Why music psychology needs larger and more diverse datasets and how citizen science can help

To produce more nuanced, generalisable, and culturally representative understanding, music psychology needs to engage with more diverse forms of music and study the musical experiences, perceptions, and behaviour of more diverse people. But the logistical challenges of how to feasibly collect larger and more diverse datasets can be a significant barrier to achieving this goal. While there are also several other challenges inherent to broadening the empirical scope of music psychology in this way, here, I focus on the reasons why more generalisable empirical inferences require larger and more diverse datasets. Then to meet the logistical challenge of collecting such expanded datasets, I suggest that a citizen science approach to research participation may be particularly promising, and review recent studies taking this approach. Citizen science projects can function at many different scales, but at its extremes, it can unlock a shift from studying tens of students at a local campus to studying millions of people around the world. Despite its own limitations and challenges, citizen science has the potential to play a unique role in expanding and diversifying the empirical scope of music psychology.