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. 2021 Sep;50(9):1925-1936.
doi: 10.1007/s10964-020-01294-y. Epub 2020 Aug 19.

Goth Music and Depressive Symptoms among Adolescents: A Longitudinal Study

Tom Ter Bogt  1 , William W Hale 3rd  2 , Natale Canale  3 , Massimiliano Pastore  3 , Alessio Vieno  3
Affiliations

Goth Music and Depressive Symptoms among Adolescents: A Longitudinal Study

Tom Ter Bogt et al. J Youth Adolesc. 2021 Sep.

Erratum in

Abstract

Identification with Goth youth culture has been related to elevated levels of depression, self-harm and suicide ideation. However, this identification may be difficult to assess as Goth is stigmatized and adolescents may hesitate to self-identify. Conversely, adolescents readily respond to questions on their music preferences. This study addresses the potential link between liking Goth music and depressive symptoms in a four-year study among 10 to 15-year-olds (N = 940, M age = 12.4 at T1, 49% female). In this study, it was found that Goth music is only liked by a small minority of adolescents (4 to 11%). Both girls and boys who liked Goth music reported increased levels of depressive symptoms as they grew older. The findings of this study suggest that a preference for Goth music emerges as an early, sensitive marker of dormant or developing depressive symptoms in adolescents. The mechanisms through which music preferences can translate into or sustain depressive symptoms are discussed.

Keywords: Adolescence; Depression; Emo; Goth; Gothic; Music preferences.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Depressive Symptoms as a function of Liking Goth Music (different lines) and Years, Separately for Gender (different panels). Goth: 1 = “Do not like at all” to 5 “Do like very much”. The lines represent expected values of depressive symptoms on the basis of factor scores in the empirical data ranging from 0.008 to 4.89. The shaded regionsrepresent the 89% Highest Posterior Density interval
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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