Psychology of Music Learning

1
Psychology of Music Learning

• Miksza - Spring 09
• WEEK EIGHT
• ANXIETY

2
Kemp (1996)

• Many constructs/phenomena have been studied in
  relation to musician anxiety
• Personality, behavioral, cognitive, therapies,
  treatments
• Most commonly cited personality variable in music
  research

3
Kemp (1996)

• Trait vs. State
• General disposition vs. response to particular
  situations
• Are musicians pre-disposed to being anxious or
  are they more prone to fluctuations generated by
  the various situations in which they find
  themselves, and the demands made upon them
• The two interact
• Spielberger STAI (1970)
• Common measure in the field
• Cattell Second order factors
• Generally considered trait, some interact more
  than others with state anxiety

4
Kemp (1996)

• Cattell factors
• Second order factors
• Low ego strength (vs. high)
• Shyness (vs. adventurousness)
• Suspiciousness (vs. trusting)
• Guilt proneness (vs. self-assured)
• Low self-sentiment (vs. high self-sentiment)
• High ergic tension (vs. low tension)
• See boxes on page 88,89, and 90

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Kemp (1996)

• Cattell Anxiety factor nearly equivalent to
  Eysencks Neuroticism factor
• ...someone who is easily perturbed, worrying,
  emotional when frustrated, lax, uncontrolled,
  depressed, moody, hypochondriacal, shy,
  embitered, and of restricted interest.

6
Kemp (1996)

• Interesting results when studying British school
  children and musician populations
• Those in a specialist music school showing a
  profile of anxiety factors. (Kemp, 1981)
• Not clear whether due to environment or not
  (e.g., the hot house effect)
• Those in conservatory training definitely
  exhibiting an anxiety profile (see Table 5.1)

7
Kemp (1996)

• Convincing results with pros too
• Watson Valentine (1987)
• Higher on trait than in printed norms
• Correlations between the two and music
  performance anxiety measure
• Correlations with amount of professional
  experience
• Natural tendency or dropout issues ?
• Steptoe (1989)
• Professional elements beyond performance
  contributing to stress
• Family separation, irregular hours, travel,
  rehearsal monotony
• Quenk (1993)
• Personality shifts in stressed situations
• Those who are usually relatively introverted tend
  to begin to over-organize, over-analyze, behave
  obsessively, and perceive themselves as
  incompetent

8
Kemp (1996)

• Facilitating vs. Debilitating
• Yerkes-Dodson inverted-U, optimal arousal model
• Hamann Sobaje (1983) see actual article on
  reserve)
• Psyching up, optimal levels, heightened
  sensitivity and imagination
• Also interacts with level of preparation and task
  mastery
• Anger manifests as a defense mechanism - perhaps
  due to low ego strength

9
Kemp (1996)

• Arousal
• Many personality theories have roots in
  biological processes
• Arousal in this case refers to the processing
  that the autonomic nervous system deals with
• Gut feeling responses (e.g., fight or flight)
  that then signal higher cortical responses
• Some suggest that introverts (e.g., musicians)
  reach higher levels of arousal quicker - more
  likely to suffer negative effects of
  over-stimulation
• Symptoms - shaking, sweating, heart-rate, nausea

10
Kemp (1996)

• Self-concept
• Musicians personal identity and personal worth
  wrapped up heavily with performance ability
• Two patterns of behavior likely
• Prima Donna behavior and intense competition,
  perceived positive trajectory
• Heightened apprehension, self-criticism, feelings
  of incompetence, progressively debilitating
  anxiety, loss of self-worth
• Musicians induce their own stress by setting high
  standards for themselves
• Search for perfection tied to first-born status?

11
Kemp (1996)

• Catastrophizing
• Fear of a point of no return that leads to
  disintegration of performance
• Steptoe Fidler (1987)
• Students, pros, and amateurs all imagine
  catastrophe scenarios
• Seems mostly related to state anxiety
• Related to compound effects of worrying and
  worrying about anxiety
• Is off-task behavior, leads to lack of attention,
  a shift from actual concerns to self-conscious
  worry about physical and mental state

12
LeBlanc (1994)

• A theoretical model of performance anxiety
• Highlight variables that may be of impact
• Moves from preparation to commitment to perform,
  to presentation, to feedback
• In the context of solo performance
• Hierarchically organized to reflect passage of
  time
• Citations for variables included in the model

13
LeBlanc (1994)

• General levels (4 broad rather than 11 detailed)
• Background, preparation
• Mood/affect, Environmental factors,
  Self-perception
• Arousal, attention in the moment
• Feedback
• See model on page 61 for detailed breakdown
• See descriptions of each component on pages 60 -
  66 for detailed implications

14
Hamann Sobaje (1983)

• The effect of debilitating vs. facilitating
  anxiety conditions on music performance
• Speilberger STAI and STPI
• 60 UNC Greely students
• Conditions (in order for all?)
• Low-anxiety - alone with a tape recorder
• High-anxiety - jury condition with faculty
• Administered self-report measures in between
• Subjects grouped by
• Anxiety scores, curiosity, anger, experience
• High, medium low groupings

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Hamann Sobaje (1983)

• Results
• Differences by treatment on anxiety and anger -
  but not curiosity
• More of each in high anxiety condition
• Interaction of state/trait by condition (figure
  1)
• Those high in trait had higher anger scores in
  high anxiety condition
• Interaction of yrs. formal study by condition
  (figure 2)
• Those with a good deal of formal training had
  better performance scores in high anxiety
  condition, those with moderate formal training
  had better performance scores in low anxiety
  condition