"I Can See Clearly Now”: On the time-varying associations between self-concept clarity and music preferences across adolescence into young adulthood

This longitudinal study explored the connections between self-concept clarity (SCC) and music preferences across early adolescence into young adulthood. Six times, N = 900 Dutch adolescents and young adults (Mage T1 = 12.48 years, 51% females) completed a survey assessing their SCC and music preferences, categorized into mainstream music (including pop, hip-hop, popular rock, and dance/trance) and non-mainstream music (heavy metal, goth, and hardstyle dance). Latent growth curve analyses with SCC as time-varying covariates confirmed that there was no systematic association between SCC and mainstream preferences for pop, hip-hop, and dance/trance in mid- to late adolescence, and that this relationship became mostly positive in young adulthood. However, SCC was negatively associated with a preference for another type of mainstream music: popular rock. As predicted, adolescents with low SCC also preferred thematically complex, non-mainstream genres such as heavy metal and goth, or music that is linked to a non-mainstream subculture: hardstyle dance. Lower SCC levels remained linked to higher preferences for goth and heavy metal music even into young adulthood. This suggests that goth and heavy metal continue to hold significant importance for young people who struggle with clarifying their identity.