Folk psychology posits that music artists’ first albums are considered their best, whereas later albums draw fewer accolades, and that artists’ second albums are considered worse than their first—a phenomenon called the “sophomore slump.” This work is the first large-scale multi-study attempt to test changes in album quality over time and whether a sophomore slump bias exists. Study 1 examined music critics, sampling all A, B, and C entries from The New Rolling Stone Record Guide (2,078 album reviews, 387 artists, 38 critics). Study 2 examined music fans, sampling crowdsourced Rate Your Music ratings of artists with at least one Rolling Stone top 500 album (4,030 album reviews, 254 artists). Using multilevel models, both studies showed significant linear declines in ratings of artists’ album quality over artists’ careers; however, the linear effects were qualified by significantly positive quadratic effects, suggesting slightly convex patterns where declines were steeper among earlier (vs later) albums. Controlling for these trends, a significant and substantial sophomore slump bias was observed for critics’ ratings, but not for fans’ ratings. We discuss theoretical perspectives that may contribute to the observed effects, including regression to the mean, cognitive biases and heuristics, and social psychological accounts.

中文翻译：

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Burnout， Fading away， and the seconder slam： Critics' vs Fans对音乐艺术家专辑质量的评价


民间心理学认为，音乐艺术家的第一张专辑被认为是他们最好的，而后来的专辑获得的赞誉较少，艺术家的第二张专辑被认为比他们的第一张专辑更差——这种现象被称为“二年级低迷”。这项工作是第一次大规模的多研究尝试，旨在测试专辑质量随时间的变化以及是否存在二年级的低迷偏差。研究 1 检查了音乐评论家，对《新滚石唱片指南》（2,078 张专辑评论、387 位艺术家、38 位评论家）中的所有 A、B 和 C 条目进行了抽样。研究 2 调查了音乐迷，对至少拥有一张滚石前 500 张专辑（4,030 张专辑评论，254 位艺术家）的艺术家进行众包评分。使用多级模型，两项研究都显示，在艺术家的职业生涯中，艺术家的专辑质量评级显着线性下降;然而，线性效果被显着积极的二次效果所限定，这表明在早期（与后来）的专辑中下降幅度更大。控制这些趋势，评论家的评分观察到了显著且实质性的二年级低迷偏差，但粉丝的评分没有。我们讨论了可能有助于观察到的效果的理论观点，包括回归均值、认知偏差和启发式以及社会心理学解释。