Event Title
The Impact of Music and Lyrics on Levels of Sadness in Listeners
Location
Parker-Reed, SSWAC
Start Date
30-4-2015 2:00 PM
End Date
30-4-2015 3:55 PM
Project Type
Poster
Description
Music surrounds our world, and is constantly enhancing or inhibiting individuals emotions in a myriad of ways. Previous studies suggest that music plays a pivotal role in influencing individuals moods. (Hunter et al., 2011). However, our study will expand previous literature in this area through focusing our analysis on the relationship of lyrics to music in relation to how strongly an emotion is felt. Our study will highlight the emotion of sadness, and how purely instrumental music, music with lyrics, and just lyrics can influence levels of sadness in individuals differently. We induced sadness or happiness through having participants view a short movie clip. Participants then underwent one of three conditions, having them all listen to the same sadness inducing song.They either just heard the instrumental version of the song, or, they heard the complete song with music and lyrics, or, they just read the lyrics of the song .Following the video and audio stimuli, we asked the participants to judge their experience with the song. We found that the individuals in the sad elicitation group felt more sad and perceived stronger sadness by the sad music, and likde the sad music more than the individuals in the happy elicitation group; (b), the individuals in the lyrics and music group reported the stronger sad emotion and perceived sadness than the purely instrumental or purely lyrics groups; and (c) the individuals in the sad elicitation group assigned to the music and lyrics condition reported the strongest sad emotion, perceived sadness, and liked the sad music the most out of all conditions.
Faculty Sponsor
Travis Carter
Sponsoring Department
Colby College. Psychology Dept.
CLAS Field of Study
Social Sciences
Event Website
http://www.colby.edu/clas
ID
1147
The Impact of Music and Lyrics on Levels of Sadness in Listeners
Parker-Reed, SSWAC
Music surrounds our world, and is constantly enhancing or inhibiting individuals emotions in a myriad of ways. Previous studies suggest that music plays a pivotal role in influencing individuals moods. (Hunter et al., 2011). However, our study will expand previous literature in this area through focusing our analysis on the relationship of lyrics to music in relation to how strongly an emotion is felt. Our study will highlight the emotion of sadness, and how purely instrumental music, music with lyrics, and just lyrics can influence levels of sadness in individuals differently. We induced sadness or happiness through having participants view a short movie clip. Participants then underwent one of three conditions, having them all listen to the same sadness inducing song.They either just heard the instrumental version of the song, or, they heard the complete song with music and lyrics, or, they just read the lyrics of the song .Following the video and audio stimuli, we asked the participants to judge their experience with the song. We found that the individuals in the sad elicitation group felt more sad and perceived stronger sadness by the sad music, and likde the sad music more than the individuals in the happy elicitation group; (b), the individuals in the lyrics and music group reported the stronger sad emotion and perceived sadness than the purely instrumental or purely lyrics groups; and (c) the individuals in the sad elicitation group assigned to the music and lyrics condition reported the strongest sad emotion, perceived sadness, and liked the sad music the most out of all conditions.
https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/clas/2015/program/47