Investigating Everyday Music Choice on Smartphones: The Role of Mood States and Personality Traits

Digitalization has created unprecedented freedom of choice in music consumption, highlighting intra- and interindividual differences in everyday listening behavior. To shed light on the factors involved in natural music choices, the present study collected 1,631 music-listening sessions from 110 participants over 14 consecutive days using smartphones for both passive and active ambulatory assessments. We obtained smartphone-sensed music-listening records and experience-sampled mood states, along with Big Five personality traits from traditional surveys. Using multilevel regressions, we predicted momentary music choice in terms of musical valence and energy from concurrent mood states, enduring personality traits, and their interactions. As preregistered, we expected to replicate past findings on mood-congruent music choice and associations between personality and music choice, as well as theory-based interaction effects. However, our models showed that mood and personality accounted for only a small fraction of variance in music choice, with one significant effect indicating that people in more activated mood states chose more energetic songs. Beyond that, our models showed no effects for chosen musical valence and energy. We discuss design-related factors (e.g., operationalization and ecological validity) and outline future avenues for smartphone-based research, with particular emphasis on the role of situational context in everyday music choice.