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The Social Inequality of Music: University Students from a Higher Social Class Are More Likely to Build Relationships and Feel Happiness Through Music

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Abstract

The relationship between young people’s music use and well-being has gained extensive interest in recent years. The relationship-building function of music is one of its most important functions. While many studies have documented the positive effects of this function, there is a lack of research discussing this topic from the perspective of social stratification. This study sampled 691(63.8% male, M age = 19.43, SD = 1.42) Chinese university students to examine the social class differences among university students in acquiring well-being through the relationship-building function of music. The results revealed that university students from a higher social class are more likely to acquire well-being through the relationship-building function of music. In addition, interdependent self-construal plays a moderating role in the mediating model. The mediating effect was only significant when university students have a higher level of interdependent self-construal. These results indicated social class differences among university students in the building of relationships with music, underscoring the need for future research and interventions to address social inequality in the context of music’s functions.

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Notes

  1. Following previous suggestions (Becker et al., 2016), hypothesis tests were also conducted without including covariates. The results were generally consistent with the current findings, providing support for all hypotheses. In addition, mediating models and moderated mediating models were also analyzed with objective or subjective class as independent variables and life satisfaction as dependent variables (see appendix E-I for detailed graphs and tabular results).

  2. In addition to the current hypothesized moderated mediating effect model, an alternate model analysis was conducted (using PROCESS macro, model 15) to test whether interdependent self-construal moderates the mediating model based on its moderating effect on the relationship between the relationship-building function of music and well-being. The results showed that the moderating effect of interdependent self-construal between social class and well-being (p = 0.06), as well as between the relationship-building of music and well-being (p = 0.98), are both not significant. (see appendix J for detailed tabular results). The alternative model analysis further demonstrated the robustness of the current results of this study.

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Acknowledgements

We extend our appreciation to all the contributors who aided in this study. Furthermore, we genuinely appreciate the editor and reviewers for their valuable comments.

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number: 72001171], and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [grant number: SK2022141].

Data Sharing and Declaration

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available but can be requested from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Music Education Centre, School of Humanities and Social Science, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

    Junfeng Liu

  2. Institute of Social Psychology, School of Humanities and Social Science, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

    Shen-Long Yang

  3. Department of Sociology, School of Humanities and Social Science, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

    Ting-Ting Rao

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  1. Junfeng Liu
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Contributions

J.L. conceived of the study, designed the study, collected the data, and drafted the manuscript; S.L.Y. conceived of the study, performed the measurement and revised the manuscript; T.T.R. helped to draft the manuscript, performed the statistical analysis and interpreted the data and results. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Shen-Long Yang.

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All study procedures were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The research procedure was approved by the Biomedical Ethics Committee of Health Science Center, Xi’an Jiaotong University.

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Liu, J., Yang, SL. & Rao, TT. The Social Inequality of Music: University Students from a Higher Social Class Are More Likely to Build Relationships and Feel Happiness Through Music. J. Youth Adolescence 53, 1258–1270 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-024-01960-5

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