Development and initial validation of the Music Mood-Regulation Scale

Abstract

This study designed a measure to assess the perceived
effectiveness of music as a strategy to regulate mood
among a sport and exercise population. A strategy of
assessing and comparing the integrity of competing
hypotheses to explain the underlying factor structure of
the scale was used. A 21-item Music Mood-Regulation
Scale (MMRS) was developed to assess the extent to
which participants used music to alter the mood states of
anger, calmness, depression, fatigue, happiness, tension,
and vigor. Volunteer sport and exercise participants (N =
1,279) rated the perceived effectiveness of music to
regulate each MMRS item on a 5-point Likert-type scale.
Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to test the
integrity of four competing models, and results lend
support to a correlated 7-factor structure for the MMRS
(RCFI = .94; RMSEA = .06). Cronbach alpha
coefficients were in the range of 0.74 – 0.88 thus
demonstrating the internal reliability of scales. It is
suggested that the MMRS shows promising degrees of
validity. Future research should assess the extent to
which individuals can develop the ability to use music as
a strategy to regulate mood in situations in which
disturbed mood might be detrimental to performance.