The effects of evaluative conditioning on musical preference : [an honors thesis (HONRS 499)]

Many factors have been studied with musical preference, but research on the conditioning effects is lacking. I hypothesize that the liking for one type of music will spread to another type of music, if they two songs are mixed together. This study is designed to look at the effects of mixing genres on musical preference, specifically between rap and rock and roll. 126 students participated in this study, and were separated into two groups, the prefers rap and prefers rock and roll. The blended exposure condition heard a blend of a Busta Rhymes song and Tom Petty song, while the prefers rock repetition condition heard Busta Rhymes, and the prefers rap repetition condition heard Tom Petty by themselves, Later all groups listened to the less preferred song again. No significant difference was found between the blended exposure or repeated exposure conditions for either the rock or rap groups.