Summary article Early adolescent music preferences and minor delinquency
•During the 1980s and 1990s, the loudest and most rebellious forms of rock, African American music
and electronic dance music were labelled by adults as problem music and perceived as promoting
violence, substance use, promiscuous sex, blasphemy, and depression.
•Social scientific research has uncovered associations between media use, particularly music
listening and music video watching, and a range of externalizing problem behaviours, including minor
delinquency.
•For an estimated 80% of adolescents aged 12-18, music is an important medium that enhances their
mood, helps them cope with problems, and helps them develop social identity.
•In Europe and North America, adolescents listen mainly to 4 or 5 different music styles:
conventional, mainstream pop music, intense and rebellious rock, rhythmic and soulful African
American or African Caribbean music, highly energetic dance music, and complex highbrow music.
•Adolescence is a period for testing and internalizing culturally defined norms and values.
•Some researchers argue that exposure to violent lyrics or music videos can have a direct effect on
externalizing behaviours.
•Other investigators stressed the role of selection, suggestion that adolescents consume the type of
media that fits their personality and social context.
•Additionally, other research has shown that adolescents actively seek peers with similar music
tastes to form friendships, therefore, music is a defining factor in adolescent crowd formation.
•A number of correlational studies have shown that adolescents who prefer loud, nonmainstream, or
even deviant types of music engage in more risky, and deviant behaviours compared with their
musically conventional peers.
•The music Marker Theory (MMT). It assumes that
-In early adolescence, youths, confined to the parental house, school and direct neighbourhood,
have relatively little room to move, hence to break rules.
-In the privacy of their own room or through personal audio, they can listen to the music of their
choice and develop a mainstream or more deviant taste in music.
-When getting older, the balance between adult-monitored activities and unsupervised time with
peers shifts to the latter, resulting in more norm-breaking behaviour.
-Adolescents with an early and strong taste for deviant, nonmainstream music will see stronger
similarities with peers listening to similar nonmainstream music compared with youths less inclined
to listen to energetic, noisy and rebellious music.
-The concentration of youths listening to nonmainstream music in peer crowds leads to contagion,
that is, across adolescence young people belonging to nonmainstream groups imitate and stimulate
each other’s norm-breaking behaviours more than do youths in mainstream crowds.
-In addition, systematic exposure to deviant media may directly influence or exacerbate norm-
breaking behaviours among youth listening to nonmainstream music.
-Although the exact balance between the consequences of selection of friends through music
preferences and potential influence of direct media exposure on problem behaviours has not yet
been established, it is safe to propose that: early adolescent music preferences predict later norm-
breaking behaviour.
•MMT assumes that music preference precede norm-breaking behaviour.
•The current study aimed to test whether early adolescent preferences for loud, energetic,
nonmainstream music are concurrently and longitudinally associated with minor delinquency.
Discussion
•This study is the first to provide evidence that an early preference for different types of noisy,
rebellious, nonmainstream music genres is a strong predictor of concurrent and later minor
•During the 1980s and 1990s, the loudest and most rebellious forms of rock, African American music
and electronic dance music were labelled by adults as problem music and perceived as promoting
violence, substance use, promiscuous sex, blasphemy, and depression.
•Social scientific research has uncovered associations between media use, particularly music
listening and music video watching, and a range of externalizing problem behaviours, including minor
delinquency.
•For an estimated 80% of adolescents aged 12-18, music is an important medium that enhances their
mood, helps them cope with problems, and helps them develop social identity.
•In Europe and North America, adolescents listen mainly to 4 or 5 different music styles:
conventional, mainstream pop music, intense and rebellious rock, rhythmic and soulful African
American or African Caribbean music, highly energetic dance music, and complex highbrow music.
•Adolescence is a period for testing and internalizing culturally defined norms and values.
•Some researchers argue that exposure to violent lyrics or music videos can have a direct effect on
externalizing behaviours.
•Other investigators stressed the role of selection, suggestion that adolescents consume the type of
media that fits their personality and social context.
•Additionally, other research has shown that adolescents actively seek peers with similar music
tastes to form friendships, therefore, music is a defining factor in adolescent crowd formation.
•A number of correlational studies have shown that adolescents who prefer loud, nonmainstream, or
even deviant types of music engage in more risky, and deviant behaviours compared with their
musically conventional peers.
•The music Marker Theory (MMT). It assumes that
-In early adolescence, youths, confined to the parental house, school and direct neighbourhood,
have relatively little room to move, hence to break rules.
-In the privacy of their own room or through personal audio, they can listen to the music of their
choice and develop a mainstream or more deviant taste in music.
-When getting older, the balance between adult-monitored activities and unsupervised time with
peers shifts to the latter, resulting in more norm-breaking behaviour.
-Adolescents with an early and strong taste for deviant, nonmainstream music will see stronger
similarities with peers listening to similar nonmainstream music compared with youths less inclined
to listen to energetic, noisy and rebellious music.
-The concentration of youths listening to nonmainstream music in peer crowds leads to contagion,
that is, across adolescence young people belonging to nonmainstream groups imitate and stimulate
each other’s norm-breaking behaviours more than do youths in mainstream crowds.
-In addition, systematic exposure to deviant media may directly influence or exacerbate norm-
breaking behaviours among youth listening to nonmainstream music.
-Although the exact balance between the consequences of selection of friends through music
preferences and potential influence of direct media exposure on problem behaviours has not yet
been established, it is safe to propose that: early adolescent music preferences predict later norm-
breaking behaviour.
•MMT assumes that music preference precede norm-breaking behaviour.
•The current study aimed to test whether early adolescent preferences for loud, energetic,
nonmainstream music are concurrently and longitudinally associated with minor delinquency.
Discussion
•This study is the first to provide evidence that an early preference for different types of noisy,
rebellious, nonmainstream music genres is a strong predictor of concurrent and later minor
