Is participation in music festivals a self-expansion opportunity? Identity, self-perception, and the importance of music’s functions

Abstract

A correlational study was conducted among attendees of three music festivals in Poland ( N = 828). The main goal was to examine how functions ascribed to music are related to (a) a feeling of being united with other attendees, (b) the perception of being independent from or (c) interdependent with other attendees, and (d) a feeling of self-growth resulting in self-expansion. Using structural equation modelling, we showed the following. First, people who feel stronger connections and experience more personal relationships with other attendees report a stronger feeling of self-growth during music festivals and ascribe more importance to the social functions of music. Second, a strong, direct relationship exists between independent self-construal (i.e., an individualistic view of the self as autonomous from other people) and the self-awareness function of music as well as between interdependent self-construal (i.e., a more collectivistic view of the self as embedded in the group and community) and the social function of music. Finally, the results of the mediation analysis of self-expansion for the relationships between different aspects of self and the functions of music indicated that self-expansion is a statistically significant partial mediator of these relationships for the social and self-awareness function of music but not for the emotional function. That is, participants, who experienced changes in self-construct related to self-growth and self-development from their participation in a music festival used music to facilitate self-awareness and social relatedness.

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