Musical contingent self-worth moderates the association between music training and tonal working memory

Integrating advances in music cognition, achievement motivation, and personality, we hypothesized that the positive relationship between music training and tonal working memory (WM) would be intensified among individuals whose self-worth is contingent upon musical competence. To test this proposition, we developed and validated a new self-report measure of musical contingent self-worth (MCSW), showing that it is distinct from existing measures of contingent self-worth in nonmusical domains, as well as from measures of generalized behavioral traits and music training. We also collected evidence for the criterion validity of the new measure, demonstrating that it is associated with emotional and motivational responses to false failure feedback on an ostensible test of musical ability. Afterward, we administered the MCSW scale to participants after they completed a tonal n-back task previously found to be a sensitive measure of the association between music training and auditory WM performance. We also explored whether this effect would be more pronounced when the task was explicitly framed as diagnostic of musical ability and thereby of particular relevance to individuals high in MCSW. In line with predictions, we found that the positive association between music training and tonal WM was stronger among individuals with higher MCSW and eradicated among those with relatively low MCSW. There was no evidence for an additional effect of task framing. Altogether, these findings suggest that extramusical cognitive performance may be jointly influenced by music training as well as individual differences in the motivation to be recognized as musically competent. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)