NUSBAUM, EMILY C., M.A. Listening Between the Notes: Personality, Listening 
          Context, and Aesthetic Chills in Everyday Music Listening. (2012) 
          Directed by Dr. Paul J. Silvia. 57 pp. 
           
           
             Why do people get chills in response to music? Most people report feeling chills 
           experienced as goose bumps, shivers down the spine, or hair standing on end  at 
          least sometimes when listening to music, but a small minority of people say they’ve 
          never had this experience. Past work indicates that personality, experience, and 
          engagement in music are partially responsible for individual differences in the experience 
          of chills in response to music, but there is still significant variance in chills that is 
          unexplained. In the present study, experience sampling methods were used to better 
          understand the within-person variability in the experience of chills. Eighty-nine 
          undergraduates completed surveys of Big Five personality traits and music preferences, 
          habits, and experience. For one week, participants responded to multiple daily surveys 
          asking about activities, emotions, and environment, with an emphasis on music listening 
          and chills. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to estimate several models of the 
          variability in chills. Several factors of music listening were examined as potential 
          predictors of chills, including the location, involvement of friends, music choice, 
          structural components of the music, purpose of music listening, and concurrent activities. 
          Of these, music that had special meaning and music that was instrumental had significant 
          main effects on the occurrence of chills, as did taking more music classes and scoring 
          high in facets of neuroticism and openness to experience.  In addition, neuroticism and 
          openness facets significantly interacted with contextual aspects of music listening, such 
                            
           
          as music familiarity, paying close attention to the music, and listening on headphones. 
          Directions for future theorizing are discussed.
                       
                            
           
                 LISTENING BETWEEN THE NOTES: PERSONALITY, 
                  LISTENING CONTEXT, AND AESTHETIC CHILLS  
                      IN EVERYDAY MUSIC LISTENING 
           
                               
                              by 
                          Emily C. Nusbaum 
                               
                               
                               
                         A Thesis Submitted to  
                      the Faculty of The Graduate School at 
                    The University of North Carolina at Greensboro  
                          in Partial Fulfillment  
                      of the Requirements for the Degree 
                            Master of Arts 
                               
                               
                               
                               
                            Greensboro 
                             2012 
                               
                               
                               
           
                               
                               Approved by 
                                
                                
                                                   
                               Committee Chair
                              
                      
                      
                                                      APPROVAL PAGE 
                             
                      
                            This thesis has been approved by the following committee of the Faculty of The 
                     Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. 
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                            Committee Chair                                                
                      
                      
                          Committee Members                                                
                          
                                              
                                                                                           
                                              
                                              
                                                                                           
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                     ____________________________ 
                     Date of Acceptance by Committee 
                      
                      
                      
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                     Date of Final Oral Examination 
                                                  
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