My name is Abbigail Fleckenstein and I am a doctoral research fellow at the Department of Psychology at the University of Oslo. I work at the RITMO Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time, and Motion under the supervision of Prof. Jonna Vuoskoski as part of the Interaction & Pleasure cluster. Broadly, my doctoral research combines my passion for music psychology and aesthetics by focusing on the relationship between emotions, social behaviours, and aesthetic experiences of music. More specifically, I am interested in evaluating how aesthetic appraisals of music develop over time and the social and emotional dimensions that contribute to this process.
Academic interests
- Music Psychology
- Empirical Aesthetics
- Music and Emotion
- Music Education
Background
I received my MA in Psychology of Music from the University of Sheffield in the UK in 2020. My master's dissertation, “Understanding Musical Beauty”, explored the concept of beauty experienced with music listening and was supervised by Prof. Nicola Dibben.
I received my B.Mus. in Music Education with a minor in Philosophy from Appalachian State University in my home state of North Carolina, USA, in 2018. I specialized in studying choral music education (K-12) and worked as an undergraduate teaching and research assistant for Dr. Jennifer Sterling Snodgrass. While completing my bachelor's degree I conducted an undergraduate research project, “understanding Gender in Music through Philosophy”, which empirically evaluated the theoretical works of aesthetic philosopher, Theodore Gracyk and Musicologist, Susan McClary.