It’s often assumed that older people like different music than younger people. Try to design a quasiexperiment to test this. Try this before you read on. Presumably you decided to ask older and...

It’s often assumed that older people like different music than younger people. Try to design a quasiexperiment to test this. Try this before you read on.

Presumably you decided to ask older and younger people their music preferences. Did you specify what constitutes ‘older’ and ‘younger’ people? That is, did you consider that 20-year-olds and 15-yearolds (all of whom might be considered ‘younger’) may have different tastes? Similarly, what age groups did you designate as ‘older people’? It is likely that your parents and your grandparents might differ from each other in their tastes in music as well. Clearly, the terms ‘younger’ and ‘older’ need to be specified. But there’s more: are there other factors that may play a part? For example, older people raised in different countries may well have different preferences in music. Or younger people raised in a rural area as opposed to a city may differ. What other factors do you think might contribute to any differences observed?