How Artist Morality Shapes Music Perception: A Cross-Cultural Examination

Throughout history, artists have fascinated audiences not only through their work but also through their personal lives and identities. This phenomenon has contributed to the emergence and persistence of celebrity culture. The values artists embody extend beyond their private choices and can shape how their art is perceived. Recent psychological research has begun to examine the relationship between artists' perceived morality and the evaluation of their work (e.g., Christensen et al., 2022; Paruzel-Czachura et al., 2024; Song, 2018). Although still limited, findings suggest that perceived morality significantly affects aesthetic judgments: negative information about an artist decreases liking and increases emotional arousal, whereas works by artists perceived as morally attractive are judged as more attractive (Liang et al., 2024; Kaube et al., 2023; Kaube & Abdel Rahman, 2025). However, this effect also depends on the type of artwork and the cultural background of the perceiver (Liang et al., 2024). It is possible that the visual art is not the only domain influenced by such moral evaluations. Our study focuses on how the perceived morality of musicians affects the perceived attractiveness of their music. Because musical styles are often associated with specific subcultures and worldviews, they may convey the values of their creators (i.e. Lynxwiler & Gay, 2000; Marshall, 2014; Rose, 2019). Moreover, considering potential cultural influences, we aim to examine how evaluations of songs by morally positive, neutral, or negative artists vary across cultural contexts. Prior work shows that moral judgments are shaped not only by individual dispositions but also by broader cultural value systems. People in different cultures emphasise different moral domains, which can be understood through the individualism–collectivism distinction (Trandis, 2018), widely utilised in cross-cultural psychology, or through the distinction between WERID and non-WERID societies (Henrich et al., 2010). For example, cultures that emphasize collectivism tend to prioritize social harmony, group obligations, and community-focused moral norms, whereas more individualistic and WEIRD cultures emphasize individual rights and independence, shaping both moral evaluations and responses to moral transgressions (Atari et al., 2023; Graham et al., 2016; Henrich, 2015; Smith et al., 2007). Our study, therefore, considers whether the perceived morality of artists and subsequent assessments of their musical work differ across cultural contexts.