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

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Apr 30th, 2:00 PM Apr 30th, 3:55 PM

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