The Effects of Music on Personal Space Preferences
The Psychology Society of Ireland doesn’t appear to update their website very much (also, another fine example of antiquated web design!) therefore I cannot access information on all of the awards from the Psychology Congress. But, I did want to mention the work by Colin Gallagher, a final year student from IADT (Psychology Applied to I.T) who received a well deserved commendation for his research presentation. Not only is his research fascinating and his presentation enjoyable, he was more than capable of handling the multitude of questions the adjudicators and audience threw at him. An award well deserved. Below is his abstract, taken from “The Irish Psychologist” Vol. 34, no.9 - I’ve also added some relevant web-links.
The Effects of Music on Personal Space Preferences: Comparing Introverts and Extraverts
The current study examined the distracting effects of music on introverts and extraverts with regard to their personal space preferences in public spaces. There has been no prior investigation into the possible link between personal space and music. The now pervasive behaviour of listening to music in public is possibly a reaction to the modern hi-density urban situations that people live in nowadays and music could be a way of easing people’s feelings of crowding. Participants in this study performed a simple personal space measure with music and without, and then completed a personality test (NEO PI-R). The research result found there was a significant reduction in personal space boundaries of the particpants when listening to music. This supports Worchel and Teddlie’s theory that distractions reduce personal space. The introvert sample were found to be most affected indicating that introverts find music more distracting, as was found by Furnham and Bradley.
I’m certain that anyone that uses public transport, especially the Luas or Dart, will agree with these results. I for one, feel a lot more uncomfortable without my earphones in. Though, if I myself had been conducting this study, I would have included a third condition - earplugs. I would be curious about the results of this, and whether any significant reduction in personal space boundaries would be at all comparable to the “with music” condition.
April 10th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Great piece- and definitely agree that there should have been a third option of earplugs or even noise cancelling headphones. Sometimes I put the headphones in and crank up the sound only to cancel out somebody blaring music with cheap headphones!
April 11th, 2008 at 11:06 am
I’m a textbook case here - I couldn’t manage the Luas without music. My ipod died halfway home one day last week and it nearly killed me. Without music I’m very aware that people are literally breathing down my neck. Eugh.
April 11th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
@ Tim - Though it would be interesting, I think if they had have included that third condition it would have been less about the effects of distractions and more about the effects of noise (noice cancelation etc.,) or both. So the study would have taken a lot longer to complete. This is always the downside of conducting research as an undergrad, major TIME constraints.
@ Catherine - I know exactly how you feel and even go so far as to carry my MP3 player with me AND headphones for the fm radio in my phone, just incase! It’s also a way of getting away from the teenagers who insist on playing their Finglas chipmunk music on the loudspeaker on their phones. Eugh!
April 12th, 2008 at 12:36 am
any spare tickets for ting tings?!
i live in hope..
and on a post related note; when my batteries die on my mp3 i still leave my earphones in on the bus for reasons i can’t understand. Make me feel right somehow.
April 12th, 2008 at 10:48 am
No Ting Tings tickets - sorry! I wish I were going too, but too bogged down with college work to hit the gig scene at all lately, except for the breeders last week! I wouldn’t have missed that for the world! Sorry you couldn’t go. It was literally at the last minute that I was left with a spare ticket though.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
I’ve just seen this while looking at the new layout (nice!).
This is really interesting to me. I just bought a set of in-ear sound isolation earphones from Shure to counteract the background noise that’s in my gym, which is where I’m most likely to come into contact with other people’s unwelcome music (well other people’s is always unwelcome IMO). Music is really important to me and outside of the gym I listen to a lot of classical (am a music grad). There is NO classical music that can counter the leakage of other people’s cheap headphones. The frequencies and dynamics are just too varied. But these Shure ones are pretty good and really do isolate. They’re foam, like earplugs, and it also means you don’t have to listen to music at such a high volume.
On flights people often take off their headphones and leave them lying around without turning off the sound, so you get bits of film/music etc leaking everywhere.
I joined PipeDown a few years ago, the campaign to get rid of background music - their premise being that music is there to be listened to actively, not subjected to passively, like wallpaper. I agree with them 100%.
And I went to the Ting Tings, and they were great. :)
May 8th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Meant to say too that I agree about the earplugs comment. I find I can tolerate a lot of situations if I have earplugs. I think having unwanted sound cut off really makes one feel more private, even when that’s patently not the case. I know I feel my personal space shrink when subjected to other people’s noise (not just music). In fact this is a HUGE bugbear for me! (I ought to live in a field, but I don’t.) I don’t think I’m an introvert, btw.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
PipeDown? I’ve never actually heard of them - personally I believe that only boring music can become wallpaper. Hope you enjoyed the Ting Tings, bet that was a great gig. As for your comments about personal space shrinkage, I get that sensation too, when people are near me(strangers!) making too much noise, I actually get quite paranoid (I’d be more of an introvert too).