A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Individual Differences in Musical Reward

Music is an important source of pleasure, yet sensitivity to the rewards of musical experiences varies greatly across individuals. The Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire (BMRQ) is a frequently used scale to assess individuals’ sensitivity to musical reward. While the BMRQ has been translated into seven languages to date, its five-factor structure has not yet been compared across cultures. Here we compared musical reward sensitivity and its relationship with musical training in 1333 Chinese participants and 1433 US participants based on self-report survey data. Results showed both similarities and differences across the two cultures: while Chinese participants endorsed lower average BMRQ scores overall than the US participants, both groups showed four clusters of items in the musical reward sensitivity network. We also found that musical training was strongly related to social reward in the US group, but to emotional evocation and music seeking in the Chinese group. Network analysis revealed distinct motifs of Sensory-motor facet in reward sensitivity between the groups: the US group showed a single Sensory-Motor cluster, whereas dance separated from music-induced movement and vocalization in the Chinese group. These results underscore the importance of culture and musical training in contributing to individual differences in musical reward sensitivity.