Emotional cherry picking: the role of personality and goal orientation in selective emotion regulation for musical practice.

Introduction: Emotion regulation is an important part of optimising performance and successful goal pursuit in practice-based tasks such as making music. Musicians may regulate their own emotions during the course of their musical practice in order to improve their performance and ultimately attain their practice-related goals. The specific emotions they target may depend upon their personality traits but may also relate to the nature of their goal orientation, and the interaction between the two. This study investigates whether the emotions desired by musicians in their musical practice were dependent on their personality traits and Mastery goal orientation (the desire to master musical and technical skills). Methods: Via an online questionnaire, 421 musicians completed a personality scale and answered questions relating to their mastery practice goals. They also completed emotion scales indicating how strongly they desired to increase or decrease the intensity of specific emotions when practicing. Results: Overall, musicians preferred to up-regulate positive rather than negative emotions [ Discussion: These findings complement existing research that suggests that some Mastery-oriented musicians may seek an emotional state consisting of both positive and negative emotions. This and future studies on this topic may contribute to a better understanding of individual differences in emotion regulation ability as a potential aspect of individualised musical practice strategies.