The emotional complexity of musical experiences: Cultural and individual factors

• Emotional complexity in music is influenced by individual and cultural factors. • Conscientiousness and emotional stability predict lower emotional complexity scores. • Older individuals rate their meaningful music as less emotionally complex. • Vertical individualism predicts higher emotional complexity, mediated by music use. • Functions like diversion, identity, and memories mediate emotional complexity. We investigated emotional complexity (i.e., co-occurrence of positive and negative emotions) in musical experiences and its shaping by personality, age, cultural orientation, and music’s functionality. Participants ( N = 2137) from 84 countries provided one musical piece, rated induced emotions, and reported frequency of music functions. Emotional complexity was positively predicted by vertical (i.e., hierarchical) individualism and the functions of diversion, identity, memories, and feeling the music’s emotions, whereas it was negatively predicted by age, conscientiousness, emotional stability, horizontal (i.e., egalitarian) individualism, and the function of self-regulation. Crucially, the effect of individualism was fully explained by musical functions, while partial mediations were found in the case of age and emotional stability. Results highlight the relevance of music’s functions in understanding the emotional experience.