Psychological Mechanisms, Motives, and Emotional Reactions to Music Listening Web Survey

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrik N. Juslin ◽  
Gonçalo T. Barradas ◽  
Melissa Ovsiannikow ◽  
John Limmo ◽  
William Forde Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Web Survey ◽  
Music Listening ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms

scholarly journals Induced Empathy Moderates Emotional Responses to Expressive Qualities in Music

2020 ◽  
pp. 102986492097472
Author(s):  
Katherine O’Neill ◽  
Hauke Egermann
Keyword(s):  
Ecological Validity ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
Music Listening ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Priming Paradigm ◽  
Valence And Arousal ◽  
Experimental Group

Recent research has explored the role of empathy in the context of music listening. Here, through an empathy priming paradigm, situational empathy was shown to act as a causal mechanism in inducing emotion, although the way empathy was primed had low levels of ecological validity. We therefore conducted an online experiment to explore the extent to which information about a composer’s expressive intentions when writing a piece of music would significantly affect the degree to which participants reportedly empathise with the composer and in turn influence emotional responses to expressive music. A total of 229 participants were randomly assigned to three groups. The experimental group read short texts describing the emotions felt by the composer during the process of composition. To control for the effect of text regardless of its content, one control group read texts describing the characteristics of the music they were to hear, and a second control group was not given any textual information. Participants listened to 30-second excerpts of four pieces of music, selected to express emotions from the four quadrants of the circumplex theory of emotion. Having heard each music excerpt, participants rated the valence and arousal they experienced and completed a measure of situational empathy. Results show that situational empathy in response to music is significantly associated with trait empathy. As opposed to those in the control conditions, participants in the experimental group responded with significantly higher levels of situational empathy. Receiving this text significantly moderated the effect of the expressiveness of stimuli on induced emotion, indicating that it induced empathy. We conclude that empathy can be induced during music listening through the provision of information about the specific emotions of a person relating to the music. These findings contribute to an understanding of the psychological mechanisms that underlie emotional responses to music.

Electoral Ergonomics

2020 ◽  
pp. 240-262
Author(s):  
Michael Bruter ◽  
Sarah Harrison
Keyword(s):  
General Population ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Young Voters ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Empirical Logic ◽  
Electoral Choice ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Way

This chapter focuses on electoral ergonomics, defined as the interface between every aspect of electoral organization and the psychology of the voters. It argues that every small detail in the organization of the vote (electoral ergonomics) matters not only mechanically, but also because of the way it may trigger different psychological mechanisms and emotional reactions, and that as a result, the ergonomic interface will have different effects on different types of voter, such as ‘referees’ or ‘supporters’. Indeed, electoral ergonomics affects the way citizens experience the vote, their attitudes, their likeliness to vote in elections, and their actual electoral choice. The chapter then unpacks the theoretical and empirical logic behind the influence of electoral ergonomics, both in general and through specific case studies. These case studies include the impact of the use of remote voting on electoral experience in the general population, its influence on the electoral choice of young voters, and the effect of ballot-paper design (including paper vs electronic ballots) on the electoral experience.

scholarly journals “You’re not alone”: Music as a source of consolation among adolescents and young adults

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom F. M. ter Bogt ◽  
Alessio Vieno ◽  
Suzan M. Doornwaard ◽  
Massimiliano Pastore ◽  
Regina J. J. M. van den Eijnden
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Externalizing Problems ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Personal Meaning ◽  
Adolescents And Young Adults ◽  
Music Listening ◽  
Pop Music ◽  
Music Preferences ◽  
Negative Affects ◽  
Internalizing And Externalizing

This study aimed at determining whether adolescents and young adults use music as an agent of consolation when dealing with daily sorrow and stress. We furthermore tested whether three aspects of music listening, i.e., the music itself, its lyrics, and experiences of closeness to artists and fans, were experienced as comforting. Third, we explored whether consolation through music listening was related to music use and psychological problems. Overall, 1,040 respondents, age 13–30 years ( M = 20.3, 70.7% female), responded to items measuring listening hours, music importance, music preferences, positive and negative affects elicited by music (PANAS), internalizing and externalizing problems, and consolation through music. Slightly over 69% reported that they (definitely) use music as a source of consolation. Furthermore, female respondents and respondents with higher levels of anxiousness/depression and lower levels of aggression sought consolation by music more often. The same result emerged for respondents with a preference for chart pop music, for those who found music important, and for those with stronger emotional reactions to music. Music’s consoling effects were reported as resulting particularly from the sound and texture of the music itself, from attribution of personal meaning to music’s lyrics, and, to a lesser extent, from perceptions of closeness to artists and other listeners.

scholarly journals A new typology of psychological mechanisms underlying prosocial decisions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arvid Erlandsson ◽  
Hajdi Moche ◽  
Stephan Dickert
Keyword(s):  
Charitable Giving ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Helping Behavior ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Situational Factors ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Personal Consequences ◽  
The Many

Charitable giving, volunteering, climate-friendly choices, and most recently changing one’s lifestyle to stop the spread of the coronavirus are all examples of prosocial behavior. Prosociality can be investigated from different perspectives including the “who-question” (which people are more likely to help), and the “when-question” (which situational factors stimulate helping?), but in this article we focus primarily on the “why-question” (which emotions and cognitions motivate helping?)Specifically, this article tries to organize and synthesize literature related to emotions, thoughts, and beliefs (i.e. psychological mechanisms) that motivate or demotivate human helping behavior. To do this, we present a new typology including four overarching interrelated categories, each encompassing multiple subcategories.(1) Emotions: (a) emotional reactions elicited by the need situation such as empathic concern/sympathy, (b) positive or negative attitudes toward the beneficiary or the requester, (c) incidental mood. (2) Moral principles: (a) personal responsibility, (b) fairness-concerns, (c) aversion towards causing harm. (3) Anticipated impact: (a) self-efficacy (e.g. “can I make a difference?”) and (b) response-efficacy (e.g., “is this cause/project efficient and worthwhile?”). (4) Anticipated personal consequences: (a) material, (b) social and (c) emotional costs and benefits that the helper expects will follow if she helps or if she does not help. Increased knowledge about the “who” (e.g. individual differences in demography or personality) and “when” (situational antecedents such as characteristic of those in need, or type of solicitation) can surely help predict and even increase prosociality, but we argue that to understand the psychology of helping we need to also consider the psychological mechanisms underlying prosocial decisions (the “why-question”).We compare our typology against related theoretical frameworks, and present the pros and cons with different methodological approaches of testing psychological mechanisms of helping, with the aim to help researchers and practitioners better organize and understand the many psychological factors that influence prosocial decisions.

Emotional reactions to music in depressed individuals

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (6) ◽  
pp. 862-880 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura S. Sakka ◽  
Patrik N. Juslin
Keyword(s):  
Brain Stem ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Cognitive Bias ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Memory Condition ◽  
Memory And Attention ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Specific Induction ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Brain Stem Reflex

Music is often used to alleviate depression, an affective disorder. Yet, little is known about how listeners suffering from depression respond emotionally to music. The goal of this study was to investigate whether listeners show different patterns of emotional reactions to music depending on level of depression. In previous research, depression has been linked with negative biases in cognitive processes such as memory and attention. Here we indirectly investigated whether such biases may also influence psychological mechanisms involved in the arousal of emotions during musical experiences. Seventy-seven listeners (19–65 years old) took part in an experiment which compared depressed individuals with non-depressed controls. The participants listened to music stimuli designed to target specific induction mechanisms (brain stem reflex, contagion, episodic memory), and were asked to rate felt emotions. Based on previous studies on cognitive bias, we made predictions about how depression would affect reactions to each stimulus. The predictions received partial support: depressed listeners reported significantly lower levels of happiness in the memory condition and non-significantly higher levels of anxiety in the brain stem condition, than did controls. Conversely, no difference in reported sadness was found in the contagion condition. Observed differences were mainly attributable to the severely depressed listeners.

MUSEBAQ

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 376-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tan-Chyuan Chin ◽  
Eduardo Coutinho ◽  
Klaus R. Scherer ◽  
Nikki S. Rickard
Keyword(s):  
Hybrid Approach ◽  
Reliability And Validity ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Music Listening ◽  
Musical Identity ◽  
Online Module ◽  
Emotional Sensitivity ◽  
Brief Assessment ◽  
Dispositional Differences

Music engagement is complex and is influenced by music training, capacity, preferences, and motivations. A multi-modular self-report instrument (the Music Use and Background Questionnaire, or MUSEBAQ) was developed to measure a diverse set of music engagement constructs. Based on earlier work, a hybrid approach of exploratory and confirmatory analyses was conducted across a series of three independent studies to establish reliability and validity of the modular tool. Module 1 (Musicianship) provides a brief assessment of formal and informal music knowledge and practice. Module 2 (Musical capacity) measures emotional sensitivity to music, listening sophistication, music memory and imagery, and personal commitment to music. Module 3 (Music preferences) captures preferences from six broad genres and utilizes adaptive reasoning to selectively expand subgenres when administered online. Module 4 (Motivations for music use) assesses musical transcendence, emotion regulation, social, and musical identity and expression. The MUSEBAQ offers researchers and practitioners a comprehensive, modular instrument that can be used in whole, or by module as required to capture an individual’s level of engagement with music and to serve as a background questionnaire to measure and interpret the effects of dispositional differences in emotional reactions to music.

Does music listening in a social context alter experience? A physiological and psychological perspective on emotion

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hauke Egermann ◽  
Mary Elizabeth Sutherland ◽  
Oliver Grewe ◽  
Frederik Nagel ◽  
Reinhard Kopiez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Skin Conductance ◽  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Skin Conductance Response ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Button Press ◽  
Music Listening ◽  
Group Setting ◽  
Measuring Device ◽  
Repeated Measures Design

Music has often been shown to induce emotion in listeners and is also often heard in social contexts (e.g., concerts, parties, etc.), yet until now, the influences of social settings on the emotions experienced by listeners was not known. This exploratory study investigated whether listening to music in a group setting alters the emotion felt by listeners. The emotional reactions to 10 musical excerpts were measured both psychologically (rating on retrospective questionnaires and button presses indicated the experience of a chill, defined as the experience of a shiver down the spine or goose pimples) and physiologically (skin conductance response) using a new, innovative multi-channel measuring device. In a repeated measures design, 14 members of an amateur orchestra (7 male, 7 female; mean age 29) came in for two testing sessions: once alone, and once as a group. Chills were validated in the data analysis: each chill was counted only if the button press was accompanied by a corresponding skin conductance response. The results showed no differences between conditions (group vs. solitary) for retrospective emotion ratings; however, the number of validated chills did show a non-significant trend towards experiencing more chills in the solitary listening session. Also, skin conductance responses during chills were significantly higher during the solitary listening condition. This and other results suggested that music listening was more arousing alone, possibly due to the lack of social feedback and of concentration on the music in the group setting.

Predictions, Implications, Complications

2019 ◽  
pp. 364-398
Author(s):  
Patrik N. Juslin
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Recorded Music ◽  
Different Cultures

This previous chapters looked at eight psychological mechanisms through which music might arouse emotions. This chapter widens the perspective and considers some of the implications of this multi-mechanism framework. It explains the need to distinguish between the mechanisms in both research and applications. It also addresses some more general questions raised by the previous chapters. With such a large number of mechanisms, why does music not always arouse emotions? Why do different listeners react differently to the same piece of music? How does the context influence musical emotions? Why do ‘live’ concerts tend to arouse more intense emotions than recorded music? Are emotional reactions to music similar across different cultures?

When words matter: A cross-cultural perspective on lyrics and their relationship to musical emotions

2021 ◽  
pp. 030573562110133
Author(s):  
Gonçalo T Barradas ◽  
Laura S Sakka
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Visual Imagery ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Evaluative Conditioning ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms

Several studies have investigated emotional reactions to instrumental music. However, studies on the effect of lyrics on emotions are limited. Previous studies suggest that the importance of lyrics may vary cross-culturally. The aim of this study was twofold: to investigate the effects of lyrics on aroused emotions and psychological mechanisms with music and to explore whether these differ cross-culturally. Fifty participants from Portugal and Sweden listened to six musical stimuli based on two songs, one representing each culture. These were presented in three versions each: the original, an instrumental, and the instrumental version with lyrics on the screen. The Portuguese and Swedish participants differed notably: the presence of lyrics did not affect listeners’ happiness in neither group as predicted, but did increase sadness, albeit only in the Portuguese group. Lyrics also increased nostalgia for the Portuguese listeners as predicted and surprise-astonishment for the Swedish listeners. Regarding the mechanisms, lyrics increased the activation of episodic memory in both groups, and the activation of evaluative conditioning, contagion, and visual imagery in the Portuguese group. The present study indicates that lyrics have an effect on musical emotions and mechanisms which vary between groups of different cultural backgrounds.

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