College students' moral evaluations of illegal music downloading

Although unauthorized music downloading is illegal, a majority of college students have downloaded music for free online. Evaluations of illegal music downloading and their association with downloading behavior were examined using social domain theory in a sample of 188 ethnically diverse college students (M_age = 19.80 years, SD = 1.36, 56% female). All students treated prototypical moral events as moral on a domain classification task. Students treated illegal downloading as a complex moral issue and, less frequently, as a personal issue (but rarely as a conventional issue of law or authority); judgments varied when different concerns regarding the fair price of music and the structure of the music industry were made salient. Greater discrepancies between the actual price of music and what students viewed to be fair were associated with past illegal downloading, while a greater focus on downloading as stealing was associated with abstaining from downloading.     

Does the Type of Cheating Influence Undergraduate Students’ Perceptions of Cheating?

There has been a plethora of studies outlying the various factors which may affect undergraduate student cheating, generally focusing on individual, situational and deterrent factors. But beyond these factors, does the type of cheating affect students’ perceptions of cheating? We found that there were differences in regards to gradable cheating such as cheating on homework, tests and papers versus non-gradable cheating such as illegally downloading software/music from the Internet or photocopying materials which violate the university’s academic integrity policy. Gender, discussion of ethical issues in class and enforcement of cheating reduces the acceptance of cheating across types of cheating. Less time spent on the Internet reduces the acceptance of only non-gradable cheating and the type of institution and knowing the consequences of cheating reduces the acceptance of only gradable cheating.     

The Effects of Artist Adoration and Perceived Risk of Getting Caught on Attitude and Intention to Pirate Music in the United States and Taiwan

Piracy is the greatest threat facing the global music industry today. This study explores the effects of artist adoration and the perceived risk of being caught on the attitude and intention to engage in pirating a digital song among college students. The moderating effect of cultural environment factor is also examined. Experiments using between-group factorial designs were conducted in the United States and Taiwan. The results show that perceived risk of getting caught and cultural environment are important factors that can significantly affect the attitude and intention toward downloading unauthorized music. In addition, a two-way (Perceived Risk × Culture) and a three-way interaction in the model are also observed.     

Genre of Music and Lyrical Content: Expectation Effects

This study was designed to examine whether people's expectations differ regarding how music lyrics affect individual behavior as a function of music genre. Because legislative attention and media publicity have been biased against certain types of popular music (i.e., heavy metal and rap), the authors expected that those genres of music would be viewed more negatively than other genres of popular music, for which there has been little or no negative publicity (i.e., pop and country). Participants (N = 160 college students) rated their perceptions of how the lyrical content of a song would affect listeners' behavior. The authors presented prosocial or antisocial lyrical passages to students (N = 160) under the guise of four musical genres (heavy metal, rap, pop, and country). Participants rated the potential impact of the lyrics on listeners' behavior. Findings indicated that lyrics labeled as heavy metal or rap were perceived as less likely to inspire prosocial behavior but not more likely to inspire antisocial behavior than the same lyrics labeled as country or pop.     

Music while you work: the differential distraction of background music on the cognitive test performance of introverts and extraverts

The current study looked at the distracting effects of ‘pop music’ on introverts' and extraverts' performance on various cognitive tasks. It was predicted that there would be a main effect for music and an interaction effect with introverts performing less well in the presence of music than extraverts. Ten introverts and ten extraverts were given two tests (a memory test with immediate and delayed recall and a reading comprehension test), which were completed, either while being exposed to pop music, or in silence. The results showed that there was a detrimental effect on immediate recall on the memory test for both groups when music was played, and two of the three interactions were significant. After a 6-minute interval the introverts who had memorized the objects in the presence of the pop music had a significantly lower recall than the extraverts in the same condition and the introverts who had observed them in silence. The introverts who completed a reading comprehension task when music was being played also performed significantly less well than these two groups. These findings have implications for the study habits of introverts when needing to retain or process complex information. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Effect of Music on Atmosphere and Purchase Intentions in a Cafeteria1

This exploratory study investigates the effect of music on the perceived characteristics of a commercial listening environment and on customers' purchase intentions therein. Three musical styles and also no music were played in a student cafeteria over the course of 4 days. Subjects' responses to a questionnaire indicated that different musical styles had different effects on the perceived characteristics of the cafeteria, and that classical music was associated with subjects being prepared to pay the most for food items on sale therein. There was also some indication that classical and pop music might have increased actual sales in the cafeteria, as compared with easy listening and silence. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for both commercial practice and our theoretical understanding of music and consumer behavior.     

Imagination,Pop Culture and Ministry with Youth and Young Adults1

Abstract : In this article I raise the question of whether and how Christians can become captive to a kind of constricted imagination, and how this does not serve the church well in its work with youth and young adults. I draw on examples from pop music (Kanye West, U2) to portray the theological logic of ‘check‐list Christianity.’ As an alternative, I follow C. S. Lewis in reorienting the perspective from deciding if some cultural object (song, movie, TV show) is good or bad, to asking what sort of people we become by attending to this or that cultural object; specifically, does it enlarge our being‐before‐God or not? This requires that we also view pop culture as the domain of God's work in Christ, and that we confess that God is already working reconciliation in the midst of the world.     

Sentencing,severity, and social norms: A rank-based model of contextual influence on judgments of crimes and punishments

Context effects have been shown to bias lay people's evaluations of the severity of crimes and punishments. To investigate the cognitive mechanisms behind these effects, we develop and apply a rank-based social norms approach to judgments of perceived crime seriousness and sentence appropriateness. In Study 1, we find that (a) people believe on average that 84% of people illegally download software more than they do themselves and (b) their judged severity of, and concern about, their own illegal software downloading is predicted not by its amount but by how this amount is believed (typically inaccurately) to rank within a social comparison distribution. Studies 2 and 3 find that the judged appropriateness of a given sentence length is highly dependent on the length of other sentences available in the decision-making context: The same objective sentence was judged as approximately four times stricter when it was the second longest sentence being considered than when it was the fifth longest. It is concluded that the same mechanisms that are used to judge the magnitude of psychophysical stimuli bias judgments about legal matters.     

Explicit risk of getting caught does not affect unethical behavior

Research showed that given the opportunity, people behave dishonestly only to the degree that will allow them to maintain a positive self‐concept. These experiments did not include the probability of getting caught cheating, although in everyday life, this risk always exists. If it is shown that people behave more honestly when faced with an explicit risk of getting caught, the ecological validity of these experiments may be at risk. This study showed that explicit risk, framed as the probability of getting caught or as the complementary probability of not getting caught, did not reduce participants’ dishonest behavior relative to no risk. These findings support the ecological validity of previous research on unethical behavior.     

Correlates of attitudes toward sexual harassment among early adolescents

A survey of 458 early adolescents (87% White; 278 females and 280 males; Mage = 13) examined the interacting relationship between family environment and involvement with pop music, and attitudes toward sexual harassment, while also controlling for sex. Attitudes toward sexual harassment were assessed by an eight-item Likert-type scale constructed from common behavioral definitions of sexual harassment (reliability alpha = .89). Results indicated females held less accepting attitudes toward sexual harassment than males. Involvement with pop music was associated with acceptance of sexual harassment, especially for females. The combination of a high level of exposure to pop music videos, and being from an unsatisfactory or nonintact family, was strongly associated with acceptance of sexual harassment for females and less so for males. The findings of this study could have implications for the etiology of acceptance of other coercive behaviors among adults.

     

Download or stream? Steal or buy? Developing a typology of today's music consumer

This paper explores the impact that recent transformations in digital music technology (e.g. the increasing popularity of legal streaming platforms) have had on the consumer experience. Following 35 in‐depth qualitative interviews, we have identified four key segments of contemporary music consumers (steadfast pirates, ex‐downloaders, mixed tapes and the old schoolers [the disengaged]) based on a continuum of their preference for illegal music piracy. Examining key themes (e.g. morality, format, value and identity investment) to distinguish each segment, we contribute to a fragmented music piracy literature in particular through the identification of the “ex‐downloaders” and “mixed tape” segments. Previous literature has tended to frame music piracy in very simplistic terms, failing to acknowledge a large number of consumers who are conflicted about their actions and rationalise their piracy in complicated and inconsistent ways related to the broader industry and their own sense of identity as a music consumer. Additionally, the discussion of the ex‐downloader segment provides significant evidence that for a large number of consumers, a policy of participation, in the shape of providing superior alternatives for legal digital music consumption, can be much more beneficial in tackling the problem of piracy than previous strategies of policing and coercion. Managerial and future research implications are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Effects of Music on Atmosphere in a Bank and a Bar1

This paper reports 2 studies of the effects of music on customers' perceptions of the atmosphere in a city center bank and a city center bar, respectively. In the first study, classical music, easy‐listening music, and no music were played over the course of 3 weeks, and customers were asked to rate the banking hall in which it was played and the music in terms of twenty 10‐point adjectival scales. Customers' responses indicated a positive correlation between ratings of the banking hall and the music on each of the scales. There were also statistically significant differences between the conditions on factor scores derived from a factor analysis of responses to the banking hall. The second study employed a similar methodology over 9 days in a bar, comparing classical, pop, and no music. Customers rated the atmosphere of the bar and the music played there in terms of II adjectival scales. Once again there was a positive correlation between ratings of the listening environment and ratings of the music. Type of music and volume level gave rise to main effects on ratings of the bar in terms of these adjectives. Factor analysis of the ratings gave rise to 3 factors, which were similar to those obtained in the first study, and also to those in an earlier study situated in a university cafeteria. Finally, there were significant Type of Music × Time of Day, and Volume × Time of Day interactions on customers' estimates of the maximum sum they would be prepared to pay for products on sale in the bar. These results demonstrate that music can have reliable effects on atmosphere and purchase intentions in commercial environments.     

Self Reports of Being Falsely Accused of Criminal Behavior

The occurrence of false accusations of illegal behavior is investigated using cross-sectional, long-term recall data for two generations of a national probability sample of individuals. The analysis examines whether being a “usual suspect” based on past criminal behavior; “guilt by association” based on the illegal behavior of one's friends; academic achievement based on self-reported grades in school; and sociodemographic variables including gender, ethnic majority/minority status, and socioeconomic status have an impact on the likelihood of being falsely accused of illegal behavior. The results indicate some consistency across the different subsamples in the characteristics of those most likely to be falsely accused of illegal behavior. Implications for policy and future research are considered.     

Beat It! Music Overloads Novice Dancers

Together with melody, harmony, and timbre, rhythm and beat provide temporal structure for movement timing. Such musical features may act as cues to the phrasing and dynamics of a dance choreographed to the music. Novice dancers (N = 54) learned to criterion a novel 32‐s dance‐pop routine, either to full music or to the rhythm of that music. At test, participants recalled the dance to the same music, rhythm, new music, and in silence. If musical features aid memory, then full music during learning and test should result in superior dance recall, whereas if rhythm alone aids memory, then rhythm during learning and test should result in superior recall. The presence of a rhythm accompaniment during learning provided a significantly greater memory advantage for the recall of dance‐pop steps than full music. After learning to full music, silence at test enhanced recall. Findings are discussed in terms of entrainment and cognitive load. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

流行音乐对中学生的影响及疏导

流行音乐以其独特的旋律、强烈的时代感吸引着一代代中学生,并随风潜入,润物无声地影响着他们的成长和发展。流行音乐已融入中学生的日常生活,也必定在潜移默化中影响着他们的观念和行为方式。因此,必须重视流行音乐对中学生的影响,并采取积极有效的措施发挥流行音乐的正功能,为中学生的成长和发展营造一个良好的文化氛围。     

Young People's Musical Taste: Relationship With Gender and Gender‐Related Traits1

The present study extended previous findings of gender differences in young people's musical taste by examining whether identification with gender‐related expressive or instrumental traits contributes to these differences, and by examining the underlying structure of musical taste by gender. The results confirmed greater liking of heavier contemporary music among men and of chart pop music among women. Gender was a stronger predictor of taste for gender‐stereotyped styles than identification with gender‐related traits. The structure of style preferences in dimensions relating to mainstream styles varied by gender. Men and participants with higher scores on expressiveness gave higher ratings to more styles. The findings are discussed in relation to gender differences in the use of music and gender‐role socialization.     

Do internet stings directed at pedophiles capture offenders or create offenders? And allied questions

We consider a tangle of related questions, the first two empirical, the final question theoretical: (1) Do Internet sting operations catch people who are now engaging in or have previously engaged in illicit sexual activity with minors—or suspected of such? (2) Are persons caught in illicit sexual activity with minors likely to be caught by Internet stings—do they appear susceptible to being caught that way? (3) Are the offenses of those caught in Internet stings directed at illicit sexual activity with minors (i.e., where no minor is involved) genuine or manufactured? Along the way we make several ethnographic observations profiling the sort of people caught by these Internet stings, and bring in some relevant demographic data.     

Body Objectification,MTV, and Psychological Outcomes Among Female Adolescents1

In response to the American Psychological Association's Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, the present study explored the role of sexually objectifying media—in this case, music television—in a host of psychological consequences among a community sample of adolescents girls (M age = 13 years). Objectification theory posits that the consequences of sexual objectification involve the process of self‐objectification. As such, we hypothesized that music television consumption would first and foremost be associated with self‐objectification, which would, in turn, predict a number of body‐related consequences. The findings support a model in which self‐objectification mediates a direct relation between music television viewing and body esteem, dieting, depressive symptoms, anxiety, and confidence in math ability.