Musical preference, deviance, and attitudes towards music celebrities

Two studies investigated the relationship among British students between liking for ‘problem’ music, indices of deviance, and scores on a slightly modified version of the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS). Study 1 indicated a positive relationship between liking for ‘problem’ music styles and psychoticism scores. Study 2 indicated that fans of ‘problem’ music scored higher than non-fans on measures of psychoticism, reactive rebelliousness, and two specific problem behaviours; that liking for ‘problem’ music was related only to psychoticism when all the indices of deviance were considered together in a multiple regression; and that fans of ‘problem’ music did not score higher on CAS measures of identification with the participants’ favourite musicians. The present data indicate a relationship outside North America between ‘problem’ music and deviance, that this might be attributable primarily to elevated psychoticism scores among listeners to this music, but that liking for ‘problem’ music was not associated with a greater tendency for participants to identify closely with licentious behaviours carried out by pop musicians.