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Previous research has highlighted the important role of choice in listeners’ responses to music, but relatively little is known about the subjective criteria on which listeners base their choices. Hence, the goal of this study was to make a first attempt to investigate the relative importance of various criteria in listeners’ choice and aesthetic judgment of music, and how the weighting of these criteria varies as a function of preferences for specific music genres, music education, and personality traits. These issues were explored by means of a 13-item questionnaire, which was administered to 72 Swedish participants (18–43 years old), who studied either psychology or music at a conservatory level. The results suggested that a range of criteria are important in both music choice and aesthetic judgment. As expected, there were many differences between psychology students and music students regarding their relative weighting of different criteria. In particular, psychology students tended to rate “extrinsic” choice criteria (e.g., “suits specific activities”) as opposed to “intrinsic” criteria (e.g., “interesting structure”) higher than did music students. Still, both groups rated the expression and arousal of emotions as the most important criteria for their music choice and aesthetic judgment. The results are discussed with regard to their implications for music education and future research on music preference and aesthetics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]