Musical Reward in Young Children

Abstract

Musical pleasure stems from an interplay of social, emotional, and cognitive factors. In adults, there are large individual differences in musical reward, with some individuals (deemed “hyperhedonic” to music) reporting very high reward and others (deemed “anhedonic” to music) reporting very low reward. Musical anhedonia is, therefore, a selective lack of pleasure in response to music, defined by self-reported low musical reward in the absence of generalized anhedonia. While this phenomenon has been investigated in adults in recent years, little is known about musical anhedonia or musical reward more generally in children. To address this, we investigated parents’ perceptions of musical reward in their children. We adapted a questionnaire of musical reward (the Barcelona Musical Reward Questionnaire [BMRQ]). Parents ( N = 500) responded to the adapted questionnaire (children’s BMRQ [cBMRQ]) and a widely used questionnaire of temperament (Children's Behavior Questionnaire—Very Short Form) concerning their 3- to 7-year-old children. As with adults, there was large individual variation in musical reward. A subset of participants rated their children’s experience of musical reward as very low, but did not rate them as having temperamental negative affectivity. Results point to substantial individual variation in musical reward in early childhood and suggest that musical anhedonia may already be apparent in early childhood.