on personal music preferences and social emotional context in general. The participants included a sample of 211, aged 17 to 27 years. The participants were offered to complete the Short Test of Music Preferences, Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, as well as the Three-Item UCLA Loneliness Scale. The results showed that the preference to energetic and rebellious music had a positive correlation with cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Energetic/rebellious music was also a strong predictor of cognitive reappraisal even after accounting for other preferences of music. Cognitive reappraisal was negatively correlated with loneliness and expressive suppression was positively discovered. Nevertheless, loneliness failed to mediate between music preference and cognitive reappraisal; that is, the two variables alone both yielded to emotion regulation variability. The implications of these findings include: although the preferences of energetic music can make adaptive emotion regulation possible, loneliness alone impairs affective flexibility, which highlights the importance of considering the preferences of music and the social-emotional context of music in wellbeing interventions.