A comparison of preference responses of white and African-American students to musical versus musical/visual stimuli

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of same- and other-group identification in musical preference decision-making. Subjects were African-American (n = 189) and white (n = 280) music students in Grades 6, 7, and 8. Each subject responded along a 9-point Likert scale to 10 instrumental music excerpts, five performed by African-American jazz artists and five performed by white jazz artists. Examples were presented according to one of three conditions: (1) music only, (2) music accompanied by a photograph of the performers, or (3) music accompanied by a photograph of different performers representing a different ethnicity. Results indicated that white subjects preferred examples by white performers regardless of presentation condition. African-American subjects preferred examples by white performers when presented with music alone, but preferred examples believed to be by African-American performers under the musical/visual conditions.