Psychological Approaches to Music

Psychology of music examines

• individual differences
• nature vs nurture question
• cross-cultural comparisons
• cross-species comparisons
• evolutionary questions
• brain specialisations

Applications of music psychology

• education
• psychological/theraputic applications
• medicine
• social

Laboratory experiments 

• must be specific and controlled
• can be unrealistic (ecological validity problem)
• removes the effect of nuisance variables 
• hypothesis-driven 

Cross-sectional studies

• groups of individuals of different ages/genders/etc tested at once
• provides normative data
• obtaining…