Mimi (Katherine) O'Neill

Mimi's research interest is music psychology; more specifically, music and emotion, empathy, intra-audience effects, quantitative data collection and analysis, and the systematic study of music. Currently, Mimi is finishing her PhD, looking at the social or collective experience of live, western art music concerts. While it has been shown that listening to music with other people affects the emotional intensity of consumers' responses, it is not yet clear what the mechanisms of this influence are. The presence of other people is typical in live music performances; however, the social schemata prohibit verbal communication. Therefore, Mimi has been looking at this phenomenon using theories of parasocial interaction and in-group theory. This research is funded by the Volkswagon Foundation and supervised by Dr Hauke Egermann.

Mimi's research will also form part of the Experimental Concert Research and Digital Concert Experience projects. Under the leadership of Zeppelin University (Martin Tröndle, WÜRTH Chair of Cultural Production), the interdisciplinary project’s team is made up of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt am Main (Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann), the University of Bern in Switzerland (Wolfgang Tschacher), the University of York (Hauke Egermann). The researchers will be focusing on the format of the concert, and current developments in the music business - commonly referred to as 'experimental concert formats' - will become scientific experiments. The project is mainly supported by the Volkswagen Foundation, the Max Planck Society, and the WÜRTH Foundation. The Aventis Foundation supports the artistic part of the project.

This year, Mimi is also the MA Music: Music Psychology pathway leader at the University of York, and a Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Lincoln.

Subject Specialisms

Music psychology, music and emotion, music science, empathy, quantitative research methods and analysis.

Qualifications

MA Music: Music Psychology pathway - University of York 2017
BA (Hons) Music - University of York 2016

Awards

Vice-Chancellor’s teaching award - University of York 2020
Volkswagon Foundation - PhD funding 2019
Ede and Ravenscroft - MA Scholarship 2016