Openness to World Music Predicts Adaptation to a New Culture among Student Sojourners

Research suggests that student sojourners in Australia often have depressive symptoms, acculturative stress, and difficulty adjusting to the host country (Schofield et al., 2016; Smith & Khawaja, 2011). [...]it is important to identify factors that are related to student sojourners well-being and positive adjustment to their new enviromnent. Homology models of this link argue that music mirrors cultural values and attitudes, whereas process models suggest that social groups come to know themselves through cultural activities such as music engagement and aesthetic judgement (Frith, 1996). Nonetheless, empirical data show that among the 'Big Five' personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and nemoticism), openness is the best predictor of psychological acculturation and adaptation (Berry, 2006; Mak & Tran, 2001; Swagler & Jome, 2005; Van der Zee et al., 2016; Zhang et al., 2010). [...]in the analysis by Hargreaves and Bonneville-Roussy (2017), openness and age jointly explained just 7% of the total variance in the number of liked musical gemes. [...]Bryson (1996) proposed that music preferences can be used to identify symbolic boundaries including social group identity. [...]world music open-earedness may indicate an open social identity.