Do We Dislike Music for the Same Reasons Across Cultures?

An international survey of 49 genres uncovers cultural differences in musical dislikes, with emotion and identity linked to the strongest aversions.

New York, NY — September 30, 2026 — What puts one listener off K-pop may differ from what puts another off the same genre. A new cross-cultural study in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences compared listeners in Australia, China, Singapore, and the United States and found that complexity, sentimentality, and social identity varied in importance as reasons for rejecting music.

Participants in the Chinese sample gave higher ratings to complexity and sentimentality as reasons for dislike than participants in the other three countries. The researchers highlighted K-pop, blues, and soul in the complexity findings, and country music and musicals in the sentimentality findings. Chinese participants also gave lower ratings to social mismatch than those in Australia and Singapore.

Basic displeasure showed a different pattern: the study detected no statistically significant country differences in this dimension, which included unpleasant feelings and bodily discomfort. The findings raise the possibility that some reactions to disliked music are more widely shared than others, even as listeners differ in their judgments of complexity, emotional expression, and social meaning.

The survey included 1,079 people, primarily from the four countries compared. Participants rated familiar genres and assessed reasons for disliking up to four of them; 971 respondents contributed to the analysis of dislike reasons. Extending earlier work in Germany, the researchers identified five broad dimensions: displeasure, complexity, sentimentality, social mismatch, and rejection of music perceived as mainstream or overexposed.

The strength of dislike brought another distinction into focus. Across the sample, unpleasant feelings and a mismatch with the listener’s identity or social group were associated with stronger aversion. Finding music “too complex” or “too mainstream” was not. Sentimentality was associated with milder dislike. Calling music “too mainstream”, the findings suggest, does not necessarily mean disliking it more intensely.

Personal characteristics also mattered. Greater openness to experience and more active musical engagement were associated with less aversion related to complexity and sentimentality.

The English-language survey drew mainly younger participants and included 55 people in China. The authors call for larger, more balanced samples and culturally validated questionnaires to test how broadly these patterns apply. The results identify associations rather than causes.

As the authors write, “what people reject in music provides crucial insight into how they regulate emotion, negotiate identity, and position themselves within social and cultural worlds.”

About Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences is a 200+ year-old multidisciplinary journal that publishes high-impact primary research articles, reviews, and perspectives presenting significant advances across all scientific disciplines. The journal is truly multidisciplinary in scope — welcoming contributions from researchers worldwide in the life sciences, physical sciences, social and behavioral sciences, environmental sciences, and the intersections among them. Papers are expected to advance understanding within their field, and, where possible, resonate beyond it. A hybrid journal, Ann NY Acad Sci is committed to open science and encourages authors to choose to support their research via Open Access licenses.

About the Study Authors

The study was authored by Julia Merrill, Klaus Frieler, and Amanda E. Krause. Merrill and Frieler are affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Merrill is also affiliated with the University of Kassel. Krause is affiliated with the Department of Psychology at James Cook University in Townsville, Queensland, Australia.

Study: “Structure of Musical Dislikes: Findings From Multiple Genres and Countries.” https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.70408

Contact
Julia Merrill — julia.merrill@ae.mpg.de