The Japanese version of the barcelona music reward questionnaire (J-BMRQ) confirms the cross-cultural generalizability of the “five-factor” model

The Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire (BMRQ) is an instrument designed to assess individual differences in music pleasure and reward. While the BMRQ was developed in Spanish and English, it has recently been translated into French and Chinese. A point of debate is whether the five-factor model, initially proposed in the English and Spanish versions of the BMRQ, was consistently replicated in the translated versions. While the French version successfully reproduced the five-factor model, the Chinese version did not, potentially due to cultural variations. In this study, we developed a Japanese version of the BMRQ (J-BMRQ) and tested whether the J-BMRQ could replicate the five-factor model. Data from 1550 Japanese participants were collected and analyzed using the J-BMRQ, and its construct validity and reliability were tested via factor analyses. Our analyses supported the applicability of the five-factor model for the Japanese version of the BMRQ, demonstrating psychometric properties consistent with the original Spanish/English and French versions. Additionally, mirroring the earlier versions, a single-factor solution was informative for computing an overall BMRQ score. This study reinforces the cross-cultural generalizability of the BMRQ and offers a robust tool for future research on musical pleasure and reward in a Japanese context.