Phenomenological psychology & descriptive experience sampling: a new approach to exploring music festival experience

Abstract

This paper provides in-depth discussion of a methodological approach to researching music festival experience. Grounded in existential phenomenology (Heidegger, 1927/1962. Being and time (J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson, Trans.). Oxford: Blackwell) it argues for the adoption of an interpretative phenomenological perspective (Merleau–Ponty, 1945/1962. Phenomenology of perception (C. Smith, Trans.). New York, NY: Humanities Press) to more fully understand the live music festival experience. Phenomenological psychology (Smith, Harre and Van Langenhove, 1995. Ideography and the case–study. In J. A. Smith, R. Harre, & L. Van Langenhove (Eds.), Rethinking psychology (pp. 59–69). London: SAGE Publications) contextualises the music festival experience within the attendee's Lifeworld. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (Smith, 2015. Qualitative psychology: A practical guide to research methods (3rd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications Ltd) provides a robust process for analysing the music festival experience ideographically. Participants used Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) (Hurlburt & Heavey, 2001. Telling what we know: Describing inner experience. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5(9), 400–403) to record their Green Man music festival experiences, this data was then explored during phenomenological interviews. DES and IPA provide a contrasting conceptualisation of experience, with findings that contribute to Ashworth's (2003b. The phenomenology of the lifeworld and social psychology. Social Psychology Review, 5(1), 18–34) theories of Lifeworld and Krueger's (2014b. Varieties of extended emotions. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 13(4), 533–555) Hypothesis of Individual Extended Emotions and his Hypothesis of Collective Extended Emotions. Lastly, building upon the application and adaptability to the music festival context allows a consideration of future studies.