Negative in : What is the Attraction?

Sandra Garrido

A thesis submitted to the University of New South Wales in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of

School of the Arts and Media Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences October 2012 PLEASE TYPE THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES Thesis/Dissertation Sheet

Surname or Family name: GARRIDO

First name: SANDRA Other name/s: MAXINE

Abbreviation for degree as given in the University calendar: PhD MUSIC

School: SCHOOL OF THE ARTS AND MEDIA Faculty: ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

Title:

NEGATIVE EMOTIONS IN MUSIC: WHAT IS THE ATTRACTION?

Abstract 350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE)

This thesis sought to investigate why people are attracted to music that makes them sad. In particular it was hypothesised that individual differences in several personality measures would be related to attraction to music evoking negative emotions. The research was conducted by means of three online surveys, and five case studies.

Results supported the argument that absorption (a capacity to become deeply immersed in a task or activity) and dissociation (a disconnection from reality) make it possible for the emotional of sad music to be enjoyed without the displeasure usually associated with . This appears to be the case particularly in the case of males. Other listeners may derive additional psychological benefits from listening to sad music. Reflectiveness (an adaptive trait involving an enjoyment of self-reflection and deep thinking), for example, appears to be implicated in the use of sad music for dealing with and processing negative emotions associated with life-events particularly in the case of females in a depressed mood. Maladaptive uses of sad music were also identified. Rumination (a maladaptive trait involving obsessive thinking about negative events or emotions) was correlated with the use of sad music although not necessarily the enjoyment of it. Results suggest that ruminators do not experience an improved mood from listening to sad music and in fact may derive greater benefit from listening to happy music than other listeners, indicating that their attraction to sad music is part of their generally maladaptive mood regulation strategies.

The interdisciplinary approach of this thesis, drawing on literature in both philosophy/, history and psychology has enhanced understanding of why people listen to sad music by examining individual differences and conducting empirical investigation into the topic. In addition to making a significant contribution to the philosophical debate which has been occurring for centuries on this topic, the research has implications for our understanding of the function of music in everyday life. It will also have application to in that it identifies both adaptive and maladaptive music listening habits.

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ii COPYRIGHT STATEMENT ‘I hereby grant the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. I also authorise University Microfilms to use the 350 word abstract of my thesis in Dissertation Abstract International (this is applicable to doctoral theses only). I have either used no substantial portions of copyright material in my thesis or I have obtained permission to use copyright material; where permission has not been granted I have applied/will apply for a partial restriction of the digital copy of my thesis or dissertation.' Signed ……………………………………………...... Date ……………………………………………......

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iii Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the invaluable support and knowledgeable guidance of Associate Professor Emery Schubert who has both stimulated my in, and for the subject of this thesis. His in my capabilities and his continual encouragement have helped me to stay focused despite the many unexpected events which occurred in my life throughout the duration of my PhD candidature. I am extremely grateful for all that I have learned along the way.

I would also like to thank Dr. Alison Short whose expert input on the topic of qualitative research helped me with a significant portion of this thesis. My thanks also goes to all the people who participated in my studies. In particular I would like to thank Theme & Variations, Beyond Blue and the Meditation Sanctuary, for their assistance in promoting involvement in my studies to their members.

Finally, my goes to my husband who has supported me tirelessly and without whom I would not have reached out for this most satisfying goal, and my little boy Alejandro, who has been in my arms keeping me quiet company as much of the work on this thesis proceeded.

iv Table of Contents Page Originality Statement ...... ii Copyright Statement ...... iii Authenticity Statement ...... iii Acknowledgements ...... iv Table of Contents ...... v List of Tables ...... viii List of Figures ...... ix Abstract ...... x

Chapter 1 – Introduction ...... 1 1.1 The Paradox of Tragedy ...... 2 1.2 A Historical Overview of the Study of Negative Emotions in Music ...... 4 1.3 The Questions Remaining ...... 5 1.4 The Aims of This Study ...... 6 1.5 Limitations/Delimitations ...... 6 1.6 Theoretical Framework of This Thesis ...... 7 1.7 Plan of Thesis ...... 9

Chapter 2 – Literature Review on the Study of Negative Emotions in Music 11 2.1 The Philosophical and Psychological Discussion ...... 12 2.2 Individual Differences ...... 34 2.3 Dissociation: A Mechanistic Explanation ...... 37 2.4 Imagination, and Fantasy-Proneness ...... 45 2.5 Other Negative Emotions ...... 51 Summary ...... 57

Chapter 3 – Literature Review on Music in Mood Regulation ...... 60 3.1 Why Consider Mood Regulation? ...... 61 3.2 A Historical Overview of Music and Mood Regulation ...... 62 3.3 Mood Management and Rumination ...... 87 Summary ...... 96

v

Chapter 4 - Summary of the Literature Review ...... 97

Chapter 5 – Study 1 ...... 101 5.1 Rationale for this Study ...... 102 5.2 Hypotheses ...... 103 5.3 Method ...... 104 5.4 Results ...... 111 5.5 Discussion and Conclusion ...... 116 Summary ...... 123

Chapter 6 – Study 2 ...... 124 6.1 The Rationale for this Study ...... 125 6.2 Hypotheses ...... 126 6.3 Method ...... 127 6.4 Results ...... 134 6.5 Cross-Case Analysis and Discussion ...... 144 6.6 Conclusions ...... 158 Summary ...... 165

Chapter 7 – An Expansion of the Literature Review: & Reflectiveness ...... 167 7.1 Why Consider Nostalgia and Reflectiveness? ...... 168 7.2 Nostalgia ...... 168 7.3 Reflectiveness and the Contrast with Rumination ...... 170 Summary ...... 172

Chapter 8 – Study 3 ...... 173 8.1 The Rationale for this Study ...... 174 8.2 Hypotheses ...... 175 8.3 Method ...... 175 8.4. Results ...... 184 8.5 Discussion & Conclusions ...... 192 Summary ...... 197

vi

Chapter 9 – Study 4 ...... 198 9.1 The Rationale for this Study ...... 199 9.2 Hypotheses ...... 203 9.3 Method ...... 204 9.4 Results ...... 210 9.5 Discussion & Conclusions ...... 225 Summary ...... 23

Chapter 10 - Discussion ...... 234 10.1 A Summary of the Approach Taken in This Thesis ...... 235 10.2 A Summary of the Findings from the Four Studies ...... 237 10.3 Individual Differences ...... 241 10.4 Dissociation Theory of in Aesthetic Contexts ...... 242 10.5 Mood Management Theory: Adaptive and Maladaptive Mood Management ...... 243 10.6 and ...... 244 10.7 Relationship of the Findings to the Philosophical Debate .. 250 10.8 Imagination, Empathy and Fantasy-Proneness ...... 254 10.9 Other Negative Emotions ...... 255 10.10 Mixed Emotions ...... 257 10.11 The Like Sad Music Scale (LSMS) ...... 260 Summary ...... 262

Chapter 11 – Conclusions ……………………………………………….. 264

References ...... 268

Appendices Appendix 1 – List of Items Used in Study 1 ……………………… 300 Appendix 2 – Interview Guide for Study 2 ……………………….. 302 Appendix 3 – List of Items Used in Study 3 ……………………… 304 Appendix 4 – List of Items Used in Study 4 ...... 308

vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1 – Music Prescribed for Calming or Enlivening in Different Historical Time Periods ...... 66 Table 2 – Mechanisms by Which Music was Believed to Influence Moods 69 Table 3 - Pearson Correlations with ‘I like to listen to music which makes me feel sadness or ’ ...... 112 Table 4 – Co-efficients for Stepwise Regression Model of ‘I like to listen to Music which makes me feel sadness or grief’ ...... 113 Table 5 – Factor Loading Matrix in Study 1 ...... 114 Table 6 – Profile of Participants in Study 2 ...... 129 Table 7 – Areas of Discussion in Interviews and Emergent Themes ...... 145 Table 8 – Pearson Correlations in Study 3 ...... 186 Table 9 – Pearson Correlations among Individual Items of LSMS ...... 186 Table 10 – Coefficients for Entered Variables in Stepwise Regression Model of

Like Sad Music Scale ...... 187

Table 11 – Pearson Correlations between Personality Measures and Baseline Mood and Arousal Score ...... 213 Table 12 - Between Subjects Effects of Rumination Group and Perceived Effects of Listening to Sad Music ...... 222 Table 13 - Co-efficients for Stepwise Regression Model of ‘Reminded me of sad things in my life; felt sadder than before’ ...... 223 Table 14 – Co-efficients for Stepwise Regression Model of ‘Felt as if I could relate to the person singing. Felt good to know other people felt like me’ ...... 224 Table 15 – Co-efficient for Stepwise Regression Model of ‘Felt sad; not an enjoyable experience’ ...... 225 Table 16 – Co-efficients for Stepwise Regression Model of ‘Reminded me of past events; a bittersweet nostalgic experience’ ...... 225

viii LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 – A Model of Adaptive and Maladaptive Attraction to Negative Emotions in Music ...... 163 Figure 2 –POMS Scores Across Three Time Measures for Rumination Group (high and low) ...... 215 Figure 3 – POMS Mood Disturbance Index Across Three Time Measures for Rumination Group (high and low) ...... 216 Figure 4 – POMS Depression Scores Across Two Time Measures for Absorption Group (high and low) ...... 219 Figure 5 – POMS Depression Scores Across Two Time Measures for Reflectiveness Group (high and low) ...... 219 Figure 6 – Sleepiness/Alertness Levels Across Two Time Measures for Rumination Group (high and low) ...... 220 Figure 7 – / Levels Across Two Time Measures for Rumination Group (high and low) ...... 220

ix ABSTRACT

This thesis sought to investigate why people are attracted to music that makes them sad. In particular it was hypothesised that individual differences in several personality measures would be related to attraction to music evoking negative emotions. The research was conducted by means of three online surveys, and five case studies.

After a review of the literature, an initial study involving a survey of fifty-nine participants revealed statistically significant positive relationships between an enjoyment of evoked negative emotion in response to music and both Absorption (a capacity to become deeply immersed in a task or activity) and ‘Music Empathy’ (the ability to decode and respond to emotions in music).

Five case studies were subsequently conducted. Results supported the argument that absorption and dissociation make it possible for the emotional stimulation of sad music to be enjoyed without the displeasure usually associated with sadness. A variety of psychological benefits also appeared to be gained although it appeared that maladaptive mood regulation habits cause some to listen to sad music even when such benefits are not obtained.

An additional online survey was then conducted which included an investigation of the personality traits of Reflectiveness (an adaptive trait involving an enjoyment of self-reflection and deep thinking) and Nostalgia-Proneness (a tendency to spend time thinking about the past). Results confirmed the significance of Absorption in the enjoyment of emotional response to sad music particularly in the case of male participants. In addition, Reflectiveness appears to be implicated in the use of sad

x music for dealing with negative emotions associated with life-events particularly in the case of females. Rumination (a maladaptive trait involving the obsessive thinking about negative events or emotions) was also correlated with the use of sad music although not necessarily the enjoyment of it.

The final study focused on maladaptive uses of music and the impact of prior mood.

Results revealed that ruminators did not experience an improved mood from listening to sad music and in fact reported that listening to the music made them feel more sad.

Ruminators also appeared to derive greater benefit from listening to happy music than other listeners, indicating that their attraction to sad music is part of their generally maladaptive mood regulation strategies. Listeners with high scores in Reflectiveness who were experiencing a depressed mood prior to listening to sad music reported deriving some benefits from the listening experience, although the effect on mood was not immediately apparent.

The interdisciplinary approach of this thesis, drawing on literature in both philosophy/aesthetics, history and psychology, has enhanced understanding of why people listen to sad music by examining individual differences and conducting empirical investigation into the topic. Absorption, reflectiveness and rumination have been identified as key predictors of an attraction to sad music with important differences in uses of sad music between the genders. In addition to making a significant contribution to the philosophical debate which has been occurring for centuries on this topic, the research has implications for our understanding of the function of music in everyday life. It will also have application to music therapy in that it identifies both adaptive and maladaptive music listening habits.

xi

CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION

1 1.1 - THE PARADOX OF TRAGEDY

Why do people listen to sad music and music evoking other negative emotions? It seems counter-intuitive that people would willingly seek out music or other aesthetic experiences that make them cry when we usually do our best to avoid things that make us cry in everyday life. Yet, people often seem to enjoy ‘a good cry’ in aesthetic contexts (Schubert, 1996). It is not uncommon for people to willingly choose to see a film at the cinema that they’ve heard described as a ‘tearjerker’, or to watch a favourite movie again and again that they know will make them cry (Oliver, Weaver,

& Sargent, 2000). Thus, this thesis will examine the intriguing question of why people are attracted to music evoking negative emotions.

The paradox is all the more fascinating when one considers the preoccupation that

Western societies have with the pursuit of . The multitudes of popular books available on how to find happiness (e.g. Lama & Cutler, 2000) and the prevalence of websites devoted to the same topic attest to this. From a psychological perspective, positive emotions are known to stimulate approach behaviours, while negative emotions are associated with escape, attack, or freezing behaviours which function so as to protect us from potentially dangerous situations (Barlow & Durand, 2005).

Therefore, it would be expected that people would avoid sad music and seek music more likely to make them feel happy. In an aesthetic context, however, the opposite can occur. Rather than avoiding music or other art forms that make them feel sad, some people appear to be attracted to it. As David Hume says, “[t]hey are pleased as they are afflicted, and never so happy as when they employ tears, sobs and cries to give bent to their ” ("On Tragedy", cited by Clark, 2002).

2 This is a paradox which has puzzled philosophers for centuries. Aristotle called it ‘the paradox of tragedy’ (Lutz, 1999). The seemingly unassailable nature of the question has led philosophers to engage in lengthy debates regarding the very nature of emotion and what is experienced in response to music. It is a mystery which only deepens when we consider music because in the case of purely instrumental music, as some philosophers argue (Kivy, 1989), there are generally no storylines or characters with whom we might relate.

Yet, despite the centuries of discussion, philosophers have reached little consensus on the issue, as shall be demonstrated in this chapter. Their lack of agreement suggests that there is perhaps no single answer to the question. Rather, as will be proposed in this thesis, various factors may interact so as to cause individual experiences to differ.

It will be argued that the question of why people listen to sad music is not only philosophically interesting but has implications for our understanding of human emotion, the function of music in society and the role of music in controlling moods and emotions.

While music is the focus of this thesis, many of the ideas discussed here are applicable to the experience of other art forms. In addition, although the paradox is equally puzzling in relation to other negative emotions such as , , or , this thesis will mostly limit its discussion to the enjoyment of sadness in music.

3 1.2 - A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY OF NEGATIVE

EMOTIONS IN MUSIC

1.2.1 The Cognitivist/Emotivist Debate

Although there are many variations to their arguments, philosophers on the subject of negative emotions in music can be broadly divided into cognitivists and emotivists.

Cognitivists such as Peter Kivy (2002) argue that we do not actually experience

‘garden-variety’ emotions as expressed in the music, but rather perceive them within the structure of music. Kivy’s proposal is that although we can recognize emotions in music, we never actually feel them ourselves, unless it is a feature of the music, such as a fault, which arouses in us. Rather, Kivy says, what they experience is

“‘excitement,’ or ‘exhilaration,’ or ‘’” (p. 13). Emotivists, on the other hand, although differing according to the detail of their theories, agree that there is some connection between the emotions expressed by the music and those experienced by the listener. Jerrold Levinson (Levinson, 1996a) for example, is unwilling to admit that ‘being moved,’ or ‘aesthetic awe’ is all we ever experience emotionally in relation to music. Rather, some emotivists argue that a special set of ‘’ is experienced in the context of music. Thus, much of this discussion appears to hinge on the respective definitions of emotion.

1.2.2 Functional Explanations

Functional explanations generally argue that there is some benefit to be gained by listening to sad music which outweighs the displeasure of the sadness experienced.

These include Aristotle’s explanation of catharsis (Poetics, Chapter VI) and

Levinson’s argument that people enjoy a sense of emotional communion with an

4 imagined person within the music and benefit from knowing they are not alone in their feelings (Levinson, 1996a).

1.3 - THE QUESTIONS REMAINING

Many of the explanations discussed above which are considered at further length in

Chapter 2, approach the topic from an introspective, phenomenological perspective, and do not consider the role of individual differences. However, the question of why people listen to sad music is perhaps too complex to yield a single answer. Rather, multiple individual factors may interact so as to cause a differentiated response in each listener. However, there has been little discussion in the literature thus far of individual differences in listeners, or of the cognitive mechanisms involved that may explain enjoyment of negative emotions in aesthetic contexts.

In addition, the debate has mostly been examined in relation to the philosophy of aesthetics. However, it is also of relevance to psychology and has important implications in areas such as music therapy and aesthetic education. Furthermore, there has been little empirical investigation into the question of why people listen to music evoking negative emotions. The research which forms part of this thesis is in fact one of the first empirical studies on the topic (see Chapter 5), with the exception of Huron’s (2011) research into the hypothesis that prolactin is involved in the enjoyment of sad music. Huron’s study is, however, a physiological and biological investigation of the topic while this thesis looks at cognitive mechanisms.

5 1.4 - THE AIMS OF THIS STUDY

The aim of this thesis is to investigate individual differences in the attraction to sad music, and to discover some of the personality factors that may be involved. An interdisciplinary approach is taken, involving a consideration of arguments in the philosophy of aesthetics as well as relevant areas of psychology. The investigation includes looking at both motivations for seeking out sad music, and the cognitive mechanisms that may make it possible to enjoy the experience of negative emotions in an aesthetic context.

1.5 - LIMITATIONS/DELIMITATIONS

This thesis will not discuss the means by which composers or performers attempt to communicate sadness, or the features of music that may represent sadness (see for example, Juslin, 2001; Juslin & Laukka, 2003a). Rather, the focus of the thesis will be on the subjective response of the listener. For the purpose of this discussion, the types of music that listeners may perceive as sad are seen as a trigger to the experience under investigation and will not be considered in detail in this thesis. What the listener will perceive as communicating sadness or other negative emotions may involve a combination of both universal and cultural cues (Balkwill & Thompson, 1999).

However, the paradox that is of interest here is the attraction to that music even when it is perceived as sad or when it induces negative emotions in the listener.

Since there are various philosophical paradoxes to be resolved in understanding what is meant by ‘negative emotions in music’, a definition of key terms used in this thesis will be given after a review of the philosophical discussion in Section 2.1.5.

6 1.6 - THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF THIS THESIS

The starting point for this research involves three important lines of argument. The first is a mechanistic explanation for the enjoyment of sad music known as the

Dissociation Theory of Emotion in Aesthetic Contexts (Schubert, 1996, 2009-2010,

2012). The second is that of individual differences psychology and the third entails an examination of mood management theory. These areas will be examined briefly below along with a description of how they form the basis of this research, and will be discussed at greater length in subsequent chapters.

1.6.1 The Investigation of Mechanism

As discussed above, most of the explanations offered by philosophers primarily approach the issue from a phenomenological perspective. Schubert (1996), however, offers a mechanistic explanation. Schubert’s argument is that when negative emotions are activated in an aesthetic context, a ‘dissociation node’ is triggered which inhibits the displeasure centres of the brain. Thus the arousal produced by the negative emotions is able to be experienced without the usual accompanying displeasure.

Schubert’s argument is largely based on the work of Colin Martindale (Martindale &

Moore, 1988; Martindale & Moore, 1989). Schubert summarises Martindale’s

Psychobiological Theory as basically arguing that neural activation is intrinsically pleasurable (Schubert, 2009-2010). Similarly, emotional appraisal theories hold that it is the appraisals of events, not the events themselves that cause emotion. Therefore, since various personal factors cause individuals to evaluate situations differently, people may have different emotional reactions to the same event (Silvia & Brown,

2007).

7 1.6.2 Individual Differences

A problem that arises in much of the literature on the topic of negative emotions in music is the apparent disagreement over whether people do actually feel sad when listening to sad music. Since their arguments are not based on empirical observation, the disagreement possibly arises due to the differing individual responses of the various authors. Individuals are different and we could therefore expect them to react differently to music just as they react differently to other stimuli (Baron-Cohen, 2003;

Kreutz, Schubert, & Mitchell, 2008; Lewis, 2001) (see Chapter 2 for a full discussion). Thus, it could be argued that an examination of the way in which individuals’ responses differ is an important aspect of the debate on negative emotion in music. This thesis will thus attempt to uncover some of the individual differences that may underlie the varying response to negative emotion in music from an empirical perspective.

1.6.3 Mood Regulation Strategies

The theory of mood management (Knobloch & Zillmann, 2002; Zillmann, 1988) predicts that individuals will choose music based on a to diminish a bad mood or to perpetuate a good mood (Zillmann, 1988, p. 328). In general this would mean that individuals will choose music that brings them pleasure, or that expresses positive and uplifting emotions. At other times, long-term benefits may override immediate hedonistic , (eg., in order to deal with certain negative emotions such as )

(Nabi, Finnerty, Domschke, & Hul, 2006).

While pleasure-seeking or mood management may motivate the listening choices of some people, there may also be some whose purpose is not quite so rational. Certain

8 maladaptive thinking patterns may also be predictors of an attraction to sad music.

Some individuals may be attracted to sad music despite the fact that it perpetuates their dysphoria or even deepens it. Habitual ruminators and those from clinical or undiagnosed depression appear to have an involuntary bias towards negative stimuli and therefore may provide an exception to mood management theory

(Bradley, Mogg, & Lee, 1997; Gotlib, Krasnoperova, Neubauer Yue, & Joormann,

2004; Raes, Hermans, & Williams, 2006). Thus this thesis will investigate the way listening to music evoking negative emotions features in the habits of both those with adaptive mood regulation strategies and those whose habits are not so adaptive.

1.7 - PLAN OF THESIS

Chapters 2 and 3 of this thesis will review the literature relevant to the research including sections considering some of the philosophical questions involved, an overview of individual differences psychology, a history of music and mood regulation, an overview of mood management theory, a closer look at dissociation and its normative manifestation absorption, as well as an examination of other personality traits that may be linked to sad music listening such as fantasy proneness, rumination and empathy. The conclusions that can be drawn from this extensive review of the literature will be summarized in Chapter 4.

Chapter 5 will present a study involving a survey of fifty-nine participants which was conducted for quantitative analysis (Study 1). Five individuals who participated in that survey were subsequently invited to participate in a further study involving an interview and a live listening experience (Study 2). The five case studies were conducted in order to investigate the phenomenon at a more in-depth and personal

9 level, and these case studies are presented in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 will involve a further review of the literature on some of the issues arising from the analysis of the data from Study 2. A third study in the form of an online survey was carried out in order to provide replication of the previous findings as well as to test further new aspects of the topic which had arisen from the case studies (Study 3). This study is presented in Chapter 8. The final study reported in Chapter 9 investigates the involvement of maladaptive mood regulation strategies in an attraction to sad music in further detail (Study 4). Chapters 10 and 11 give a summary of how the findings from the four studies converge and the conclusions that can be drawn from them.

10

CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW

ON THE STUDY OF NEGATIVE EMOTIONS IN MUSIC

11 CHAPTER 2.1- THE PHILOSOPHICAL

AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DISCUSSION 1

2.1.1. What is Music?

Despite the fact that music seems to be a universal feature of human culture, it is notoriously difficult to define (Cross, 2001). In fact this is possibly so precisely because of its universality and the fact that it varies so widely in both content and function across cultures (Rentfrow, Goldberg, & Levitin, 2011).

One often used definition of music is that it is organized sound (Levinson, 1990a).

However most philosophers recognise that this definition is too broad, since there are many examples of organized sound that are not music, such as speech and sounds made by animals and machines. Thus, Levinson focuses on the intention of the person creating or organising the sounds by defining music as “sounds that are man-made or arranged for the purpose of enriching experience via active engagement (e.g., through performing, listening, dancing) and which are primarily attended to for their sonic qualities” (p. 273). Cross (2001) also proposes that music be defined as “those temporally patterned human activities, individual and social, that involve the production and perception of sound and have no evident and immediate efficacy of fixed consensual reference” (p. 33).

According to these last two definitions, sounds become music when the performer, listener or composer intends that it be music. Therefore, for the purpose of this thesis, music will be understood as a subjective phenomenon. Defining the formal features of

1 Some parts of Chapter 2 have been published as: Garrido, S., & Schubert, E. (2010). Imagination, empathy, and dissociation in individual response to negative emotions in music. Musica Humana, 2, 55 – 80; Garrido, S., & Schubert, E. (2011). Individual differences in the enjoyment of negative emotion in music: A literature review and experiment. , 28, 279-295.

12 which music may consist is not necessary for the purpose of this thesis. Rather music will be understood to be anything that a particular listener understands and experiences as music.

2.1.2. The Problem of Defining Emotion

Another difficulty that arises when discussing the phenomenon of negative emotion in music is that theorists do not seem to agree on the elements of which emotions are comprised, nor are they always consistent in their use of the word. Emotions in general are described as “ states with physiological, cognitive, and behavioral components” (Rathus, 2002, p. 304). They usually have an object, a belief or set of beliefs, and a behavioural response, which accompany or even precede the affective experience. Georges Rey (1980) states that emotions consist of seven components: cognitive, qualitative, behavioural, physiological, contextual, etiological and relational (p. 175). However, not everyone agrees that all of these elements must be present in order for an emotion to be experienced (see Section 2.1.4).

Kleinginna and Kleinginna (1981) point out that some writers appear to understand the word ‘feelings’ as indistinguishable from ‘emotions’, while others use it to refer to merely the physiological aspect or the subjective experience (Izard, 1991). Others describe as emotions what some would classify as moods. Indeed it is difficult to draw a clear distinction between the various terms. As Patricia Greenspan (1988) says:

“The distinction between moods and emotions is not sharp…and philosopher’s attempts to sharpen it – sometimes by insisting that emotions have a clearly defined object – do not seem to capture all the states we recognise as emotions” (p. 44).

13 Kleinginna and Kleinginna (1981) thus propose a broad definition of emotion:

“Emotion is a complex set of interactions among subjective and objective factors, mediated by neural/hormonal systems, which can (a) give rise to affective experiences such as feelings of arousal, pleasure/displeasure; (b) generate cognitive processes such as emotionally relevant perceptual effects, appraisals, labeling processes; (c) activate widespread physiological adjustments to the arousing conditions; and (d) lead to behavior that is often, but not always, expressive, goal-directed, and adaptive” (p.

355).

According to Eliot (1999), emotions are linked with the limbic system of the brain which lies on the border between the cerebral cortex and the brain stem. The lower limbic structures, those which lie outside the cerebral cortex, are involved in producing the physiological manifestations of emotion, while the upper limbic regions are concerned with conscious emotional experience. Since I do not want to rule out the possibility that emotional response to music involves more ‘primitive’ reactions arising in the brain stem, this thesis will use the word ‘emotion’ to cover both the phenomenological aspect alone, and when accompanied by the other elements presumed to be involved in emotions. For the purpose of clarity, I will avoid use of the word ‘feelings’ where possible. ‘Mood’, will be used to refer to a more enduring state, which may not always be dependent on the presence of a recognisable object or cause (Meyer, 1956; Radford, 1991).

2.1.3. What are Negative Emotions?

Defining ‘negative emotions’ in the context of music is also somewhat problematic, since in general negative emotions are understood to involve avoidance behaviours

14 (Barlow & Durand, 2005, p. 57). However, in aesthetic contexts it seems that some people are attracted to experiences involving emotions that are commonly understood to be ‘negative’ such as sadness.

Dimensional approaches can be used to categorise emotions according to valence - either negative or positive, and arousal – either high or low (e.g. Russell & Lewicka,

1989). According to these approaches the valence dimension of an emotion equates with its pleasantness/unpleasantness (Colombetti, 2005). For some theorists whether an emotion is negative or positive depends on how it is evaluated by the individual

(Silvia & Brown, 2007). Izard (1991) and Lazarus (1991) define positive/negative emotions according to whether their consequences are desirable/undesirable or beneficial/harmful.

Each of these categorisations pose some theoretical problems. As Colombetti (2005) points out, just because an emotion feels good it does not follow that it is positive or beneficial, involves approach behaviours or even that it is positively evaluated. She cites anger as an example, which is typically understood to involve unpleasantness but approach behaviour. The polarity of dimensional approaches also do not allow for the possibility of emotions being mixed (Larson, McGraw, & Cacioppo, 2001). An alternative approach is to view positive and negative as being two separate unipolar dimensions which thus can potentially co-exist (Watson & Tellegen, 1985).

According to this model something like catharsis could involve both high positive and negative affect, and nostalgia could involve both low positive and low negative affect

(Colombetti, 2005). Charland (2005) has also attempted to deal with these problems by making a distinction between ‘emotion valence’ (the positive or negative character

15 of the fear, sadness, etc.) and ‘affect valence’ (how good or bad the emotion feels).

Since this thesis will also examine the experience of the listener at a phenomenological level, and involves self-report measures, we will continue to use the expression ‘negative emotions’, despite the problematic aspects of such a categorisation. The expression will be used to refer to the listener’s experience of any emotion commonly understood to be ‘negative’ such as sadness, fear, anger etc. whether or not the experience of the emotion is actually an unpleasant one. While this terminology will continue to be used for the purposes of simplification, this thesis will in fact attempt to investigate the complexity of the listeners’ experience, allowing for the idea of mixed emotions or emotions that may be described as ‘negative’ but that do not necessarily involve avoidance behaviours or even unpleasantness. The research in this thesis will primarily be about ‘sad’ music since sad music appears to hold more attraction for most listeners than music expressing other negative emotions. However, we will include some brief discussion of other negative emotions.

2.1.4. Can We Link Music with Emotion?

Another issue that has been the subject of much philosophical debate is whether or not it is possible for music to express emotion. Pieces of music, or performances of them, are standardly said to be happy, sad, and so on. However, this poses a philosophical problem since music itself is not a psychological agent capable of expressing emotion.

Therefore, some philosophers of aesthetics argue that music is by its nature, not actually able to express anything. This is sometimes known as formalism, the idea that pure music contains no meaning outside of its own formal features (Robinson, 1997).

16 The composer Igor Stravinsky, for example, claimed that the idea that music is expressing any kind of emotion is merely an illusion (cited in Cooke, 1963, p. 11).

While it may seem logical that music is incapable of expressing emotion in the same way a person would, most listeners would probably argue that they both perceive and experience some emotion in connection with music (Evans & Schubert, 2008).

Numerous empirical studies also report that the body experiences physiological changes and activation of the autonomic nervous system when listening to music similar to those experienced in relation to emotions induced by other stimuli (Blood,

Zatorre, Bermudez, & Evans, 1999; Rickard, 2004; Trainor & Schmidt, 2003).

Therefore, although it is obvious that purely instrumental music cannot represent thoughts in the way that words do, the suggestion that it cannot express anything at all such as Stravinsky claims, seems to be rather an extreme viewpoint.

Other theorists therefore suggest that music is expressive in that it arouses corresponding emotions in the listener (arousal theory), embodies an agent or musical persona that expresses emotion (persona theory), or that it represents or symbolises certain emotional states (symbol theory) (Packalen, 2008; Seitz, 2005). Leonard

Meyer (1956) maintained that emotions were aroused in the listener when musical expectations inherent in the musical structure were unfulfilled. Thus, he suggests that emotions are conveyed when an expected resolution is delayed, or when physical tension is created in some other way. Paul Hindemith on the other hand, claimed that music stimulates memories of emotions experienced in the past (Levinson, 1990a).

17 While formalist theories represent an extremist view, the inherent paradox of this thesis – the fact that in aesthetic contexts people seem to actually enjoy negative emotions – has led most philosophers to conclude that ‘real’ emotions are not involved. Since it seems implausible that listeners could actually be enjoying experiencing negative emotions in music, philosophers argue that something else is actually happening. These theorists can be broadly divided into the cognitivist and emotivist camps.

Peter Kivy, for example, who calls himself an “enhanced formalist” (Kivy, 2002, p.

109) agrees that music can be expressive of definite emotions, but argues that they do not elicit corresponding emotions in the listener. Rather, listeners are emotionally aroused or excited by the beauty, magnificence or aesthetic desirability of the music, but mistake their emotive excitement for the emotions they perceive as being expressed in the music (p. 129). Kivy’s proposal is that although we can recognise emotions in music we never actually feel them ourselves, unless it is the features of the music, such as a fault, which arouses feelings in us. Rather, the object of musical emotion is the music itself, and the belief attached to it is the belief that the music is beautiful or magnificent or aesthetically desirable (p. 129). The music can “represent” or display emotions, but it does not arouse the corresponding emotion in the listener.

For example, if the music is representational of sadness, listeners may perceive the sadness in the music but will not experience sadness themselves. Rather, Kivy says, what they experience is “‘excitement,’ or ‘exhilaration,’ or ‘awe’” (p. 13). This is similar to other arguments by aestheticians such as Andy Hamilton (2007) and Rose

Subotnik (1991) who argue that certain listeners engage with the ‘acousmatic’ or

‘structural’ features of the music rather than the emotions perceived.

18

Emotivists such as Jerrold Levinson (Levinson, 1990b), although not advocating an arousal theory as such, find it hard to accept the idea that the only emotion experienced in relation to music is ‘aesthetic awe’. He is unwilling to admit that

‘being moved’ is all we ever experience emotionally in relation to music (Levinson,

1996b). He argues that what we experience seems characteristic of ordinary life- emotions although they may not be ‘full-fledged’ (p. 308). Jenefer Robinson (1994) agrees that Kivy is wrong in thinking that his analysis of the one emotion, ‘being moved’, demonstrates that no other connection exists between emotions and music.

She argues that there may be other “more primitive emotions aroused by the music, perhaps requiring less developed cognitive mediation” (p. 18). Other emotivists such as Clive Bell (1913) and Edmund Gurney (1880) argued that a special set of aesthetic emotions are experienced. Some take our response to music to be weaker versions of ordinary emotions (Davies, 1997). Another argument is that what we experience are

‘quasi-emotions’, that is, the affective components of fully-fledged emotions that we imagine to be fully-fledged (Walton, 1997).

Nevertheless, some would protest that without a ‘real’ object, there cannot be a real emotion present. As discussed above, some theorists argue that emotions must have several components such as an object, a belief or set of beliefs, and a behavioural response, which accompany or even precede the affective experience (Rey, 1980). In other words, emotions must be about something. For instance, in order to feel fear one must believe that there is something (the object) that is threatening.

19 Thus, Zangwill (2007) claims that theories that promote the arousal of emotions as a main function of music, have little plausibility because “the essential features of emotion preclude such essential relations between music and emotion” (p. 391).

Elsewhere, he states that “music, in itself, has nothing to do with emotion” (Zangwill,

2004, p. 29). Kivy (1989) similarly claims that the behavioural manifestations usually associated with emotions are not observed in the concert hall, although he admits that linguistic descriptions of feeling sad could be called behavioural responses.

Levinson (1990b) also argues that feelings in response to music are objectless and therefore cannot be true emotions. He argues that they share some aspects of ordinary emotions, such as their characteristic affective states, but lack others, such as a specific intentional object. He states that the cognitive element of emotions, that is a belief directed towards a particular object, is absent in the case of music since there is no object towards which it can be directed. It is thus by the physiological and affective elements of an emotion, that the particular emotion is recognised in the music. His conclusion is thus that, lacking the cognitive element, what listeners experience are not ‘fully-fledged emotions’. However, if this is true, by extension we could assume that music which makes us feel happy or uplifted, similarly, does not cause us to feel real emotions of happiness. Thus, with this argument, even positive experiences of listening to music are invalidated.

These explanations approach the paradox in question by attempting to show how the phenomenon of listening to music differs from the experience of emotions in real-life.

Precluded from their arguments from the outset is the possibility that there may be an explanation which allows for the existence of real emotions as a response to music.

20 Stephen Davies (1997) writes: “If we enjoy the sadness that we claim to feel, then it is not plainly sadness” (p. 242).

On the other hand, revisionist explanations argue for an understanding of emotion, broad enough to encompass what is experienced when listening to music. For example, Peter Mew’s (1985) view is that music can arouse emotion without the mediation of emotional objects. He believes that this makes music a “fascinating counter example to the widely held philosophical view that the core emotions cited always take objects” (p. 34). Donald Callen (1982) too, is not convinced that all emotions must have objects. Callen discusses empathetic identification and imagination, pointing out that we can be grieved at the sadness of others without knowing the object of their sadness. In fact we generally believe it is “morally right or praiseworthy to be grieved in the presence of sadness” (p. 383). Similarly, Georges

Rey (1980) states that one may have beliefs and preferences without emotions and vice versa (p. 175).

In any case, whether or not our response to music is without either object or behavioural response is not completely agreed upon by philosophers. As Kendall

Walton argues (1997), it could be said that there are behavioural responses involved, since listeners may typically tap their feet, sway with the music, or display facial expressions of agitation or . He compares this to the film-goer who involuntarily flinches, despite knowing that the events on-screen pose no actual threat.

Walton’s conclusion is that the listener’s imagination elicits the behavioural response which in turn causes them to imagine that they are actually feeling the emotion. He argues that since the situation is not real, the emotion must be only imagined. It does

21 not seem clear how these imagined emotions differ from real emotions, given that there is an object, and there are affective and behavioural responses. It seems entirely possible, as Greenspan (1988) argues that these are real emotions although induced by an imagined situation (p. 42).2

Greenspan (1988) also argues for a broader view of emotion that allows for attitudes weaker than absolute belief, such as imagining a particular event. She contends that the affective components of an emotion can be “tamped down” (p. 17), that emotions can be directed towards invented objects and that some emotions may be pleasurable although involving a negative evaluation. Greenspan posits that emotions defy easy categorisation into positive and negative because they can at times be mixed and layered with both “comfort” and “discomfort” (p. 31), and therefore involve both positive and negative evaluations.3 While an evaluative component is involved, there may be simultaneously contradictory evaluations which oppose each other in affective quality. She cites as an illustration fear while watching a horror movie. The movie- watcher does not truly imagine that they are in any real danger. Rather we see the film from the perspective of a character in the film, or possibly some invented character who is also viewing the events in the film.. Robert Roberts (1988) agrees that typically emotions involve beliefs, but that this need not always be the case. “Sometimes we experience an emotion despite not believing its propositional content” (p. 183).

Explanations of emotion such as Greenspan’s are persuasive. It is by no means certain, as many philosophers assert, that what are experienced in relation to music are

2 The possible involvement of imagination in emotional response to music will be discussed further in Section 2.4. 3 Robinson (1983) also states that inconsistent emotions and their correspondent desires can exist simultaneously in a rational person.

22 not true emotions. According to some, real emotions may be present even in the absence of an object and a set of beliefs directed towards that object. Although it may be an extreme viewpoint to argue that emotions can be redefined so as to exclude the need for an object, it does not seem too far-fetched to claim that real emotions can be experienced in relation to an imaginary object. Some argue that enjoyment of other art forms such as literature, paintings or presumably films, cannot be compared to listening to music because there is no story involved in listening to ‘pure’ music

(Budd, 1980; Kivy, 1989). However, it is arguable that even in the case of ‘pure music’ there may in fact be an object, although an imaginary one for at least some listeners. In addition, according to the work of Jenefer Robinson (1994, 2005) there is a growing consensus that our lower-level, less cognitive responses may be involved when listening to music.

Therefore, philosophers have failed to establish conclusively that the answer to the problem cannot involve real emotions. One of the purposes of this research is to examine such questions empirically. Although it is not expected that listeners have access to a full understanding of the psychological and emotional processes they are experiencing, an attempt will be made to discover how they themselves perceive their emotional experiences with music. As such, it will not be necessary to engage in philosophical contortions of the concept of emotion. A prima facie assumption of this thesis is that the emotions experienced are real, although they may at some level differ from those experienced in real life.

23 2.1.5. A Definition of Key Terms Used in This Thesis

As discussed in Section 1.5 this thesis will not discuss the means by which composers or performers attempt to communicate sadness, or the features of music that may represent sadness. Rather, the focus of the thesis will be on the subjective response of the listener. For the purpose of this discussion, the types of music that listeners may perceive as sad are seen as a trigger to the experience under investigation and will not be considered in detail in this thesis.

Section 2.1.4 outlined some of the philosophical dilemmas involved in defining many of the fundamental aspects of the topic which is the focus of this thesis. The definition of music itself and an understanding of what constitutes a negative emotion are somewhat problematic. In summary, these terms will be understood in the following ways for the purpose of this thesis:

Music: Music will be understood as a subjective phenomenon, and therefore

will include anything that a particular listener understands and

experiences as music.

Emotion: This will include both the phenomenological experience of the subject

alone, and that experience when accompanied by the other elements

presumed to be involved in emotions, such as an object or associated

behaviours.

Mood: A more enduring emotional state which may or may not include the

presence of a recognisable cause or object.

24 Negative Emotions: This will include all emotions commonly understood to be

‘negative’, such as sadness or anger, even when such emotions are not

accompanied by avoidance behaviours and may even include and

experience of pleasure.

Sad Music: Again, this will be understood according to the subjective experience

of the listener, and will therefore include any music that the listener

perceives as ‘sad’, whatever the particular features of the music that

trigger such a perception.

In addition, the research in this thesis will be based on the assumption that music is able to both express emotions and to evoke real emotions in the listener, although such emotions may differ on some level from those evoked by real life events.

While the focus of the study is sad music, there will be some limited exploration of other negative emotions such as grief and anger.

2.1.6 Arguments in the Literature Regarding Why We Listen to Sad Music.

The aesthetic enjoyment of sadness in music seems to be something experienced by all kinds of people, no matter what genre of music they prefer. Levinson (1996c) comments that art which expresses negative emotions is often held to be the most rewarding art of all. In fact, one study (Schubert, 2007a) reports that most subjects experienced reactions of greater emotional strength when listening to pieces expressing negative emotion than to other types of music.

As discussed above, some cognitive theorists say that we do not actually experience

‘garden-variety’ emotions as expressed in the music, but rather experience ‘aesthetic

25 awe’ which is then mistaken for the sadness perceived in the music (Kivy, 2002).4

Emotivists, on the other hand, although differing according to the detail of their theories, all seem to agree on the fact that there is some connection between the emotions expressed in the music and those experienced by the listener.

However, on the point of whether the emotions experienced are the same as real-life emotions, and what our motivation may be for seeking out negative emotions in music, the emotivist theorists disagree. In an article on the subject of emotional responses to art in general, Levinson (1996a) categorises the various explanations for our attraction to negative emotions in aesthetic contexts into five groups: deflationary and revisionist explanations, compensatory (also known as functional), organicist, and conversionary explanations.

Deflationary explanations are those that, like Kivy’s argument and that of other cognitivists, deny that the emotions evoked in the listener are anything like real-life emotions. Revisionist explanations, on the other hand like Greenspan’s, argue for a broader understanding of emotion that can encompass what is experienced in response to music. Deflationary and revisionist explanations have been considered briefly under the previous subheading. We will now look a little more closely at the other categories of arguments that Levinson mentions.

Compensatory or Functional Explanations

These type of explanations present the idea that there are benefits obtained when listening to sad music which somehow compensate for the negative emotions

4 In fact the often-used distinction between cognitivists and emotivists is a highly simplified account of the various theories.

26 experienced. One of the oldest explanations offered is Aristotle’s doctrine of catharsis

(Levinson, 1990b). Catharsis refers to the venting of strong emotions and the belief that this leads to a beneficial lessening of tension (Rathus, 2002, p. 303). However, catharsis would seem to be mostly of benefit to people who are experiencing negative emotions prior to listening to music, which leaves us without explanation for its strong attraction for others (Levinson 1996). This view also implies that the greatest value of the work is in the relief we feel when it is over (Davies, 1997). However, it seems illogical that one would intentionally arouse unpleasant emotions in oneself merely in order to have relief from them once the work is over (Eaton, 1982).

Levinson proposes three other rewards which may accrue from listening to negative emotions in music: the reward of Emotional Resolution – the feeling that negative emotions can be triumphed over once the music resolves; the reward of Expressive

Potency – reassurance of our own power to feel and express deep emotion; and, the reward of Emotional Communion – the idea that we are sharing in the emotions of another human being.

There are some problems with these proposed benefits of listening to sad music.

‘Emotional Resolution’, for example, does not account for the enjoyment of music that does not resolve happily. Kivy (1989) also argues that we do not experience our satisfaction only when the work concludes, but rather enjoy the music all the way through.

On the proposed argument of ‘Expressive Potency’, both Davies (1996) and Kivy

(1989) counter that there is little evidence that people who listen to such music end

27 up with a greater understanding of emotion than others or that they are better able to cope with tragic situations in life. The implication of Levinson’s argument is that listening to sad music somehow helps listeners to become more emotionally adjusted.

However, this argument assumes that all people who listen to music do so with the rational intention of benefiting themselves. It is entirely possible that some people are overly attracted to such music precisely because of a tendency towards melancholy, and that their choice of music in fact perpetuates this state. Research supports the idea that clinical depression is strongly related to a tendency to ruminate, or to dwell on negative, sad thoughts (Broderick, 2005). This concept will be further explored in

Section 3.3.

With regard to the claim of ‘Emotional Communion’, even the idea that we are empathising with some unknown entity, does not explain why we are attracted to it.

Why should it hold equal or even greater attraction (for some) than music expressing happier emotions? The distance achieved by the knowledge that we are not ourselves threatened, still does not reveal why we should be interested in experiencing it. Even if the benefits that Levinson lists in some way mute the impact of the negative emotions there still does not seem any reason to enjoy them. If Levinson’s proposals were true, the works would be even more enjoyable if the negative emotions were removed altogether (Davies 1997). In actual fact, Levinson (1996a) himself comments that art which expresses negative emotions is often held to be the most rewarding art of all.

28 Organicist

Organicist explanations argue that listeners desire the whole gamut of emotional experiences involved in listening to music, which would include the experience of negative emotions. It is claimed that the negative emotions experienced when listening to music are but a small part of a larger experience which is in itself desirable. Stephen Davies (1997) argues that the question of why we enjoy sad music is not the most important one. It is merely part of the larger phenomenon that we enjoy music in general. He posits that since we do find enjoyment in listening to music, it is natural that we would want to explore the full range of musical experiences including sad music. Davies argues at length against Levinson’s compensatory explanations, as described above, saying that most of Levinson’s proposed benefits only show how the sad affect might be mitigated, but do not explain why we are attracted to it.

However, Davies’ argument would seem to be an equally valid objection to his own proposed solution. Even if listening to sad music does enable us to understand music better, this still does not reveal why we would choose sad music over the presumably equally enjoyable pleasure of listening to music expressive of happier emotions. As

Davies himself says, if he is right, “the listener should be as interested in the one kind of work as the other” (p. 247). Another limitation to Davies’ approach is the evidence that, if this is the case people would also enjoy equally music that does not rouse them emotionally at all. The evidence indicates though, that people tend to prefer music that evokes a strong emotional response (Schubert, 2007a). Davies says that “negative responses are no more problematic than positive ones” (p. 249). This merely broadens the problem rather than solving it. In support of his reasoning, he says that people who

29 shun confrontation with and suffering would miss out on the things that make life worth while. This sounds remarkably similar to the suggestions of Levinson, which

Davies has argued against.

Conversionary

Conversionary explanations maintain that the aesthetic context of musical experience transforms the experience into something agreeable. For example, Levinson (1990) argues that in aesthetic contexts, the emotions aroused, are not “full-fledged”, but are very much like them (p.308). He claims that when emotional affect is devoid of psychological and behavioural consequences it can be satisfying for its own sake.

John Hospers (1969) also explains that in music we get what he calls “the essence of sadness”, which is different from “life-sadness” in that it is devoid of the usual causal conditions (p. 152). Marcia Eaton talks about the element of control involved in aesthetic experiences which makes it possible to enjoy negative emotions (1982). She draws a parallel with people who enjoy roller coasters for the very fear that it arouses.

Such an experience can be exhilarating, but only if the participant is in control and believes that the risk is one that can be handled.

Similarly, Jourdain (1997) suggests that the artificial environment of listening to music imparts dignity to emotions which are usually perceived as unpleasant, allowing the experience of deeper feelings than are usually encountered in everyday life. Trainor & Schmidt (2003) similarly suggest that perhaps music is somehow more subject to cognitive control than other emotions and this is what distinguishes it from emotions experienced in everyday life. Thus, Colin Radford describes music as an

30 “especially inviting” way to experience the sombre and tragic aspects of life (1991, p.

251).

Many of the explanations considered above, have considered the subject from the point of view of a general philosophy of aesthetics. Thus far, few appear to have done more than theorise about the topic, with little systematic research having being undertaken to test the viability of their hypotheses. Many of the explanations offered by philosophers seem based on the writers’ own personal experiences or generalisations about the observed behaviour of others, sometimes even speculation about the behaviour of a fictitious listener. Walton (1997) admits that his argument is at least partly based on his own phenomenological experience. Marcia Eaton’s (1982) explanation draws largely on descriptions of her own experience when watching a film. Similarly, Levinson’s argument (1990) opens with a description of a fictitious man sitting by a record player, an imaginary listener, with no empirical support offered for his reasoning. Kivy (1989)says “what I hear in music must be…the basic data for my theory” (p. 989).

This kind of anecdotal evidence is not the most convincing form of argument. There are certain paradoxes inherent in a situation where one attempts to observe the operation of one’s own mind. The limitations of explaining psychological mechanisms by means of introspection is well documented (Leahey, 1992). Despite the certainty with which individuals may think they understand their own experience, abilities to explicitly characterize experience are often inadequate and can vary depending on circumstances (Schooler & Schreiber, 2004). In all, it is difficult to gauge how much we have conscious access to cognitive mechanisms and how much

31 of what we perceive is a result of a personal (though fictional) understanding of reality that we have created in our mind (Churchland, 1988).

It is equally problematic to attempt to understand the mind of another. Even when speaking about the actual experiences of a subject, it is difficult to know whether or not one has understood the subject’s reconstruction of their experience. A danger in generalising from one’s own experience, as illustrated by the varying conclusions that philosophers such as Kivy and Levinson end up with, is that people listen to music differently and often hear different things in it and experience different reactions to it.

As Manuel (2005) writes: “this lack of consensus may derive from limitations inherent to the scholarly approach of aestheticians” (para 53).

Another problem that arises in much of the literature on the topic of negative emotions in music is the apparent disagreement over whether people do actually feel sad when listening to sad music. Manuel (2005, Interpretations, para. 2) reports that out of 50 people he polled, very few people claimed that listening to sad music actually made them experience sadness at all. Manuel argues that this is a fundamental flaw in the arguments of many theorists, who assume that sad music actually does make us sad. Whilst there are various methodological problems with

Manuel’s findings, it does seem that individual experiences differ in regard to their reaction to sad music. Manuel admits that his findings do not strongly support either the cognitivists or emotivist viewpoints. There was support for each argument from various participants.

32 The arguments of others are similarly contradictory. Konecni et al. (2008) found that listening to sad music may not in fact make us sad. On the other hand, others do claim to feel saddened by it. Colin Radford (1989) writes “Listening to sad music does make people sad” (p. 72). Levinson (1990) also writes “a listener is standardly made sad by apprehending and then identifying with sadness in the music” (p. 321).

One solution to this conundrum is to assert that there is no single response which is experienced by every person when listening to sad music. There are obviously some people who do not enjoy sad music, who in fact avoid it. There may be others who listen to sad music and are made more sad, others who do not experience any emotional reaction to it whatsoever, and others who listen to sad music and experience great pleasure from it. Radford (1991) agrees that personal disposition may affect a person’s response to music. He argues that our response to music is tied to our ultimate view of life as sad and tragic or otherwise. Writing about sad music, he suggests that “a determinedly cheerful person, however musically sensitive, might have little appetite for or a diminished response to…or might avoid listening to those works entirely” (p 250).

Therefore, an important part of this investigation will be to look at individual differences in response to negative emotion in music. This will be discussed in the next section of this thesis. Section 2.4 will then examine some of the personality traits discussed in the literature which may be involved in these individual differences.

33 2.2 – INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

2.2.1. Individual Differences Psychology

The study of individual differences, which encompasses personality, has been a significant part of psychology since ancient times (Hampson & Coleman, 1995). It could be defined as the science of describing how persons differ (Westen, 2002).

Individuals differ in terms of their personalities in addition to other psychological characteristics such as intelligence and cognitive styles. An important assumption in the individual differences perspective is that to understand the complexity of human behaviour and experiences it is necessary to study the differences between them

(Goldberg, 1993).

Personality can be broadly defined as referring to those internal properties of a person that lead to characteristic patterns of behaviour, different ways of perceiving and responding to the world (Gale & Eysenck, 1991). Many personality theories, including Hans J. Eysenck's trait theory, have their origins in clinical psychology.

Traits are defined as relatively enduring characteristics of a person that give rise to and are inferred from behaviour patterns (Rathus, 2002). Eysenck argues that only three dimensions or higher-level traits personality (extraversion, , and psychoticism) are required to encompass all personalities (Eysenck, 1991). A more popular idea is that five broad dimensions (known as the “Big Five”) may capture all aspects of personality (Goldberg, 1993). However, an important aspect of the individual differences approach has been the development and use of psychometric tests to measure the differences between individuals in many different traits. These psychometric tests provide data which can easily be analysed and therefore similarities and differences between individuals can be discovered.

34 2.2.2. The Importance of Examining Individual Differences

As discussed in Section 2.1.5 most of the explanations proposed by philosophers thus far about why people listen to sad music have been based on the particular authors’ own experience. Many of these explanations seem persuasive to some extent. Could it be that they are all to some degree correct and that the apparent conflict arises because the individual authors’ experiences are different?

Individuals are different and we could therefore expect them to react differently to music just as they react differently to other stimuli. Research on individual differences has already explained between-person differences to identical psychological tasks. For example, gender (Baron-Cohen, Knickmeyer, and Belmonte 2005), personality

(Lewis 2001), and temperament (Rothbart 2007) can fundamentally affect the way we behave. And these individual differences also affect the way we react to music.

2.2.3 Individual Differences and Music

Taste in music and listening habits can be shaped by many factors including socio- economic status (Peterson & Kern, 1996) and parental influence (Smith, 1994; Ter

Bogt, Delsing, van Zalk, Christensen, & Meeus, 2011). Numerous studies have also been conducted on the influence of personality traits such as the ‘Big Five’ preferences for particular musical genres. Litle and Zuckerman (1986), for example, found that individuals with high scores in the personality trait of sensation-seeking evidenced a preference for highly stimulating music such as rock. Dollinger (1993) found that extraversion was positively related to one kind of music with high arousal properties (jazz), and excitement seeking to another (hard rock). Openness to experience related to enjoyment of a variety of musical forms outside the mainstream

35 of popular and rock music. Robinson, Weaver and Zillmann (1996) reported that respondents scoring high on psychoticism or reactive rebelliousness enjoyed hard/rebellious rock more than low scorers. Similarly, a study by McCown, Keiser,

Mulhearn and Williamson (1997) found that psychoticism, gender, and extraversion were positively related to preference for enhanced bass. Schwartz and Fouts (2003) also found considerable support for the hypothesis that adolescents’ listening choices were related to particular personality traits.

Kreutz, Schubert, and Mitchell (2008) also found that personality affected one’s cognitive style of listening, finding that some listeners were ‘music empathizers’ while others were ‘music systemizers’. Rentfrow et al. (2011) constructed a five- factor model of musical preferences that they argued was based on individuals’ different emotional/affective responses to music. Altenmüller et al. (2002) conducted a study which seems to indicate that gender is also an influence. In that study females demonstrated greater valence-related variations in brain-activation patterns to the music they listened to, indicating that their emotional response to music may have greater variability than that of males.

Other studies have examined the influence of personality variables on the ways people use music in daily life. Chamorro-Premuzic and Furnham (2007) reported that intellectually engaged individuals with higher IQs tended to use music in a different way from neurotic, introverted and non-conscientious individuals. Ter Bogt et al.

(2010) identified three groups of music listeners, finding that ‘high-involved’ listeners liked a broad range of genres and used it most often for mood enhancement, coping with distress, identity construction and social identity formation.

36

Similarly, the way in which individuals’ responses to negative emotions in music differ may inform the debate on negative emotion in music. To address the apparent incompatibilities between emotivist and cognitivist views on the enjoyment of negative emotion in music, this thesis will argue that individual differences may help explain the paradox under investigation.

In addition to individual differences, and tied in with them, it may be that cognitivists and emotivists reach such apparently contradictory conclusions because of the level of explanation from which they approach the topic. Level of explanation and the need to look at the mechanisms involved in sad music listening, will be the topic of the next section.

2.3 - DISSOCIATION: A MECHANISTIC EXPLANATION

2.3.1 Level of Explanation

Level of explanation refers to the different ways a question can be explained, depending on who is explaining it. For example, a person eating may say that they are eating a piece of fruit because it is pleasurable, whereas a biologist might offer an explanation based on the chemical processes involved in cell metabolism and appetite stimulation. Neither explanation could be said to be wrong, but just at different levels.

Daniel Dennett (1986) argues that the human mind can be discussed at “two levels of explanation,” (p. 95) personal and sub personal. The person eating was providing a personal level of explanation (sometimes referred to as phenomenological), whereas the biologist was applying a sub-personal level of explanation. So, a discussion at a personal level of explanation may examine a belief or the perception of the individual,

37 while a sub-personal explanation might attempt to explain response in terms of mechanism or processes of which the person may not be consciously aware.

Most writers on the topic of negative emotions in music, however, consider that topic primarily at a personal level. Few writers have thus far addressed the issue of the mechanisms (subpersonal) underlying emotional responses to music (Juslin &

Vastfjall, 2008). However, as Dennett argues, a phenomenological experience has a physical basis. David Owens (1989) also argues that physics is at the base of the hierarchy of levels of explanation; it is the fundamental science. Therefore, perhaps the conflict in theories arises because the paradox is being discussed at a personal level, and individual differences may underlie the phenomenological differences in the experiences of these writers. This kind of bias has been found to happen in other areas, such as the imagery debate, where Pearson (2007) found that different theories from distinguished scholars about mental image processing seemed to be influenced by personal beliefs. A key to understanding the paradox of pleasure from tragedy, therefore, may be to examine the issue at a subpersonal level, looking at underlying mechanisms, thereby identifying the factors that are the basis of the individual differences in response to negative emotions in music. If we can identify the processes taking place, we can test whether or not they are present to a greater or lesser degree in different people.

2.3.2 Dissociation Theory of Emotion in Aesthetic Contexts

As discussed above, most of the explanations offered by philosophers primarily approach the issue from a phenomenological perspective. Schubert (1996) however, offers a mechanistic explanation. Schubert’s argument is that when negative emotions

38 are activated in an aesthetic context, a “dissociation node” is triggered which inhibits the displeasure centres of the brain (p. 25). Thus the arousal produced by the negative emotions is able to be experienced without the usual accompanying displeasure.

Dissociation is defined by the American Psychiatric Association (1994) as “a disruption in the usually integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity, or perception of the environment”. In its extreme form, dissociation manifests itself in disorders in which victims of extremely traumatic events such as childhood abuse may detach themselves from reality in order to cope (Van Ijzendoorn & Schuengel,

1996). Such clinical cases of dissociation may involve amnesia (short or long term), identity disturbances or the experiencing of subpersonalities as separate to oneself, and depersonalization/derealization (the sense of not experiencing one’s self as real)

(Ray, June, Turaj, & Lundy, 1992; Ross, 1996). However, it is thought that these various symptoms represent different manifestations of a single underlying process

(Briere, Weathers, & Runtz, 2005; Van Ijzendoorn & Schuengel, 1996). Researchers have also found that dissociation can also occur during positive experiences such as sport, sex, prayer, contact with nature, acting, and performing or listening to music

(Pica & Beere, 1995).

2.3.3 Absorption – the Normative Manifestation of Dissociation

Non-pathological dissociation is most commonly manifested as absorption which is experienced in daily life by many people (Ross, 1996). Butler (2006) describes absorption as “the heart of the normative experience” (p. 46). It is an experience something like daydreaming in which is deeply absorbed and narrowed and there is a lessening of awareness of internal states or external conditions as a result

39 (Eisen & Lynn, 2001). This narrowing of attention in which certain areas of experience remain at the periphery of consciousness differs from pathological dissociative disorders in which barriers to consciousness of experiences are erected

(Leavitt, 2001). While absorption may be the most commonly experienced aspect of dissociation, many describe dissociative symptoms as lying on a continuum that ranges from normal processes of everyday life to the inclusions of major psychopathological processes such as multiple personality disorder or fugue states

(Bernstein & Putnam, 1986; Kihlstrom, Glisky, & Angiulo, 1994).

Absorption enables a person to temporarily set aside reality while engaged in something else. The cognitive component of this trait includes an ability to create mental representations, an intense feeling of empathetic identification with objects of attention, and a strong desire to experience such deep engagement (Tellegen &

Atkinson, 1974). In a study by Wild, Kuiken and Schopfolcher (1995), it was found that absorption was positively correlated with participation in the arts, with effects of art on mood, and the rating of the importance of art to daily life.

Similarly, there seems to be a positive correlation between absorption, dissociation, and the occurrence of religious experience, all of which may be linked to hyperactivity of the limbic system (Saver & Rabin, 1997). Seligman & Kirmayer

(2008) thus hypothesize that the varying capacities for dissociation amongst individuals may be the crucial determinant of why some are attracted to religion and spirituality, with those who are highly dissociative naturally finding such experiences more rewarding.

40 Absorption is also discussed in the literature regarding mysticism and heightened states of consciousness. Some may experience an altered sense of self during an episode of absorbed concentration. It appears to be involved in the experience of many athletes and musicians known as ‘’, described as a state of consciousness in which people are so intensely absorbed in an activity that they are barely aware of the passage of time or of things that are happening around them (Csikszentmihalyi, 1991).

In addition, absorption and dissociation are consistently associated with susceptibility to hypnosis (Tellegen & Atkinson, 1974). Snodgrass and Lynn (1989) reported that highly hypnotizable subjects experienced greater absorption when listening to music than those who were less hypnotizable. Kreutz et al. (2008) also found that participant scoring high on the absorption scale reported stronger emotions in general in response to music, with a significant correlation for sadness. Music may be a particularly effective agent for inducing experiences of absorption because of the multiple ways in which it can engage the listener (Herbert, 2012).

Since dissociation involves a disconnection from pain or trauma at both a clinical and normative level, it is possible that this psychological process is involved in the cognitive model that Schubert proposes occurs when listening to music evoking negative emotion. Absorption may be the aspect of dissociation most implicated in this process. For those with strong tendencies to non-pathologically dissociate, negative emotions such as sadness could be experienced without activating displeasure. In fact, the shift in consciousness and temporary suspension of self- awareness may be a satisfying and desirable state in itself. The ability to dissociate and to experience such absorption may contribute to better functioning or performance in certain activities and also may contribute to adaptation in daily life.

41 Seligman and Kirmayer (2008) argue that dissociation is a highly adaptive state which allows people to express emotions or desires which may normally be socially unacceptable, in a context in which normal reality has been suspended.

2.3.4 Pleasure and Arousal

Schubert’s theory regarding dissociation is related to the idea that all emotional arousal is prima facie pleasurable but that our appraisal of the situation causes us to perceive it as either pleasant or unpleasant. As early as 1956, Leonard Meyer stated that emotions themselves are neither pleasant nor unpleasant. Meyer believed that the occurrence of unexpected events within the music generates emotional arousal. This may be a key source of the pleasure we find in listening to music.

Emotional appraisal theories hold that it is the appraisals of events, not the events themselves that cause emotion. Therefore, if all neural activation is intrinsically pleasurable (Schubert, 2009-2010), when the situation is one that is perceived to have no real-life implications such as when listening to music, any displeasure which may usually accompany an experience of sadness could be dissociated or de-activated.

Since various personal factors cause individuals to evaluate situations differently, and since individual capacities for dissociation differ, we could expect people to have different emotional reactions to the experience of negative emotions in music (Silvia

& Brown, 2007) .

Studies in the field of media and advertising (Murry & Dacin, 1996) have examined a similar phenomenon. Television programs and movies which express negative emotions are extremely popular. Murry and Dacin believe that emotions elicited when

42 viewing drama are empathic responses which require more cognitive mediation and analysis of the situation than those which elicit positive emotions. Such a cognitive analysis reveals to the viewer that the programs do not signal a ‘real’ threat, and this therefore diminishes the unpleasant effect of the emotions. It may be that dissociation from the unpleasantness in the sense argued by Schubert is occurring here too.

Neurological studies have identified the pleasure systems involved when listening to music. Music which produces intense pleasure has been found to produce increased activity in reward/motivation, limbic, paralimbic, and arousal regions of the brain

(Blood & Zatorre, 2001). Menon and Levitin (2005) also found that listening to music strongly affects activity in the mesolimbic structures involved in reward processing.

They found a correspondence between dopamine release, known to be crucial to reward processing, and response to music. Blood and Zatorre hypothesized that music not only activates the reward system in the brain, but also deactivates brain structures associated with negative emotions. The amygdala—known to be involved in fear and other negative affect as well as evaluative processes associated with emotion (Larson et al., 2001) — was found to have received inhibitory presynaptic input in their study, as did the hippocampus5. Thus the evidence from neurological sources also tends to confirm the hypothesis that displeasure is deactivated when listening to music.

5 Some emotion theorists do not regard fluctuations in peripheral arousal or changes in cerebral blood flow to be of themselves indicative of the presence of emotion. Konecni, Brown and Wanic (2008) argue that one can be highly aroused by dynamics or rhythmic aspects of the music, without experiencing any emotion whatsoever. Nevertheless, even if the presence of emotion is not clearly established, arousal certainly is, and this may be the very source of much of the pleasure associated with listening to music.

43 Similarly, Huron (2008) suggests that , even when induced by listening to music, may cause cortical inhibition of the amygdale. He points out that crying involves the release of prolactin, a hormone usually associated with pregnancy and lactation that also has a calming effect. Huron argues that when crying or incipient crying is induced by listening to music the release of prolactin will still occur. Thus the listener can experience the comforting effect of this hormone although the situation is artificial.

2.3.5 Testing Individual Dissociation

Since dissociation exists to varying degrees in individuals (Leavitt, 2001), Schubert’s theory therefore provides an interesting possibility for examining the differences between individual responses to negative emotion in music. Even in regards to pathological dissociation, there are differences between the levels of dissociation experienced in reaction to comparable trauma (Simeon, Guralnik, Knutelska, &

Schmeidler, 2002). Younger people such as college students seem to have higher rates of dissociative experiences than older individuals (Seligman & Kirmayer, 2008).

Interestingly, it is in this same age range that music often plays an important part in emotional life (Campbell, Connell, & Beegle, 2007; North, Hargreaves, & O'Neill,

2000; Panksepp, 1995) and with the fact that elderly people report lower levels of emotional strength in response to music than that of their younger counterparts

(Schubert, 2007b). However, studies on monozygotic twins reared apart seem to indicate that absorption may have at least a partly genetic basis (Tellegen et al., 1988).

Various psychometric tests exist for measuring propensities for dissociation in both clinical and non-clinical populations (Bernstein & Putnam, 1986; Briere et al., 2005;

44 Gleaves, Eberenz, Warner, & Fine, 1995; Riley, 1988). These can be utilised in order to test the possible connection between individual capacities for dissociation and a tendency to enjoy music evoking negative emotions.

It is possible that there is also a strong connection between this mechanistic explanation and the role of empathy and imagination which are often mentioned in the philosophical literature in connection with emotional response to music. These personality traits would provide further aspects of individual differences which could be examined in connection with music evoking negative emotion and this will be discussed further in the next section.

2.4 – IMAGINATION, EMPATHY AND FANTASY-PRONENESS

2.4.1 The Connection Between Imagination and Dissociation.

Absorption was described above (Section 2.3.3) as being an experience something like daydreaming in which one becomes intensely focused on something and disconnected from external circumstances. Imagination is also related to absorption. It can be described as the flow of thought from one idea to another and the ability to process one thing as if it were another (Nettle, 2007; Roth, 2007). Research also indicates that there may be a connection between the imaginative element of emotional response and a tendency to dissociate (Merckelbah, Horselenberg, & Muris,

2001), and that imaginative faculty is an important aspect of experiences of absorption

(Herbert, 2012).

Studies in virtual reality have demonstrated the role of dissociation in imaginative engagement (Glicksohn & Avnon, 1997; Murray, Fox, & Pettifer, 2007). It is

45 therefore not surprising that imagination could be involved in the enjoyment of music.

Imagination includes the formation of mental images, including the auditory ones associated with music (Halpern, 1992, 2001). Cross (2007) has suggested that engagement with music may in fact underlie the evolutionary development of imagination.

Even in the case of ‘pure music’ with no words or stories involved, it is plausible that some listeners may conjure up an imaginary person or scene that enhances their emotional response. Since music often is imitative of human expression of emotion in various ways such as in speech (Juslin & Laukka, 2003b), some listeners may imaginatively create an object – the non-existent person expressing the emotion – and experience an empathetic response towards that object (Levinson, 1990b). Even if the listener does not consciously imagine a story or picture or character in the same detail as one would when reading fiction, they may still at some level of consciousness attribute the emotions expressed to some undefined, non-existent person.

Walton (1997) argues that ‘pure music’ is not so easily distinguishable from program music in any case. He states that “music stands ready to take on an explicit representational function at the slightest provocation” (p. 58). This ability to colour our perceptions of characters or scenes in a film or story is part of music’s very usefulness in films and advertising (Walton, 1999).

2.4.2 Empathy

The concepts of imagination and empathy are closely linked, as will be discussed in this section, and have often been alluded to in the literature in relation to emotional

46 response to music. Empathy entails a mirroring of emotion, and the development of parallel and reactive emotions in response to those perceived in another person

(Vreeke & Van der Mark, 2003). It involves being able to ‘imagine’ the experience of another to some extent.

Walton’s argument regarding psychological projection (1999) is that without it being necessary to recognize a fictional character in the music, listeners may project their own psychological states as aroused empathetically by the music, onto the music itself. Kivy (1989) makes the interesting suggestion that this tendency to attribute animate qualities to inanimate things may be part of our evolutionarily hard-wired survival mechanism, much as when we instinctively perceive a stick to be a snake.

Children also demonstrate this tendency to animate and personify (Inagaki & Hatano,

1987). Thus, Juslin and Laukka (2003a) and Mithen (2005) argue that our perception of emotion in music is related to ancient communication skills which existed before or as part of the evolution of language.

However, empathy may be involved in a much more instinctive reaction to music as well. Walton presents a convincing argument on the topic of the nearly universal tendency to mimic facial expressions and other expressive behaviour, more or less automatically. At times, such mimicry can actually induce in a person the very mood or emotions of the person they are mimicking. Studies indicate that behavioural manifestations of emotional states can, at least to some extent, cause those states. This may be an important factor in (Darwall, 1997) which is likely to be involved in our experience of emotion in music (Juslin & Vastfjall, 2008). Huron

(2008) also suggests that we are evolutionarily programmed to respond to expressions

47 of sadness with empathy which usually works by “evoking a parallel emotional state in the individual” (p. 238). Molnar-Szakacs and Overy (2006) argue that these aspects of musical experience are mediated by the mirror neuron system. Thus aspects of the music to which our bodies automatically respond in a physiological sense (motor mimicry) may contribute towards actually inducing emotions.

Cooke (1963) describes the way that empathy can be experienced when listening to music, arguing that grief experienced when listening to music is real in that it stimulates us to partake of the artist’s experience vicariously in much the same way that we feel our friends’ emotions when they tell us of their experiences. He claims that emotions conveyed through the arts may be “more real” because it is “more pure”, conveying the “naked feeling directly” (p. 21). This may explain why performers spend such a lot of time trying to achieve a tone and mode of expression which is as human as possible, since perception of emotion in music appears to be related to perception of emotion in human expression (Dissanayake, 2008; Juslin &

Laukka, 2003a; Mithen, 2005).

The similarities between our understanding of music and of speech are also indicated by research on brain anatomy. Several parts of the brain are involved in the processing of language. It appears that some of the same brain regions are also concerned with our response to music. There is some evidence that is processed in

Broca’s area which is also involved in comprehension of spoken language (Maess,

Koelsch, Gunter, & Friderici, 2001). It also seems that the perception of emotions in music takes place in the basal ganglia which is also involved in the perception of emotion in speech (Blood et al., 1999). Thus, it is plausible that our perception of

48 emotion in music has a strong connection with a propensity to empathise with the emotions expressed by others.

2.4.3 Music Empathy

A more specialized form of empathy involved in response to music is ‘music empathisizing’ as described by Kreutz, Schubert and Mitchell (2008). This concept, based on the work of Baron-Cohen et al. (2005), is related to the notion of empathy described above, but relies on the premise that musicians and music lovers may have a specialized set of empathy skills that allow them to encode and decode emotion

(Juslin, 2000) and related personal information in the specific context of music. It is possible that this particular form of empathy may in turn be related to the capacity to imaginatively engage with fantasy and fictional subjects.

Empathy alone does not explain why for some, music evoking negative emotions holds comparable attraction than music expressing happier emotions. The distance achieved by the knowledge that we are not ourselves threatened still does not reveal why we should be interested in experiencing it. In fact, it may seem that the music would be even more enjoyable if the negative emotions were removed altogether

(Davies, 1997). It could even be expected that people who are highly empathic would be particularly likely to avoid sad music because of their higher vulnerability to experience the emotions expressed (Oliver, 1993).

However, if dissociation is a mechanism involved in making possible the enjoyment of negative emotions in music, it could be assumed that highly imaginative, fantasy- prone people who may be more capable of dissociating, would therefore be more

49 likely to enjoy negative emotions in music. It may also be true that such people experience heightened, euphoric pleasure in music, or even the altered states of consciousness and expanded awareness associated with meditation or religious experiences. In fact, music listening is often a factor in religious experiences in certain contexts (Kreutz, Ott et al., 2008). If musically astute empathizers also show a high capacity to dissociate, they may be able to separate the successful communication of negative emotion as a special, dissociable, and therefore pleasurable aspect of a performance. Thus the link between personality traits such as imagination and empathy with the tendency to dissociate may thus begin to explain why music, and even sad music, is so valued by some.

2.4.4 Individual Differences in Imagination and Empathy

Kivy (1989) claims that he himself enjoys music without any “imaginative contortions” (p. 250). He admits that fictional works may arouse “garden-variety” emotions in us, but argues that absolute music with no programmatic content or lyrics, cannot (p. 169). However, the fact that some people do not engage their imagination when listening to music does not disprove the arguments regarding the involvement of imagination. It merely further demonstrates the importance of considering individual differences. If individuals differ in their capacity to imaginatively engage with music and to experience empathy in response to , these may be key factors to understanding why some people are able to enjoy negative emotion in music while others do not. The intriguing connections that also seem to exist between these individual capacities and the theory of dissociation bear further investigation. The propensity to imagine and fantasize may be a predictor of enjoyment of negative emotion in music. Fantasy-proneness is a measurable indication of an individual’s

50 imaginative capacity which can be tested along with empathy and music empathy using pre-established psychometric measures.

2.5 - OTHER NEGATIVE EMOTIONS

Although this thesis will primarily consider sadness evoked by music, it is of interest to consider some of the findings in relation to other negative emotions. Some of the other negative emotions that have been mentioned in the literature in relation to music are grief, anger, and fear.

2.5.1 Grief 6

Grief, in fact, bears a close relationship to sadness. The word ‘grief’comes from a

Latin word (via Old French) that means ‘burden’. (Neufeldt & Guralnik, 1988). It can be defined as an intense emotional suffering caused by loss (Neufeldt & Guralnik,

1988). The emotion of grief may have higher arousal levels than sadness (Jefferies,

Smilek, Eich, & Enns, 2008). It includes but is not confined to, the loss associated with the death of a loved one. The word ‘grief’ is also used to refer to a long term dynamic emotional process that a person may go through in response to loss, also referred to as ‘mourning’ (Cowles & Rodgers, 1991). Music can be involved in both the immediate intense emotional experience of grief and the longer term emotions experienced in the process of grieving.

Music is often associated with traditional grief rituals (Becker, 2001; Schechter,

1994). One particular form of music used in grief rituals is the lament which is found in many parts of the world including Africa, Latin America, Russia and Greece

6 Parts of this section have been published in: Garrido, S., Garrido, W. (2011) The Folklore of Death: ‘Cantos de angeles’ and Cultural Syncretism on the Island of Chiloé. In Proceedings of the 7th International Small Islands Cultures Conference. Airlie Beach

51 (Caraveli, 1986; Kotthoff, 2001; Tolbert, 1990). The music of laments provide a

“ritual of shared grieving” (Kotthoff, 2001, p. 191) in which the loss of a loved one is communalized and vocalized for the benefit of all the mourners present. This public outpouring of grief is a catalyst for the healing process.

In fact, music has been used for its ‘healing’ powers throughout history from at least the time of the Ancient Greeks (Nelson & Weathers, 1998). One example, is

Aristotle’s argument about the usefulness of using of music for cathartic purposes

(Poetics, Chapter VI, see Section 2.1.5). More recent studies have also shown the benefits of music-therapy in dealing with grief, part of which is in validating and expressing the emotions associated with grief (Dalton & Krout, 2005; Hilliard, 2001;

McFerran-Skewes, 2000; McFerran, Roberts, & O'Grady, 2010). Bright (1995), thus argues that music offers a “passport to the heart” (p. 323) and as such can offer many advantages over counselling techniques dependent on words. Nelson & Weathers

(1998) also report finding in their practice of grief therapy that listening to or performing music elicits profound experiences that influence the moods, thoughts, and perceptions of their grieving clients. Thus in the context of grief, music may have similar benefits.

However, contrary to what one may expect, sad music may not always be the type of music associated with contexts of grief, nor will music expressing grief necessarily evoke a response of grief in the listener. Huron (2008) suggests that the musical cues of sadness and grief are different and that expressions of grief are social cues designed to evoke . Similarly, Kivy (1980) argues that music expressing grief may evoke in the listener.

52

Grief may also contain not only suffering, but a sense of celebrating both the life of the deceased and the relationship with them (Castle & Philips, 2003). Thus is some cultural settings, music provides a vehicle for rejoicing within the context of the funeral. One example of this is the New Orleans jazz funeral, in which music plays an important role. The musicians participate in a wake prior to the funeral and also play hymns during the processions from the home to the church and then to the cemetery.

However, at some point later the band would begin to play more upbeat music, a moment known as “turning or cutting the body loose” (Secundy, 1989, p. 101). While some may argue that this is not ‘grieving’ in the strictest definition of the word, others would argue that this sense of celebration is often a part of the ‘grief process’ (Castle

& Philips, 2003).

Another interesting example is the ‘cantos de angeles’, a particular song form used for the funerals of very young children in many parts of Latin America (Dannemann,

2007). Rather than being placed in a coffin, the corpse of the child is dressed and made-up so as to appear as alive as possible and seated in a chair as if to witness its own funeral. Singers known as ‘cantores’ are hired to sing the specialised verses

(Orellana, 1990). It is believed that the singing of the songs actually assists in the transformation of the child to an angelic state. The songs are of such importance, that it is thought that if a child’s wake does not include the ‘cantos de angeles’ the child is not able to leave the earth and is doomed to wander in limbo (Orellana, 1990).

53 Thus grief in music provides a complicated picture. The music associated with grief rituals may not always involve music expressing grief. Nor will music expressing grief necessarily evoke similar emotions in the listener.

2.5.2 Anger and Fear

Studies have found that fear and anger are not easy to distinguish in the context of music (Eerola & Vuoskoski, 2011; Juslin, 2000). This may be because when considered in terms of the circumplex model of emotion (Russell & Lewicka, 1989), these emotions sit quite close together, both being of high arousal and negative valence. At times music expressing anger may evoke fear in the listener rather than anger. This perhaps again depends on personality. Given this difficulty in distinguishing the two emotions, we will not directly examine fear in this thesis.

Anger also presents a fascinating paradox because, where negative emotions are generally understood to stimulate avoidance behaviour and positive emotions stimulate approach behaviour, anger seems to be an exception even in non-aesthetic contexts (Punkanen, Eerola, & Erkkila, 2011).

One of the most prominent arguments in relation to why people listen to angry music such as some hip-hop or rap songs, concerns catharsis. The Drive Reduction Theory

(Berkowitz, 1962), stemming from Freudian psychoanalytic theory, argues that listening to music allows a vicarious experience of anger in which feelings are released in a harmless manner thus reducing the drive to express such anger in inappropriate ways. Alternatively, social learning theorists argue that viewing aggressive behaviour increases the propensity for imitation resulting in violent acts

54 (Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1961). However, whether this theory also applies to listening to music is less clear.

Numerous studies have examined the veracity of the claim that music genres expressing anger, such as rap and heavy-metal, are associated with violence, aggression and self-harm particularly in adolescents. Anderson, Carnagey and

Eubanks (2003), for example, found that listening to violent lyrics in music increased feelings of and aggression in adolescents. Other studies have found correlations between preferences for genres such as rap or heavy metal and depression or mood disorders (Doak, 2003).

However, this does not necessarily mean that the music has a causal relationship with aggression, hostility or depression. North and Hargraeves (2006) found that while listening to ‘problem music’ was associated with self-harming behaviour, this effect was mediated by other factors, particularly low self-esteem. Doak (2003) found that the reported reasons for listening to such music were similar to those given for using drugs, i.e. to relax, improve mood and to escape reality. In fact other studies have found that rap music can be a useful medium for music therapy amongst troubled youths since it enabled them to communicate and express themselves within their existing musical and cultural interests (Baker & Homan, 2007; Gonzalez & Hayes,

2009). According to some researchers this is because such music can provide a sense of and self-identity as well as being an outlet for daily and negative moods (Iwamoto, Creswell, & Caldwell, 2007).

55 Thus, the evidence so far regarding why people are attracted to angry music is inconclusive. Further research is necessary in order to clarify the effect of listening to angry music as well as motives for listening to it. It may well be that Schubert’s theory of dissociation is involved here as well. Some listeners may be able to dissociate from the displeasure of the anger in order to gain some therapeutic or social value from listening to the music. Others with mood disorders or other behavioural and personality disorders may demonstrate maladaptive behaviours in listening to such music, finding that it actually deepens the negative emotions they are experiencing. Other maladaptive behaviour may be involved in much the same way as drug use.

56 SUMMARY

 For the purpose of this thesis, music will be understood as a subjective

phenomenon: anything that a particular listener understands and experiences

as music.

 The word ‘emotion’ will be used to cover both the phenomenological aspect

alone, and when accompanied by the presence of an object and/or behaviour.

‘Mood’ will be used to refer to a more enduring state, which may or may not

be dependent on the presence of a recognisable object or cause.

 Although the expression ‘negative emotions’ is problematic, in this thesis it

will refer to the listener’s experience of any emotion commonly understood to

be ‘negative’ such as sadness, fear, anger etc. whether or not the experience of

the emotion is unpleasant or involves avoidance behaviours.

 Since it seems implausible that listeners could actually be enjoying

experiencing negative emotions in music, most philosophers have concluded

that ‘real’ emotions are not involved. Cognitivists argue that although we

perceive emotions in music we do not experience them ourselves. Emotivists

argue that a special set of aesthetic emotions are experienced. The various

explanations for our attraction to negative emotions in aesthetic contexts can

be classified into five groups: compensatory/functional explanations,

organicist explanations, conversionary, revisionary and deflationary

explanations.

 Individual Differences Psychology is concerned with understanding the

complexity of human behaviour and describing how persons differ. It is

important to consider individual differences in examining the question of why

57 people are attracted to music evoking negative emotions because this may help

to explain the divergent philosophical explanations proffered to date.

 Numerous studies have found that personality differences can account for

differences in both musical preference and people’s ways of using music.

Therefore we could expect that personality would also affect a person’s

response to music evoking negative emotions.

 Much of the conflict in the philosophical literature about music evoking

negative emotions may be because of the level of explanation from which the

topic is approached. Most authors discuss the issue at a personal level based

on their own experiences, which may differ due to their own individual

characteristics.

 Schubert’s Dissociation Theory of Emotion in Aesthetic Contexts is a

mechanistic explanation which may begin to explain some of the different

responses that individuals have to music evoking negative emotions.

 Absorption is the most commonly experienced aspect of dissociation

experienced in non-clinical populations and enables a person to temporarily

set aside reality while engaged in an activity. This may be the aspect of

dissociation which allows some listeners to de-activate displeasure in aesthetic

contexts.

 The hypothesis that a form of dissociation occurs when listening to sad music

is supported by emotional appraisal arguments and findings in neurology that

displeasure centres of the brain are deactivated when listening to music.

 The fact that capacities for dissociation and absorption differ from person to

person makes it possible to use pre-established psychometric tests to examine

58 whether these personality differences may be behind varying individual

responses to music evoking negative emotions.

 Imagination, empathy, and a specialized form of ‘music empathy’ may be all

closely associated with dissociation and it is therefore possible that these other

personality traits are also connected to individual response to music evoking

negative emotions.

 Music is often associated with grief and traditional grief rituals. However, as

with sad music, music expressing grief presents a complicated picture since

grief may also involve an element of celebration and may evoke pity or

in the listener rather than the corresponding emotion of grief.

 Anger and fear present a similarly complicated picture. They are not easily

distinguishable in the case of music. While research has suggested that music

perceived as angry such as rap and heavy metal are often associated with

violence and aggression particularly in adolescents, this does not necessarily

suggest a causal relationship. Rather, Schubert’s Dissociation Theory of

Emotion in Aesthetic Contexts again implies that some listeners may be able

to enjoy therapeutic benefits from listening to angry music. Other listeners

may be manifesting maladaptive behaviours.

59

CHAPTER 3 – LITERATURE REVIEW

ON MUSIC IN MOOD REGULATION

60 3.1 – WHY CONSIDER MOOD REGULATION?

Several of the philosophical explanations considered in Section 2.1 relate to the use of sad music to influence mood. For example, compensatory explanations such as

Aristotle’s doctrine of catharsis argue that one of the reasons people listen to sad music is because of the ultimate benefits that they may gain, and the resultant improvements to mood from doing so. These explanations imply that a prior negative mood state may be one factor in an attraction to music evoking negative emotions.

Therefore, if an investigation of individual differences on this topic is to be thorough, the influence of prior mood also ought to be considered.

Moods, of course, may fluctuate from day to day in individuals. However, another important aspect of individual differences is the mood regulation strategies that individuals have developed. Research indicates that people may develop either adaptive or maladaptive responses to events and emotions experienced in their life

(Cole, Michel, & O'Donnell Teti, 1994). These are often learned behaviours which will differ from individual to individual (Moulds, Kandris, Starr, & Wong, 2007;

Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991a). Interestingly, Aristotle also commented on the effect of individual differences on the cathartic value of music (see Section 3.2.1). He argued that people differ both in the extent to which they experience emotions that will need purging, and the extent to which music may be the thing which will move them emotionally and allow them to vent their negative emotions. He writes:

For feelings such as pity and fear, or again, , exist very strongly in

some souls, and have more or less influence over all. Some persons fall into a

religious frenzy, whom we see as a result of the sacred melodies – when they

have used the melodies that excite the soul to mystic frenzy – restored as

61 though they had found healing and purgation. Those who are influenced by

pity or fear, and every emotional nature, must have a like experience, and

others in so far as each is susceptible to such emotions, and all are in a manner

purged and their souls lightened and delighted. The purgative melodies

likewise give an innocent pleasure to mankind (Aristotle, 350 BCE, Book VIII

Section VII)

Therefore in harmony with the theoretical framework for this thesis discussed in

Section 1.6, which includes an investigation of individual differences in relation to an attraction to negative emotion in music, individual mood regulation strategies will also be considered. The next section will begin by giving a brief historical overview of the use of music for mood regulation purposes in therapeutic settings. Section 3.3 will consider some more current theories of music in mood regulation and their bearing on the question under examination in this thesis.

3.2 - A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF MUSIC

AND MOOD REGULATION7

Music’s influence on emotional and mental states is not a recent concept. Belief in the power of music to affect mood go a long way back in human history. Ancient cultures all over the world believed in the power of music to alter the mind and influence moods, even those of unborn children. Flute music was prescribed in ancient China

4000 years ago to calm an over-excited foetus (Brettingham-Smith, 1993). The

Egyptians were said to be using music for therapeutic purposes around 1500 B.C.

(Bunt, 1994; Paul, 1958). Another often cited example of early use of music to

7 A version of this section has been submitted to Current for publication as: Garrido, S. & Davidson, J. “A history of music and mood regulation: Individual differences and musical prescriptions through the ages”.

62 improve mood is the Biblical account of King Saul of Israel who was soothed by the playing of David’s harp (Paul, 1958; Rorke, 2001). In fact the word ‘mode’ (a musical scale, particularly those used by the ancient Greeks), is etymologically related to the word ‘mood’, a further indication of the longstanding connection between music and mood regulation (Stevenson, 1952). It was only during the 18th century with the dichotomy between the arts and sciences that occurred at that time, that music became regarded as of less interest to health scientists.

Much of the interest in the use of music in mood regulation from early times is related to the treatment of . Melancholia is a term coined by Hippocrates, which he used to describe a condition where a person has suffered fear or distress for an ongoing period (Lewis, 1934). Today, the condition would likely be recognized as a mood disorder such as depression, although it has taken on different meanings over history. Music has been a key part of the therapy recommended for melancholia by medical practitioners for many centuries. Hippocrates also introduced the term

‘mania’ (or ‘frenzy’), and although this term has also been used in various ways in history, it too was a mood disorder for which music was often recommended as treatment. Although the popularity of music as a treatment for such disorders has waxed and waned over time, there have been firm advocates of its power to alter moods from ancient times until today.

3.2.1 Ancient Cultures

In Western culture, belief in the power of music to affect mood goes back to the ancient Greek philosophers and in particular Homer (ca. 8th century BC) and

Pythagoras (c. 500 BC). Homer recommended music as an antidote to negative feelings such as anger, sorrow, fear, and emotional fatigue (Bunt, 1994). Pythagoras

63 was both a mystic and a serious scientist who studied the world around him. One of the tools he used for studying the affect of music on people was the monochord – a one-stringed instrument. On this instrument he could experiment with notes and intervals and with proportions of two or more notes empirically (Wigram, Pedersen,

& Bonde, 2002). Cook (1981) thus claims that the Greeks were the first to use music

“scientifically and systematically” (p. 254).

In Pythagorean theory the scientific laws of tones and intervals were a reflection of the cosmic world. According to Pythagoras and his followers, the planets vibrate in the same frequencies and with the same ratios as the harmonics of notes (Wigram et al., 2002). This is what was known as the ‘harmony of the spheres’ (see Table 2). The correlation of astronomical and musical proportions led to the belief that the heavenly bodies in motion produced a series of tones, a kind of scale (David, 1951).

In fact, by the time of Plato (c.428- c. 348 BC), certain notes were even believed to correspond to particular planets. For example the moon corresponded to A and the sun to D (Wigram et al., 2002).

Pythagoras also believed that different musical modes or scales could influence mood in particular ways. He and his followers would listen to “paeans”, a song form expressing triumph, to alter their moods (Porphyry, 1920). Paeon also became known as the god of health, attesting to the strong connection between music and health in this period (Macurdy, 1930). Pythagoras is also said to have used music as a treatment for his patients with mental illnesses (Paul, 1958) and to have developed certain melodies to be used in cases of despondency and others to counteract anger

(Mitchell & Zanker, 1948).

64

In relation to this was another dominant theory of the period, the ‘ethos’ doctrine

(Rorke, 2001; Wigram et al., 2002). This was the belief that each harmonia (one-line melody) was believed to have a special ‘ethos’ or character and particular properties

(David, 1951) which would influence mood in certain ways (see Table 2). In a passage in his Republic (Book III), Plato relates a dialogue between his brother

Glaucon and Socrates. Socrates encouraged the use of Dorian and Phrygian mode’s to inspire men to bravery, while calling the Ionian and Lydian mode’s ‘relaxed’, encouraging drunkenness, softness and indolence. Lydian mode in particular was said to express sorrow (see Table 1). One of Plato’s pupils, Xenocrates (d. 314 BC) is said to have used harp music to cure hysterics (Cook, 1981). The effects were ascribed to the modes and also the employed in the music.

Another medical belief of the time was that of humoural medicine which was in circulation around the time of Hippocrates (c.400 BC). According to that theory health is influenced by four bodily fluids or humours: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. Good health was believed to reflect a balance between the humours while illness was believed to be caused by imbalance. Music was considered to be capable of restoring the balance between the humours (Wigram et al., 2002). Hippocrates was thus said to have taken his mental patients to the Temple Aesculapius to enjoy the therapeutic value of music (Paul, 1958).

Aristotle (384-322 BC) also subscribed to the doctrine of ethos. He described the way a person’s ‘very soul’ and disposition could be altered by listening to music and also the fact that different harmonies differ from each other greatly thus affecting the

65 listener differently (see Table 1). Rhythms, he said, have the same affect: “some fix the disposition, others occasion a change in it; some act more violently, others more liberally”. (Politics, Book VIII, Chapter V). His description of the qualities of the modes agrees with that of Socrates and Plato, stating that Lydian mode causes grief while Phrygian mode fills the soul with enthusiasm. In contrast to Plato, however, he felt that Doric music was the one on which should concentrate.

Aristotle called the good effects of music “emotional catharsis” (Poetics, Chapter VI).

He describes people using music to excite their soul to “mystic frenzy” and being able to enjoy the ‘purgative’ values of music when strongly influenced by pity or fear or other strong emotions (Politics, Book VIII, Part VII) (see Section 3.1).

Table 1 Music Prescribed for Calming or Enlivening in Different Historical Time Periods

Time Period Source Music to Calm/for Music to Enliven/ for Mania Melancholia Ancient Chinese Flute music physicians Pythagoras Stringed instruments; Flute music; Phrygian Spondaic mode; slow, mode; solemn rhythms; Dorian “Paens”; Lydian mode and Hypophrygian and Hypomixolydian; modes avoid Hypolydian & Mixolydian modes Socrates & Plato Use of Dorian and Phrygian mode; avoid Lydian mode Xenocrates Harp music Aristotle Use of Dorian and Phrygian mode; avoid Lydian mode; rhythms also important Medieval Various Tranquil music Joyous music physicians Cassiodorus Aeolian & Lydian modes; avoid Phrygian Hildegard of Rapturous melodies Bingen involving wide ranges of notes and large

66 intervals. Gentile de Music with a steady Foligno; Jacopo tactus for regulating the da Forli ; Peter pulse Abano Renaissance Ramis de Pareja Dorian and Lydian and Hypophrygian modes Hypomixolydian modes; avoid Hypolydian and Mixolydian Johannes ‘sweetness’ (mostly Tinctoris equating to consonance) Classical Florence Continuous sound, Nightingale such as can be produced by stringed instruments and the voice Dr. Weimnar Slow music

Aristotle’s observations regarding catharsis were amazingly astute given the other mystic sources to which music’s power were commonly attributed in his time.

Interestingly, Aristotle also commented on the effect of individual differences on the cathartic value of music. He argued that people differ both in the extent to which they experience emotions that will need purging, and the extent to which music may be the thing which will move them emotionally and allow them to vent their negative emotions. He writes:

For feelings such as pity and fear, or again, enthusiasm, exist very strongly in

some souls, and have more or less influence over all. Some persons fall into a

religious frenzy, whom we see as a result of the sacred melodies – when they

have used the melodies that excite the soul to mystic frenzy – restored as

though they had found healing and purgation. Those who are influenced by

pity or fear, and every emotional nature, must have a like experience, and

others in so far as each is susceptible to such emotions, and all are in a manner

purged and their souls lightened and delighted. The purgative melodies

67 likewise give an innocent pleasure to mankind (Aristotle, 350 BCE, Book VIII

Section VII)

In later centuries Asclepiades (124 – c. 40 BC), the Greek physician, employed harmony and music to restore health and to cure manic patients. He opposed the humoural medicinal theories of Hippocrates, instead following the doctrine of

Democritus which held that disease resulted from the constricted or relaxed conditions of the solid particles. Nevertheless he pioneered humane treatments of the mentally ill by having them freed from confinement and treating them with music, occupational therapy and massage (Yapijakis, 2009).

These beliefs persevered into the new millennium. Celsus, a second century Greek philosopher advocated soothing the sadness of melancholia by means of music (Cook,

1981). Galen (or Galenus), the second century Greek physician (resident in Rome), also wrote about music including the theory that music was inherent in the pulse

(Siraisi, 1975) (see Table 2). Although the humoural approach had been previously used, Galen also proposed the categorisation of personalities according to humoural imbalances as either phlegmatic, choleric, sanguine or melancholy (Stelmack &

Stalikas, 1991). This idea of humoural temperament was to further influence theories about music in mood regulation in the following centuries.

68 Table 2 Mechanisms by Which Music was Believed to Influence Moods

Time Period Source Believed Mechanism Ancient Pythagoras Harmony of spheres – the power of music to bring vibrations into synchrony with the frequencies of the planets Socrates & Plato Ethos doctrine – effect of modes and rhythms Hippocrates & Balance of humours achieved by power of modes Pythagoras Aristotle Catharsis; purgative effect Galen Regulating the pulse Medieval Various Balancing the humoural temperament. physicians Neo-platonists Cosmic harmony – the power of music to cause all God’s creation to mirror the greater cosmos Neo-platonists; Power of music to cause sympathetic vibrations Boethius between musica mundana and musica humana Hildegard of Music as a psychic force that could counter the Bingen effects of Edenic sin Gentile de Music could help regulate the pulse and harmonise Foligno and it to the person’s nature – rhymic modes Jacopo da Forli Renaissance Ramis de Pareja; Attributed the power of the modes in balancing Marsilio Ficino humours to their capacity to exert planetary influence Classical Robert Burton Catharsis Richard Browne Increasing the flow of ‘animal spirits’ and affecting bodily vibrations. Brocklesby Balancing the passions Mesmer Music could strengthen the fluids of ‘animal magnetism’

The theories of the Greeks had widespread influence on other cultures as well. The

Romans drew from Greek philosophy about music’s power to influence mood and the mind. Cicero (106-43 BC), the Roman philosopher and statesman, mentions the music of the spheres in his De Re Publica (Coleman-Norton, 1950). Wigram (2002) argues that the theory that music has a direct influence on the mind and on mood is found in music and medical theory throughout the centuries. References have certainly been found in Arabic literature to the Greek theories (Shiloah, 2003) and to the use of music to influence mood. Shiloah (2003) reports, for example, that the first century

69 Andalusian writer and poet Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih (d. 940) argues that a beautiful voice in song can elevate the soul.

An interesting aspect of this overview of music in mood regulation in ancient cultures is the importance put upon using music to rectify negative mood states. In addition, it is interesting that particular types of music were believed to exert either a positive effect on mood or a negative one. We see the emergence of some interesting psychological insights which are of relevance to music therapy today, such as the importance of considering the temperament of the patient and the usefulness of music in enabling catharsis. Thus we see the emergence of ideas regarding music and mood regulation, individual differences in emotional response to music and the fact that music’s effect on the individual will not always be positive. These ideas of the ancient

Greeks were to continue to influence theory in the following centuries.

3.2.2 Dark Ages/Middle Ages

Bower (2002) argues that the adjective ‘dark’ is less applicable to descriptions of musical thought in this era, because it saw the beginning of a systematic study of musical phenomena. This was also an era when Christianity and the liturgy were spreading, thus influencing the development of both music and the theory surrounding it. The ancient Greek ideas about the music of the spheres were applied to newer

Christian thinking and were influenced by Egyptian and Arabic philosophy, becoming known as Neo-Platonism (Gouk, 2004). However, there was less interest in the Greek and Roman concept of music as of therapeutic value with the fall of the Roman

Empire and the early years of the Dark Ages. Nevertheless, its use as a mood regulator can still be traced in various practices.

70

Two of the most important medieval writers on the subject of music and its influence on mood, were Boethius (born c. 480 AD) and the Roman statesman and writer

Cassiodorus (480-573). They were largely responsible for the transmission of the ancient Greek theories of Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle. The treatise by Boethius De institutione musica was an important university text especially in medicine, which in some Italian universities was part of the ‘faculty of arts and medicine’ (Cosman,

1978). In it Boethius relates a story about how Pythagoras calmed a young man who had become wrought up by the sound of the Phrygian mode. The young man had apparently discovered his ‘harlot’ in the house of another man and was ready to burn the man’s house down. This frenzy was attributed to his having been listening to a flautist playing in the Phrygian mode. He reputedly responded to reason immediately upon the mode of the music being changed to the slow and rhythmic Spondaic mode

(Cosman, 1978; Hall, 1928). He also cites details of the expulsion of Timotheus of

Miletus from Lacedaemonia who is said to have steered the youths of Sparta astray from virtue by altering the pitches within an octave so that they were closer together like chromatics (Leach, 2006).

Boethius, drawing on the earlier of the harmonies of the spheres, divided music into several categories (see Table 2). Musica mundana was the heavenly music of the motion of the spheres. Its reflection was found in musica humana, the rhythms and cycles of the human body. At the bottom of the hierarchy was musica instrumentis which was the music made by humans with instruments of their creation

(De institutione musica). Neo-Platonists explained this by analogy to a lyre: when one string on the instrument has been struck, another tuned to the same pitch will also vibrate, and this vibration can even travel setting equivalently tuned strings on other

71 instruments in motion (Gouk, 2004). Thus humanity could vibrate in harmony with the celestial bodies if their bodies were balanced and ‘in tune’. Similar ideas regarding the ‘levels’ of music can be found in other cultures around this time (Wigram et al.,

2002).

Cassiodorus was successor to Boethius. He gives an interesting description of the value of music to influence moods in a letter to Boethius (first published c. 538) in which he requests assistance in finding a harp player for Clovis, King of the Franks.

In the letter he refers to the music of the spheres and talks about how music can change the heart. He says: “Harmful melancholy he turns to pleasure; he weakens swelling ; he makes bloodthirsty cruelty kindly, arouses sleepy sloth from its torpor, restores to the sleepless their wholesome rest, recalls -corrupted chastity to its moral resolve, and heals of spirit which is always the enemy of good thoughts” (Boethius, 1886, xl; Cassiodorus, 1886).

He also repeats the Platonic theory that each mode has a particular ‘ethos’ stating:

“Phrygian arouses strife, and inflames the will to anger; the Aeolian calms the storms of the soul, and gives sleep to those who are already at peace; the Ionian sharpens the wits of the dull, and, as a worker of good, gratifies the longing for heavenly things among those who are burdened by earthly desire. The Lydian was discovered as a remedy for excessive cares and weariness of the spirit: it restores it by , and refreshes it by pleasure.”.(Cassiodorus, 1886) (see Table 1).

Another important writer on music in the fifth century was Martianus Cappella, who reported the cure of the mentally ill by music (Paul, 1958). His work De nuptiis

72 Philologiae et Mercurii (On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury) which was influential for almost all of the medieval period (LeMoine, 1972), was an allegorical tale in which seven maids representing the seven arts describe the arts they personify.

The final one represents music (Harmony). This was an important work in ensuring the survival of the Pythagorean ideas about the harmony of the spheres through into the Renaissance. However, Cappella shows little understanding of the mathematical principles developed by the earlier Greek authors (Bower, 2002).

In the eight and ninth centuries Europe achieved a degree of unity under

Charlemagne. His conquests involved the acquisition of manuscripts to his court. The texts of Martianus Capella and Boethius were included amongst those acquired and began to be copied and dispersed throughout the Empire, thus resulting in a revival in interest in Pythagorean ideas particularly amongst monastic scholars. However, the primary interest of the scholars of the time was the mathematics relating to pitch, leaving other aspects of musical knowledge largely ignored (Bower, 2002). The monastic scholars basically dominated thinking on music until c. 1200 (Callahan,

2000).

With the founding of universities following this, there was a returning interest in the teachings of Galen amongst medical practitioners. Physicians were encouraged to have a liberal education in the arts including music in order to enhance their understanding of the human rhythms and pulse. Hildegard of Bingen (c.1098–1179) wrote two medical treatises: Physica and Causae et curae. Her theories differed somewhat from the usual doctrine of humours, although she does employ the Galenic classification of personality as sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, or melancholic.

73 In these medical texts she does not specifically mention music as a treatment.

However, we can make some interesting inferences from her theological discussion of mankind’s ‘fall’ in which the humours play a part. Melancholia particularly, is described as having come into existence when the devil first attacked the nature of man resulting in his banishment from Eden. This banishment severed mankind from the heavenly choirs with which he had until then, sung in harmony. Music came into being, she claims, through the prophets, which enabled humans to once again sing with joy. For Hildegard, therefore, music was a psychic force capable of countering the spiritual ill of melancholy (Callahan, 2000) (see Table 2).

Holsinger (1993) argues that Hildegard’s own compositions are embodiments of this belief that music could imbue humans with the divine. The composition of plainchant in this era was closely regulated by the Cistercian order, which stipulated that melodies were to stay within a range of ten notes in order to preserve an aura of seriousness and devotion (Hoppin, 1978). Holsinger argues that the many examples of compositions, such as Ave, generosa in which Hildegard breached these statutes, using large intervals and wide ranges, are evidence of her belief in the power of

‘musical ’ to bring one into a state of harmony with the divine. Therefore, it appears that Hildegard’s musical ‘prescription’ for melancholia involved rapturous melodies which defied the simplicity of plainchant common at the time (see Table 1).

Siraisi (1975) reviews some of the other Medieval physicians who wrote about music, mostly from Italy, including Peter of Abano (1257 – 1315), who gave extensive descriptions of musical theory based on the writings of Boethius and argued that this was essential knowledge for physicians. Music was believed to be of great importance

74 in regulating the pulse to the benefit of both general health and mental health.

According to Gentile da Foligno (d. 1348), an Italian professor and doctor, both musical consonance and musical mathematical proportions are to be found within the pulse. He argued that high and low pitches corresponded to strength or weakness in the pulse, while the speed of the pulse corresponded to the measuring of time in music

(Hatter, 2011). A healthy pulse was considered to be equal and steady, while irregularities were indications of illness (Hatter, 2011). Jacopo da Forli (c. 1364 –

1414) argued that the variations of a pulse, like the different voices in a group of singers, could be either harmonious or dissonant. These variations could be caused by emotional state among other things. Da Forli argued that a person’s pulse could be out of harmony with his nature even if ‘well proportioned’ in itself, just as funeral music would be inappropriate at a wedding.

Thus ‘tactus’, which originally referred to the keeping of time by beating with the hand (Brown & Bockmaier), became an important concept in polyphonic music to help the separate voices sound together in harmony (Hatter, 2011). Peter of Abano made direct application of the rhythmic modes of contemporary music to the regulation of the pulse (Callahan, 2000). Rhythmic modes were a medieval concept in which the relative duration of notes were determined by their position with a rhythmic series or mode (Roesner). There were six such modes in which ars antique motets and other music were written in Peter’s time. Thus he recommended using particular modes to increase a sluggish pulse or adjust a rapid or erratic one (Callahan, 2000)

(see Tables 1 and 2).

75 Other writers discussed the influence of music on depression or melancholy. William of Auvergne, a French priest who served as Bishop of Paris from 1228 to 1249, dedicated a chapter to music in his treatise. While William disagrees with Plato’s explanation of music’s healing powers, he does agree with him as to its therapeutic value. In his De imiverso he described its usefulness in treating insanity, melancholia and other mental disturbances (Paul, 1958). Similarly, Franciscan monk Bartholomeus

Anglicus (ca. 1203-1272) describes a condition similar to depression in his encyclopaedia, De Proprietatibis Rerum, suggesting that music would be of assistance in treating it (Paul, 1958). He was likely largely influenced by Aristotle (Se Boyar,

1920). As Geraldus Cambrensis, the twelfth century Welsh chronicler declared: “The sweet harmony of music not only affords but renders important services. It greatly cheers the drooping spirit, smoothes the wrinkled brow, promotes hilarity.

Nothing so enlivens the human heart, refreshes and delights the mind…. There are no which music will not mitigate, and there are some which it cures” (cited in

Cosman, 1978, p. 3).

Medieval physicians also had particular methods for ensuring that a patient’s state of mind was suitable before surgery, using music. In line with Galenic theory, if the patient was choleric, the surgeon would attempt to regulate his excitable by insisting that tranquil music accompany a particular diet. If, on the other hand, the patient was melancholic they would be prescribed a milk diet with the accompaniment of sensuous, joyful melody (Cosman, 1978).

While some medieval practitioners were concerned with using music for treating melancholic moods, others were concerned with counteracting excessive energy and

76 joy. Gentile da Foligno, for example, recommended musical potions against

“ by joy” (Cosman, 1978, p. 3). An interesting occurrence during this time was the curious phenomenon of “dancing mania”, or tarantism, which swept Europe following the plague in 1374. Large groups of people, sometimes thousands, would wildly in the streets until they collapsed from exhaustion (Cook, 1981).

Curiously, music was found to be one of the best ways of controlling it, and authorities in many towns ordered soft, slow soothing music to be played in the streets and market places until the strange contagion was arrested (Cook, 1981).

Thus although for some centuries in the medieval period, the focus of interest was in the mathematics of music, for physicians the power of music to influence mood continued to be of significance. We see the continual evolution of ancient Greek ideas including the music of the spheres, as well as the use of music to balance specific humoural temperaments and to regulate the pulse. The choice of both the correct melodic mode and rhythmic mode to create the desired balance was considered important. Once again, therefore, physicians recognized the importance of tailoring the musical prescription to the individual.

3.2.3 Renaissance & Elizabethan Eras

Renaissance scholars, especially in Italy, also demonstrate the influence of the ancient

Greeks. A direct line can be traced from the works of Boethius to some of the major writers on music of the Renaissance period such as Gentile da Foligno, Marsilio

Ficino and H. Cornelius Agrippa. There was a particular interest in melancholy around this time as well, becoming a characteristic feature in poetry, art and music in the Elizabethan period (Wells, 1985). Within this period a further synthesis was

77 gradually achieved between the various threads of theory seen in previous centuries, fusing Pythagorean cosmology with Galenic medicine and monastic writings on church modes (Callahan, 2000).

This synthesis is evident in the works of Ramis de Pareja. In his Musica Practica

(1482, cited in Godwin, 1993), he lists the Pythagorean beliefs about the influence of the modes on the humours also drawing upon Islamic Neo-Platonist writings to attribute the power of the modes to particular planets with which they corresponded

(Callahan, 2000) (see Table 2). He gives particular musical prescriptions for altering certain mood states (see Table 1). For example, Dorian mode had the power to dry

‘watery phlegm’ by imparting the power of the sun resulting in equanimity and calm.

Hypophrygian mode could mitigate the effect of yellow bile and soothe the soul with the power of Mercury. Lydian mode was said to reinforce blood producing happiness.

This effect was attributed to the power of Jupiter. Hypolydian and Mixolydian were believed to cause sadness and melancholia, while Hypomixolydian could impart the power of the stars to suppress black bile resulting in happiness and bliss.

Another interesting figure in the history of music and mood regulation is the Italian priest, theologian, astrologer and physician, Marsilio Ficino (1433-99). His work De vita libri tres (Three Books on Life) (1489) also suggested how music might be used to deliberately manipulate the emotions (Gouk, 2004), seeking to unite Platonism with

Christianity (Leach, 2006). Ficino does not prescribe the use of specific modes, but does give detailed descriptions of the musical characteristics of each planet (Callahan,

2000). He also offers a complex set of techniques for creating songs to attract beneficial planetary emanations (Gouk, 2004). In summary he says:

78 From tones chosen by the rule of stars, and then combined in accordance with

the stars’ mutual correspondences, a sort of common form can be made, and in

this a certain celestial virtue will arise (cited in Wells, 1985).

However, Ficino’s thoughts about melancholy were somewhat different from those in the medieval period, believing that it could be beneficial in that it was conducive to contemplation and therefore spirituality (Wells, 1985).

Ficino’s particular understanding of the mechanisms involved, were heavily influenced by Neo-Platonist interpretations of the harmony of the spheres. He believed that sound, by causing the air to vibrate, could connect directly with the ear and thus convey those vibrations to the soul and spirit (Gouk, 2004). Therefore, music, carefully selected, was the most effective means to obtain bodily and spiritual balance and harmony (Wigram et al., 2002). Ficino’s astrological model lasted until the end of the eighteenth century when it was superseded by neurological and mechanical theories (Wigram et al., 2002).

Johannes Tinctoris was a composer and music theorist born in Flanders around the

1440s who also discussed the influence of music on mood. His work entitled

Complexus effectuum musices includes a summary of the ‘functions’ of music giving twenty particular uses. Among them were: “to amplify the joy of the blessed”, “to banish sadness”, “to cause ecstasy”, “to make man happy” (David, 1951, p. 431).

Wegman (1995) writes that in the works of Tinctoris, ‘sweetness’ was an important quality of music, capable of making men joyful, which could equate to the quality of the instrument or voice involved, but was most often associated with consonance (see

Table 1). His own compositions display a for complex, smoothly flowing

79 polyphony (Woodley, 2001). However, once again we see an awareness of the influence of individual differences, with Tinctoris arguing that the joy that could be inspired depended on the extent to which the individual was capable of ‘perceiving’ the nature of music (Wegman, 1995).

Thus in the Renaissance and Elizabethan period we can see a continuation of the merging of the ancient Greek astrological theories pertaining to music, with Galenic theories about humoural temperaments and further theories of composition and aesthetics. A particular interest in melancholy is notable in the era, with even

Shakespeare alluding to music’s power over it in The Merchant of Venice: “But music for the time doth change his nature” (Act V, Scene I).

3.2.4 Baroque Period, Classicism & the Enlightenment

This era saw major changes to the goals of composers and musicians. They began to focus more on the capacity of music to move the emotions and expressly sought to imitate the “passions” or “” (Gouk, 2004). The “doctrine of affections” was a revival of the ideas of antiquity and the idea that different feelings could be represented by particular tonalities, rhythms and motifs (Lang, 1967). This preoccupation with the passions was stimulated in part by a revival of interest in the treatises of Aristotle and Cicero, in particular Aristotle’s Poetics (Palisca, 2001). As they did to the ancient Greeks, particular tonalities came to represent certain emotions. For example, E major was considered to be warm and intense, and keys with multiple flats were considered suggestive of increasing relaxation or despair

(David, 1951). This theory was a product of an age of rationalism in which there was a desire to impose order even on emotions (Nagley & Bujic, 2001).

80 The eighteenth century also saw an important change in the approach of theorists towards the usefulness of music in mood regulation and the treatment of melancholy.

This period saw a great deal more focus upon experimentation and observation in scientific study. With its power to touch the emotions, music began to be seen as belonging firmly in the realm of art rather than being a science of the equal of mathematics and medicine. Much of the belief of previous centuries was categorised as superstition (Gouk, 2004). Thus as interest in music’s power to move the emotions was growing amongst composers, it was becoming of less interest in the world of science.

However, this change of approach motivated some physicians and music theorists to begin more systematic empirical studies of the effects of music on mood, which became the basis of modern music therapy. The ‘doctrine of the passions’ provided a basis for medical theorists to begin to investigate music’s effects on the ‘passions’ in more detail. A growing number of medical practitioners thus became once again interested in the effects of music on mood and disease, especially on melancholia

(Cook, 1981).

Much writing about the use of music to treat melancholia was based on the work of

Ficino (Gouk, 2004). Dr. Robert Burton was one of the first medical practitioners of the period to be come interested in the effect of music upon melancholy. His book

Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) was written from his own experiences with the condition. In it he recommends music as a “sovereign remedy against despair and melancholy” (Memb VI, Subs III). Burton demonstrates an understanding of the varying influences music can have depending on the individual. He argues that in

81 some cases music can “make such melancholy persons mad” citing Plato’s warning that music be carefully used “lest one fire increase another” (Memb VI, Subs III). On the other hand, referring to Aristotle’s doctrine of catharsis, Burton argues:

Many men are melancholy by music, but it is a pleasing melancholy

that is causeth, and therefore to such as are discontent, in woe, fear, sorrow or

dejected, it is a most present remedy: it expels cares, alters their grieved minds

and easeth in an instant (Memb VI, Subs III).

Some accounts still retained a touch of medieval ‘superstition’ however. One such account published in 1677 is of an ‘experiment’ which was carried out using four glasses filled with brandy, wine, water and oil. The different sounds produced by the varying contents of the glasses were thought to correspond to the emotions represented by the four humours of the body and to therefore have the power to correct imbalances in them (Gallo & Finger, 2000). Thus, while still influenced by the beliefs of previous centuries, it can be seen that these beliefs were now becoming the subject of systematic testing. Musical science as we know it was beginning to make an appearance.

Richard Browne’s Medicina Musica, or a Mechanical Essay on the Effects of Singing,

Musick and Dancing (1729), like Ficino’s De vita and Burtin’s book, was aimed at readers with tendencies towards melancholy. Music was recommended as a cure for the spleen, vapors, melancholy and madness (Gouk, 2004). It was particularly designed to appeal to the “fair sex”, whose “tender and delicate constitutions” rendered them the most vulnerable to melancholy. Browne also discussed the causes of “spleen” (a condition similar to melancholy), arguing that it was caused by

82 malfunctions in the secretion of the ‘animal spirits’. Music could be used to treat this because it invigorated and increased flow of the spirits in the body (Gouk, 2004) (see

Table 2).

Another work by a medical practitioner was Richard Brocklesby’s Reflections on

Ancient and Modern Music with the Application to the Cure of Disease (1749). He discusses at length how music can affect the mind, holding that it is necessary for the mind to be in a balanced state without undue influence from any particular emotion.

Both Browne and Brocklesby noted that the same music could have differing effects on different people and that the wrong choice of music could actually worsen symptoms in some conditions (Gouk, 2004).

One of the most famous accounts of the use of music for mood regulation in this period is the story of the male soprano Farinelli who was engaged to perform as treatment for the depression of Philip V, King of Spain (Kamen, 2001; Rorke, 2001).

Princess Izabella Czartoryska of Poland similarly claimed to have been cured of melancholia by the power of music. After Benjamin Franklin invented his glass harmonica in 1761 he played it for the princess who later wrote in a letter that this was the beginning of her recovery (Gallo & Finger, 2000). Franz Anton Mesmer, who believed that ‘animal magnetism’ was an actual fluid which could be strengthened by sound, also used the glass harmonica in his treatment sessions (Gallo & Finger, 2000)

(see Table 2). Music was also reputedly used to treat the depression of George II of

England and King Ludwig of Bavaria (Cook, 1981).

83 During the 1800s the use of music in the treatment of people in asylums was also increasingly popular (Blumer, 1892; Rorke, 2001). Florence Nightingale, in her book on nursing originally published in 1859, also spoke about the benefits of music in improving the state of mind of the sick (Nightingale, 2010). She recommended the use of wind and string instruments as well as the human voice because of their capacity to create continuous sound. She describes them as having a “beneficent effect”, while arguing that the which has no continuity of sound, could actually damage the sick (see Table 1). On the other hand in 1890, Dr. W. T. Weimner had piano music played to 1400 mentally ill women and found that slow music was able to soothe even the most disturbed patients (Cook & Walter, 2005). Dr. Raw in England also found that music was able to console highly disturbed patients (Paul, 1958).

An eighteenth century Englishman, Pargeter, systematically studied the effect of music on mania and argued that compositions needed to be carefully designed to correspond with the particular sufferings of the patient (Mitchell & Zanker, 1948;

Paul, 1958). He is quoted as saying: “a considerable knowledge in music will be requisite to select those compositions and instruments and that arrangement of the instrumental parts as may exactly correspond with the animi... this must be regulated by the feelings of the patient” (cited in Mitchell & Zanker, p. 737).

3.2.5 The Thread Throughout History

As can be seen from the above review, music and its power to treat psychological conditions such as melancholy or depression have had inconsistent popularity amongst scientific thinkers throughout the centuries. It was in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that science became focused on the idea of empirical evidence

84 and statistics (Wigram et al., 2002) and the worlds of science and the arts became separated. The usefulness of music to alter mental states was forgotten or ignored and a disassociation between music and mental life, at least from the point of view of science, occurred. However, despite some philosophical dissenters (Robinson, 1997), the majority of musicians and music lovers throughout the ages appear to have never wavered in the conviction that music could move emotions and alter moods. Whole traditions, such as blues music in jazz, have evolved in order to exorcise melancholy

(Brettingham-Smith, 1993).

Viewpoints as to the mechanisms involved in music’s power to shape moods, have differed over the centuries (see Table 2). Beliefs ranged from music’s power to exert planetary energies, to its capacity to balance bodily fluids and regulate the pulse.

However, from the ancient Greeks such as Pythagoras and Plato, to Italian

Renaissance writers such as Ramis de Pareja and Marsilio Ficino, the common thread has been the link between music and its mood-altering qualities. Many of the theorists mentioned in this section of the thesis, were also composers, and their writings inevitably affected their compositions. Thus the very course of music has been shaped by this underlying belief. Interestingly, at the very point in music history where composers became most interested in the ways music can mimic and evoke emotion, science became less interested.

However, this only stimulated a more systematic empirical approach by some physicians into music’s influence over mental and emotional states. Thus, for at least the last two decades, ancient ideas regarding the connection of mind and body have once again been part of mainstream thinking (Wigram & Saperston, 1995). Music and

85 mood regulation have again become connected in the scientific domain, with a number of systematic studies being conducted to look at the power of music to influence the mind and emotions in day to day life. Modern day researchers may be less certain of the mechanisms involved than the ancient Greeks seemed to be, but research into both the effects of music on emotions and the mechanisms involved will no continue to be an area of fascination to neurologists, psychologists and music therapists in the future (Blood et al., 1999; Field et al., 1998; Juslin & Vastfjall,

2008).

As demonstrated in Table 1, theorists have not always agreed upon the particular types of music which would have the most desirable effect upon mood either. At times modes were believed to be of crucial influence, while at other times and vibration was the core concept. However, it is interesting to trace the understanding amongst many of the great thinkers discussed in this chapter that music was not just of general therapeutic value to all people. Rather, from Aristotle to Pargeter, it was understood that music could have differing effects upon individuals depending on both their temperament and the emotional state requiring treatment. This was the very basis of music’s application to the doctrine of the humours, although not always recognized by therapists today.

The following section will outline some of the current theories about music and mood regulation.

86 3.3 - MOOD MANAGEMENT AND RUMINATION8

The historical overview of music and mood regulation considered in the previous section, revealed that throughout history there has been a long-standing belief in the power of music to influence mood both for better and for worse. Although not based on empirical study, scholars and medical practitioners throughout the ages have recognised based on instinct and observation, that while music can be used effectively to promote healthy emotional states, it also has the potential to promote unhealthy ones.

Strangely, as the literature review covered in Chapter 2 demonstrates, this is an idea that appears to have been largely forgotten in more recent decades in relation to the subject of why people listen to music evoking negative emotions. The explanations and associated personality traits that have been considered in earlier sections of this thesis as having potential involvement in the enjoyment of sad music (Sections 2.1-

2.4), all relate to quite rational motives for listening to sad music which involve either gaining pleasure from the listening or other psychological benefits. However, it is possible that not all listeners have such rational motives or that listening to sad music will involve healthy outcomes for everyone. This section will review more current theories about music and mood regulation and consider the argument that while some listeners may use music evoking negative emotions to help them ‘manage’ negative moods, others may use it maladapatively in such a way that reinforces the negative emotion.

8 Some parts of Section 3.3 have been published as: Garrido, S. (2009). Rumination and sad music: A review of the literature and a future direction. In Catherine Stevens, E. Schubert, B. Kruithof, K. Buckley & S. Fazio (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference of Music Communication.

87 3.3.1 Music Listening Choices and Mood Regulation

One influential theory in relation to the use of media in mood regulation is the theory of mood management (Knobloch & Zillmann, 2002; Zillmann, 1988). This theory assumes that individuals seek to diminish bad moods, and to perpetuate good moods.

Thus the assumption is that choices in music will reflect that intention. However, this does not explain why people at times choose to listen to sad music or to watch sad films. The theory also assumes that all listening choices reflect adaptive methods of emotional regulation. However, as Strizhakova & Krcmar (2007) state, “..we do not always want or indeed strive to be in a good, upbeat mood” (p. 110).

Several theories suggest motivations that may override the hedonistic ones of mood management theory. Nabi et al. (2006) argue that the consumption of media relevant to one’s life may assist in coping with feelings of regret. Levinson suggested that some people listen to sad music because it gives them an opportunity to experience such emotions in a non-threatening context (1990b). However, these arguments all imply once again that these are deliberate strategies to help the listener achieve emotional balance.

Another important theory in relation to mood management is the optimal-stimulation theory. Since both under-stimulation and over-stimulation can be unpleasant, it has been argued that an individual will seek to optimise their level of arousal (Zentall &

Zentall, 1983). This theory, known as the “optimal stimulation theory” based on the work of Berlyne (1971, 1972)and others (see for example Duffy, 1962; Fiske &

Maddi, 1961), assumes that for each individual there is an ideal level of arousal that is

88 most comfortable and productive. The level most comfortable to an individual and the type of stimuli they will choose to achieve this can vary depending on factors such as the intelligence of the individual, whether they are introverted or extroverted, and how much stimulation they are experiencing at the time of listening within their environment (Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2007; Rentfrow & Gosling, 2003).

With regard to music listening choices, therefore, this theory would predict that if an individual is in a low mood state, that they would choose more energetic music in order to become more awakened. Alternatively, if a person is feeling over-stimulated or over-emotional, they might choose calming and relaxing music in order to lower their state of arousal.

While these motivations may be involved in the listening choices of some people, there may also be some whose motivations are not quite so rational. Evidence indicates that certain maladaptive thinking patterns may also be predictors of an attraction to sad music. Studies of mood management theory have typically found that people tend to choose media which will improve or sustain positive moods. However, other studies report differing results amongst subjects suffering from depression. A study of adolescents with major depressive disorder (Dillman Carpentier et al., 2008) found that when experiencing a negative mood, subjects did not often use media to improve their moods. The authors claim that little attention has been given to how mental health may affect choice of media. Similarly, in contrast to what optimal stimulation theory would predict, Punkanen, Eerola and Erkkila (2011) found that depressed patients displayed a dislike of energetic music. Once again, these apparent exceptions to mood management and optimal arousal theories may be an indication that individual differences in mood regulation strategies may be involved. The

89 following section will discuss a particular personality trait which may have an underlying association with the individual differences in mood regulation in evidence in the literature.

3.3.2 Rumination

The word ‘rumination’ in its original sense refers to the way cows and other animals regurgitate partially digested food to chew over it more thoroughly ("Rumination,"

1989). In psychology it refers to bringing a thought back to mind over and over

(Joorman, 2005). Depression is strongly related to a tendency to ruminate (Nolen-

Hoeksema, 1991a).

While there is no unified definition or standardized way of measuring rumination

(Smith & Alloy, 2009), one of the most widely used understandings of rumination is

Nolen-Hoeksema’s (1991a) description of it as thinking repetitively and passively about one’s depressive symptoms, their causes and consequences. Joorman (2005) gives a somewhat broader description of it as an involuntary focus on negative and pessimistic thoughts about one’s self, the world and the future (see also Conway,

Csank, Holm, & Blake, 2000). Rumination appears to be response style which is stable over long time periods rather than a transitive state (Smith & Alloy, 2009).

Rumination in this sense can be distinguished from ‘reflective private self- attentiveness’. This distinction was proposed by Trapnell and Campbell (1999) as a solution to the ‘self-absorption paradox,’ the fact that a disposition to reflect and to examine the self is viewed as a highly adaptive and psychologically healthy trait, but

90 it is also associated with neuroticism, depression and poor self-esteem. Trapnell and

Campbell argued that it is the ruminative rather than the reflective aspect of private self-focus which is maladaptive. Thus it would likely be rumination in this sense that would cause a depression sufferer to choose music that will not help improve their mood.

Research indicates that conditions such as Major Depressive Disorder do in fact, affect the sufferer’s capacity for mood regulation. Depression is described as a disorder of affect dysregulation with associated behaviour that prolongs sad feelings and reduces motivation to do things that would improve mood (Forbes & Dahl, 2005).

Rumination seems to keep depressogenic schemata active and hinders more active coping strategies (Spasojevic & Alloy, 2001) thus prolonging a depressed mood

(Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991a). Therefore, rumination may be an important influence on the music choices of depression sufferers.

Since the effects of rumination here described generally appear to be detrimental, the question remains as to why people engage in it. Bradley et al. (1997) suggest that this attentional bias may occur because of a difficulty in detaching from negative input once it has come to attention. There may be inhibitory mechanisms which are malfunctioning. Evidence suggests that depression involves an attentional bias towards negative stimuli (Bradley et al., 1997; Gotlib et al., 2004). Dysphoric students are slower to name the colour of an ink when it spells a word of negative valence

(Gotlib & McCann, 1984) and form more negative sentences from scrambled words than others, even when no longer dysphoric (Wenzlaff & Bates, 1998). Rumination is

91 also associated with a tendency to interpret facial expressions as conveying negative emotions (Raes et al., 2006) and with a recall of negatively biased memories

(Lyubomirsky, Caldwell, & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1998).

Dysphorics induced to engage in self-focused rumination also demonstrate reduced willingness to engage in pleasant, distracting activities that could lift their moods, even when they believe they would enjoy those activities (Lyubomirsky & Nolen-

Hoeksema, 1993). Siegle, Steinhauer, Thase et al (2002) found that whereas non- depressed individuals displayed amygdala responses to all stimuli that quickly decayed after offset, depressed individuals displayed sustained amygdala responses to negative words. It is possible that since negative thoughts are habitual in depressed people it takes more controlled attention and therefore more effort to attend to non- negative material (Hertel, 2004).

Alternatively, Moulds et al. (2007) propose that rumination may be an avoidance strategy which allows the ruminator to evade active engagement in problem-solving

(see also Watkins & Moulds, 2005). Some researchers also argue that ruminators believe it will help them gain insight into their problems (Lyubomirsky & Nolen-

Hoeksema, 1993; Papageorgiou & Wells, 2001; Watkins, 2004; Watkins & Baracaia,

2001).

However, Smith & Alloy (2009) suggest that labelling rumination as a conscious and controlled thinking process, rather than unconscious or automatic, may be inaccurate.

Most studies rely on self-report measures which require that participants have access

92 to their own thought processes. As well as being unaware of the processes at work, ruminators may also feel a need to justify such maladaptive practices, even to themselves. In fact rather than being a conscious coping strategy, Silk et al. (2003) characterized rumination as an involuntary response, one that “may or may not be under conscious awareness and are not enacted volitionally” (p. 1870). Therefore, it is possible that for many people rumination is a habitual thinking pattern which would take a great deal of effort to disengage from. Thus, as Lyubomirsky and Nolen-

Hoeksema (1993) suggest, ruminators may not engage in distracting activities because

“they lack the efficacy to do so” (p. 346). Therefore, cognitive therapy for depression sufferers largely focuses on teaching people to retrain this type of thinking (Wright &

Beck, 1983).

3.2.3 Music and Rumination

If ruminators find it difficult to disengage from negative stimuli, and indeed demonstrate an attentional bias towards it, it follows that this would be also be apparent in their listening choices. A study by Bodner et al. (2007) was designed to look at ways to circumvent the verbal barriers to expressing emotion of many patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). It was found that depressed subjects chose more descriptive labels in response to sad music than to other excerpts. Patients were played passages of classical music chosen to display sadness, happiness, fear and anger. Depressed patients showed a heightened response to the sad excerpts, while the control group showed the opposite response (p. 148).

Huter, Schellenberg and Schimmack (2010) claimed that sad music may help listeners remain in contact with their sad emotions, and thus ultimately help these feelings to

93 dissipate. Similarly, Saarikallio and Erkkila (2007) argued that although reflecting on a sad experience while listening to sad-sounding music may increase depressive feelings in the short run, it may improve the mood in the long term by helping the listeners to improve their understanding of the sad experience. Chen et al. (2007) predicted that most people in a sad mood would be attracted to negative media initially, but that after some time would feel motivated to diminish their negative mood. This was confirmed by their study. However, they also found that ruminators spent more time on distressing music than non-ruminators and seemed to lack the desire to rid themselves of their negative mood.

The studies mentioned above indicate that within a laboratory setting, ruminators appear to have a stronger response towards the sad music they are presented with.

However, these studies have not examined the question of the subjects’ own preferences and what they choose to listen to outside of the contrived setting of the laboratory. They also have not accounted for the affect of genre preferences and familiarity on the response of participants (Schubert, 2007a). In addition, the question of whether or not the listening experience actually results in an improved mood does not appear to have been considered. It is possible that just as rumination is often involuntary behaviour which does not result in an improved mood, so the music listening behaviour of ruminators may not be beneficial for them despite the rational goals they may profess. Some people may be overly attracted to sad music or other media precisely because of a tendency towards melancholy or dysphoria even though their choice of music in fact perpetuates this state.

94 Rentfrow and Gosling (2003) thus report findings indicating that depressed people commonly chose music which sustained their melancholic mood. They did not, however, identify whether rumination may be the aspect of depression most strongly implicated. Similarly, Miranda and Claes (2009) found that music used as part of a maladaptive coping style was associated with depression in the adolescents in their study. Interestingly, in relation to film preferences, Oliver (1993) found that people who scored highly on ‘sadness orientation’ were amongst those most likely to choose sad films (p.336). A similar result may be found in relation to rumination and music choices. Although a sad mood may motivate some people to choose music that will help repair their mood, rumination and the accompanying depression likely disrupts this process.

Therefore, while individual personality traits such as dissociation may allow some to experience pleasure when listening to sad music (Schubert, 1996, 2007a), others may exhibit a preference for cheerful music. Some, such as Trapnell & Campbell’s

‘reflective’ types (1999) may have various psychologically healthy reasons for listening to sad music at certain times. However, there are likely a number of people who are attracted to sad music despite the fact that it may perpetuate dysphoria.

Habitual ruminators and those suffering from clinical or undiagnosed depression appear to have an involuntary bias towards negative stimuli and therefore may provide an exception to mood management theory.

95 SUMMARY

 An overview of the history of music in mood regulation reveals that since at

least the time of the Ancient Greeks, there has been a pervasive belief amongst

scholars and medical practitioners that music has the power to influence

moods both for the better and for the worse and that individual temperament is

an important consideration in prescribing music for therapeutic purposes.

 The philosophical discussion in relation to why people listen to music evoking

negative emotions in more recent decades appears to have lost this earlier

understanding of the importance of individual differences and the possible

negative effect on moods that music may have.

 Mood management theory assumes that individuals choose music which will

help them to diminish bad moods, and to perpetuate good moods. Similarly,

optimal stimulation theory predicts that people will choose music that will

optimise their level of arousal to one which is the most pleasant/comfortable.

However, people do not always appear to have these kinds of rational

motivations all the time, nor does music listening necessarily always involve

such beneficial outcomes.

 Rumination is highly correlated with depression and involves an attentional

bias towards negative stimuli. It is therefore likely that people with mood

regulation disorders and strong tendencies to rumination may find they are

unable to disengage from music evoking negative emotions despite the fact

that listening to it perpetuates their dysphoria. This may therefore prove to be

an exception to mood management theory.

96

CHAPTER 4 – SUMMARY OF THE LITERATURE REVIEW

97 SUMMARY OF THE LITERATURE REVIEW

Since it seems implausible that listeners could actually be enjoying the experience of negative emotions in music, most philosophers have concluded that ‘real’ emotions are not involved. Cognitivists for example, argue that although we perceive emotions in music we do not experience them ourselves. Emotivists argue that a special set of aesthetic emotions are experienced.

The various explanations for our attraction to negative emotions in aesthetic contexts can be classified into five groups: compensatory/functional explanations, organicist explanations, conversionary, revisionary and deflationary explanations.

While many of these explanations are convincing to a certain extent, most of them do not consider the possibility that some listeners actually enjoy the experience of sadness. They rely instead on redefining emotion in order to fit the phenomenon, or on explaining why people may tolerate the experience of sadness in order to gain some greater benefit.

There has also been little consideration of the influence of individual personality differences which may account for the conflicting explanations from the various philosophical camps. Most authors discuss the issue at a personal level based on their own experiences, which may differ due to their own individual characteristics.

However, Schubert’s Dissociation Theory of Emotion in Aesthetic Contexts is a mechanistic explanation which may begin to explain some of the different responses that individuals have to music evoking negative emotions. This theory

98 argues that in aesthetic contexts some people are able to dissociate or disconnect the displeasure that would normally be associated with sadness. Absorption is the most commonly experienced aspect of dissociation experienced in non-clinical populations. This may therefore be the aspect most implicated in the experience of negative emotions evoked by music. If displeasure is in fact dissociated as

Schubert argues, this lends plausibility to some of the other philosophical arguments given in the literature such as catharsis. The fact that the experience would not be unpleasant would then allow music to provide a comfortable medium from which to seek some of the other psychological benefits that are proposed in the literature.

However, it is also important to consider the possibility that not all listeners have such rational motivations, nor will music listening always result in such positive outcomes. Despite the fact that this appears to have been understood for centuries since at least the time of the Ancient Greeks, more modern philosophical discussions do not consider this possibility (see Section 3.2).

Rumination is highly correlated with depression and involves an attentional bias towards negative stimuli. It is therefore likely that people with mood regulation disorders and strong tendencies to rumination may find they are unable to disengage from music evoking negative emotions despite the fact that listening to it perpetuates their dysphoria.

The fact that capacities for dissociation and absorption differ from person to person makes it possible to use pre-established psychometric tests to examine

99 whether these personality differences may be behind varying individual responses to music evoking negative emotions. Imagination, empathy, and a specialized form of ‘music empathy’ are all closely associated with dissociation and it is therefore possible that these other personality traits are also connected to individual response to music evoking negative emotions. These traits too, along with rumination, are possible to measure using pre-established psychological instruments.

Therefore, following a review of the literature cited in Chapters 2 and 3, it was decided to conduct a series of studies designed to investigate whether there are correlations between any of the personality traits discussed above and the enjoyment of sad music. Chapter 5 reports on the first of those studies.

100

CHAPTER 5 – STUDY 1

101 5.1 – RATIONALE FOR THIS STUDY 9

The review of the literature considered in Chapter 2 has revealed a paucity of empirical investigation in the discussion about why people listen to music evoking negative emotions thus far. In addition, there has been little consideration of the influence of individual personality differences in relation to this topic.

This study, therefore, was intended to conduct an empirical test of some of the possible personality correlations that might be involved. The particular personality traits chosen for investigation in this study were based on associations proposed in the literature. One of the most intriguing of these is Schubert’s Dissociation Theory of

Emotion in Aesthetic Contexts (1996) (see Section 2.3). This theory could be tested by looking at individual levels of both dissociation in a broad sense, and the narrower facet of dissociation experienced more commonly in daily life, absorption. Empathy is also discussed at length by several authors in relation to sad music listening (see

Section 2.4), providing another possible source of individual differences in response to sad music which can be measured. In addition, the literature on both absorption and empathy argue that there are connections between these two personality traits and that of imagination and fantasy-proneness. Therefore, these will be examined in the current study as well.

Additionally, there is some question as to whether sad music may at times be a part of maladaptive mood regulation strategies and other unhealthy patterns of behaviour associated with mood disorders such as depression. It was argued (see Section 3.3) that rumination, in particular, may be a behavioural pattern which could lead some

9 Parts of this chapter have been published as Garrido, S. & Schubert, E. (2011) Individual differences in the enjoyment of negative emotion in music: A literature review and experiment. Music Perception, 28, 279-295.

102 listeners to listen to sad music even though it perpetuates their dysphoria. Therefore, rumination will be a part of the current study.

5.2 - HYPOTHESES

The analysis of the literature contained in Chapter 2 suggests the following set of hypotheses regarding the relationships between various individual characteristics and an enjoyment of negative emotion in music.

1. Individuals who score highly on dissociation or its normative manifestation

absorption will show a high capacity to enjoy negative emotion in music.

2. Other individuals who demonstrate a strong faculty for empathy or its more

specific form ‘music empathy’ will also demonstrate a liking for music

inducing negative emotions.

In addition, a positive association between rumination and a propensity to listen to sad music was predicted in some individuals, although this would involve listening to sad music without necessarily enjoying it. Similarly, since rumination is a maladaptive response, it was not expected that this would be associated with a liking for sad music in each case, but that it may be implicated with some individuals. In such situations it was hypothesized that dissociation as proposed by Schubert (1996) would not take place. Rather, despite not dissociating from the ‘pain,’ such individuals choose to listen to sad music regardless.

No particular predictions were made with regards to fantasy-proneness. Rather, this variable was included as an exploratory measure in order to discover whether it may

103 be involved in the dissociation model, or whether it may be necessary in order for listeners to be capable of engaging with the music as proposed in some of the philosophical literature.

5.3 - METHOD

5.3.1 Participants

Participants were 59 students at the University of New South Wales. Most were undergraduate music students and students partaking in a general music subject, but with no music prerequisites. They participated in the study in exchange for course credit. Three participants were postgraduate music students, for whom participation was voluntary.

Participants had a mean age of 22.27 years (range 18 to 42 years). The sample was composed of 26 females and 33 males. Most participants described themselves as having had extensive formal training in music (61%), with 32.2% describing themselves as self-educated or having extensive knowledge of music from listening.

5.3.2 Procedure

An online format survey was chosen because of the cost-effectiveness of this method, as well as the faster transmission and response time that online surveys can offer compared to paper surveys (Schonlau, Fricker, Elliott, & Fricker Jnr, 2007). In addition, most of the participants of the survey, being students, had easy access to and were comfortable using online methods. An additional advantage to online surveys as

Hawkes (2004) argues, is that due to the increased privacy of electronic surveys compared to paper surveys, response rate may be higher and responses more candid.

104 5.3.3 Measures

The instrument used was a cross-sectional survey of 93 items. Apart from the first and last five questions, the survey was designed using subscales for each of the predictor variables drawn from studies by various authors. The direction of responses in the

Likert scales were mixed both to avoid response set bias and to match the rating schedules used in the instruments from which each individual scale was drawn. The first five questions asked for background information: gender, age, frequency of music listening, importance of music, and knowledge of music. The remaining items are listed in Appendix 1 and are described below.

Music Empathy.

The scale for the predictor variable of empathy was examined using two different scales, one for general empathy and one for music empathy. Kreutz, Schubert, and

Mitchell (2008) developed an instrument for the measurement of ‘music empathisizing’ by adapting a general empathisizing-systemizing measure

(Wakabayashi et al., 2006) to music. This scale was designed to investigate empathy as a cognitive style of processing music, rather than as a general trait. The authors reported that their scales were found to be internally consistent and reliable and results aligned with that of the general empathy scale. Reliability was reported as .69

(Chronbach’s alpha) for the music empathy subscale (Kreutz, Schubert et al., 2008).

The short form of the musical empathy scale developed in that study, involving nine items, was used in the present study (see items M01 to M09 in Appendix 1). The original scale used a 4-point Likert response scale (“3” = “strongly agree” and “-3” =

“strongly disagree” with intermediate points scored using 1, and -1 as described in

Kreutz et al. (2008, p. 61). The original scale was preserved in this study.

105

Empathic Concern.

The scale for general empathy was drawn from the Interpersonal Reactivity Index

(IRI, Davis, 1980). The 28-item IRI is a self-report measure that examines four subscales of empathy: perspective-taking, fantasy scale, empathic concern, personal distress (Davis, 1983). The IRI was developed to assess the cognitive aspects and the emotional aspects of empathy on separate scales. The decision was made to use the

Empathic Concern scale in the current study because it was one of the scales designed to measure emotional reactivity in empathy, which is most pertinent to examining individual response to negative emotion in music. The scale was designed to assess feelings of “sympathy and concern for unfortunate others” (Davis, 1983, p. 114).

Davis (1980) reported that the four 7-item scales in the IRI were developed by first using a 45-item measure and then reducing the number of items by choosing those that were loaded most heavily for both sexes in their respective factors. The internal reliability coefficients (standardized alpha) were .72 for males and .70 for females for the Empathic Concern subscale. An independent sample completed the questionnaire a second time after an interval of about two months in order to test reliability over time, and satisfactory temporal stability was found. In a later study, Davis (1983) tested the IRI against measures of other personality traits and against other empathy measures, and found that the IRI scales exhibited the predicted relationships with these other measures, further confirming the measure’s reliability. The IRI has been used successfully in other independent studies (Jackson, Meltzoff, & Decety, 2005;

Litvack-Miller, McDougall, & Romney, 1997). The 5-point Likert response scale of the original instrument was retained for use in this study (“A” = “does not describe

106 me well” scored as 0 and “E” = “describes me very well” scored as 4). Six items were selected for the present study, listed as E01 to E06 in Appendix 1.

Absorption.

Absorption is one of the most commonly studied subcomponents of dissociation

(Ross, 1996). Ross (1996, p. 10) reports that the other two subcomponents of dissociation tend to be associated with pathological dissociation. Absorption was therefore measured separately in this study in order to investigate the possibility that it is this aspect of dissociation that is involved in the enjoyment of negative emotion in music. The measure for absorption was taken from the Absorption, Intellectance and

Liberalism Questionnaire (AIT). This instrument included a 12-item subscale for absorption drawn from the Tellegen Absorption Scale. The TAS is one of the most commonly used measures of absorption and was included in the Multidimensional

Personality Questionnaire (Tellegen, 1982).

The AIT is reported by the authors (p. 117) to have high reliability (Carmine’s theta), with the absorption subscale scoring .84. The AIT used a 5-point Likert response scale

(“1” = “strongly disagree“ and “5” = “strongly agree”), which was retained in the current study. The 12 items are listed as items A01 to A12 in Appendix 1.

Fantasy proneness.

The variable of imagination and fantasy proneness was examined using a selection of six items (F01 to F06 in Appendix 1) from the Fantasy Scale from the IRI (discussed above). This scale was designed to measure the tendency to “imaginatively transpose oneself into fictional situations (e.g. books, movies, daydreams)” (Davis, 1980, p. 96).

107 The internal reliability coefficients reported by Davis (1980) (standardized alpha) were .78 for males and .75 for females for the fantasy subscale. As with the empathy subscale (discussed above) the original 5-point Likert scale was used.

Rumination.

Rumination was tested using the Rumination-Reflection Questionnaire (RRQ,

Trapnell & Campbell, 1999). The rumination subscale of the RRQ was developed based on a discussion of the distinction between the traits of neuroticism and openness to experience from the five-factor model of personality and their association with depression. The final version of the scale was a 24-item questionnaire designed to assess the instance of chronic self-attention and focus on negative thoughts about the past. The authors reported that the internal consistency analysis yielded a score of .91

(Chronbach’s alpha). The RRQ has become a commonly used instrument to measure rumination (Elliott & Ioker, 2008; Joireman, Parrott, & Hammersla, 2002; Wolfe,

Knight, Buck, Liwslu, & Somers, 2003). Questions were answered using a 5-point

Likert scale response pattern (“1” = “strongly disagree“ and “5” = “strongly agree”) as in the original scale by Trapnell and Campbell (1999). Eleven items from the set were selected for the present questionnaire; they are listed in Appendix 1 as items R01 to R11.

Dissociation.

Given the argument that the dimensions of dissociation including absorption are symptoms of a single underlying process (Briere et al., 2005; Van Ijzendoorn &

Schuengel, 1996), it was decided to test dissociation separately from absorption.

There are four primary self-report scales that have been developed for measuring

108 dissociation (Ray, 1996): the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES, Bernstein &

Putnam, 1986), the Perceptual Alteration Scale (PAS, Sanders, 1986), the

Dissociation Questionnaire (DIS-Q, Vanderlinden, Van Dyck, Vandereycken, &

Vertommen, 1993), and the Questionnaire of Experiences of Dissociation (QED,

Riley, 1988). Ray (1996) reported that the DES and the QED were the best available scales of dissociation available at the time, in terms of brief assessments based on large-scale samples. Various studies have reported that the two scales show significant correlations and equivalent validity (Gilbertson et al., 1992; Gleaves et al.,

1995; Kihlstrom et al., 1994; Ray & , 1995).

Since the QED was developed on normal young-adult subjects and the response scale used was preferred (true/false as opposed to ‘frequency/gradient’ responding in the

DES), for the purposes of this study, the QED was chosen. The 26 items in the questionnaire ranged from everyday experiences of dissociation such as daydreaming, to more pathological states such as dissociative fugue (see items D01 to D26 of

Appendix 1). Its reported reliability is .77 (Cronbach’s alpha) (Ray & Faith, 1995).

Exploratory variables.

The last part of the questionnaire consisted of questions designed to examine the emotional experiences of the subjects while listening to music, and in particular the dependent variable of enjoyment of negative emotion in music. Subjects were asked to indicate to what extent they agreed with five statements, including the extent to which they like music that makes them feel sad, whether they only like sad music if it resolves happily, or if they like all “good” music whether happy or sad (see items Q01

109 to Q05 in Appendix 1). Answers were given on a 5-point Likert scale (“1” =

“strongly disagree” and “5” = “strongly agree”).

5.3.4 Scoring

To investigate the relationship between an attraction to sad music and the predictor variables of music empathy, empathy, absorption, fantasy proneness, rumination, and dissociation, scale scores on each of the predictor variables were calculated. The music empathy scale score was calculated by assigning a simplified unit weighting of

1 or -1 if the question was in the negative to each item as described by Kreutz,

Schubert, and Mitchell (2008). The total score consisted of the sum of the simplified unit scores minus thirteen. The empathic concern subscale from the IRI (Davis, 1980) was calculated by adding the scores on each item after reverse-scoring the items expressed in the negative. The fantasy scale from the IRI was calculated similarly.

Items from the QED measure of dissociation (Riley, 1988) were given a score of 1 if answered ‘true’ and 0 if answered ‘false’, except for negative items that were given 0 for ‘true’ and 1 for ‘false.’ The total score was the sum of each item. The absorption subscale from the AIT (Glisky & Kihlstrom, 1993) contained no items in the negative so the final score was the sum of all items. After reverse-scoring negative items in the rumination subscale of the RRQ, the mean item response was obtained as described by Trapnell (1997).

110 5.4 - RESULTS

Preliminary analysis showed that 30 participants out of 59 either agreed or strongly agreed to liking sad-evoking music which is comparable to the 10 out of 25 reported by Schubert (2010). Of these, none claimed that they only liked sad music that resolved happily. Most of the participants rated themselves on a four point scale (1 low, 4 high) with music being high in importance to them (M = 3.80, SD = .58), and having high knowledge about music (M = 3.34, SD = .96). There were no differences according to gender on any of the variables, with the exception of music empathy, t(57) = 2.09, p = .003, with females scoring higher (M = 4.07, SD = .98) than males

(M = 3.24, SD = 1.84).

Data were further analysed in three ways to investigate the hypotheses that enjoyment of negative emotion in music is related to personality. First, a correlation analysis of subscale scores with the enjoyment of negative emotions item (Q01) was conducted to see if overall subscale patterns could be identified. Second, a regression model of subscale scores onto Q01 was performed. Finally, a factor analysis was used to check how the items of the subscales aligned and with which factors, if any, the exploratory variables aligned.

Table 3 shows the results of a Pearson correlation analysis between all seven variables

(including liking for sad music). The strongest positive correlation was between absorption and liking for sad music, r(57) = .48, p < .001. There was a similar positive correlation between a liking for sad music and music empathy, r(57) = .43, p < .01.

General empathy was also significant (p = .03). In this case no significance was found with dissociation as measured by the QED.

111

Table 3 Pearson Correlations with ‘I like to listen to music which makes me feel sadness or grief’.

“I like to listen to music which makes Rumination me feel sadness Mean Item or grief." Music Empathy Empathy Absorption Fantasy Responses Music Empathy .425** Empathy .279* -.046 Absorption .481** .302* .429** Fantasy .181 -.016 .366** .416** Rumination Mean Item Responses .186 -.056 .354** .127 .429** Dissociation Scale (QED) .187 -.014 .381** .257* .335** .256 Note: * p < .05. ** p < .01

SPSS software was used to conduct an ordinary least squares stepwise regression of

all subscale scores onto the exploratory variable Q01 (enjoyment of felt negative

emotion) producing two coefficients in the final model that were entered with

criterion of probability of F to enter <= .05. These were Absorption and Music

Empathy, with roughly equal contributions of each (based on standardized

coefficients of .39 and .31 respectively, see Table 4). Empathic Concern, Fantasy

Proneness, Rumination, and QED subscale scores were not entered into the regression

equation based on the criterion probability of F to remove >= .10. Adjusted R2 for

this model was .29.

112 Table 4

Co-efficients for Stepwise Regression Model of ‘I like to listen to music which makes me feel sadness or grief.’

B Std. Beta t Sig. Error (Constant) .595 .609 .977 .333 Absorption .049 .015 .388 3.355 .001 Music Empathising .201 .075 .308 2.663 .010

A factor analysis of all items was conducted. The loadings for a five factor solution with varimax rotation are shown in Table 5. This solution explained 46% of the variance in responses. The Rumination subscale items produced the most consistent clustering (factor 1) and explained the highest proportion of variance (12%), with two negatively loaded items (R01 and R02) corresponding to questions phrased in the negative (see Appendix 1). Music Empathy items clustered into factor 2, and explained an additional 11% of the variance. Four of the six Fantasy Proneness items loaded onto this factor. Absorption subscale items were distributed across factors 2 and 3, but since factor 3 consisted of mostly Absorption subscale items (that is, with few other significantly loaded items > .40), it was labelled ‘absorption.’ Factor 4 was the most disparate with respect to the subscale representation, with several Empathic

Concern items negatively loading onto it, but also Fantasy Proneness and Dissociation items. Because of the detached nature and lacking empathy that emerged in this factor, it was decided to label it ‘aloofness’ (Goldberg, 1990; Gridley, 2006). The fifth factor aligned with some of the Dissociation items, and was labelled accordingly.

Next, the factors with which the exploratory variables aligned were examined. Of most interest in the present study, Q01 (enjoyment of negative emotion felt) aligned

113 with the absorption factor with a loading of .63, but small loadings onto the other factors. None of the other exploratory variables had loadings of greater than .40 onto this factor.

Table 5

Factor Loading Matrix

Rumination Music Empathy Absorption Aloofness Dissociation Item Code* 1 2 3 4 5 M01 -.096 -.705 .236 .210 -.250 M02 -.069 -.765 .108 .184 .063

M03 -.205 -.756 .253 .171 -.106 M04 -.167 -.722 -.110 .316 -.028 M05 .296 .549 -.213 .010 .366 M06 -.050 -.497 .123 .244 -.203 M07 .114 .437 .119 .055 .468 Music Music Empathy M08 .259 .668 -.189 .159 .179 M09 .408 .287 .106 .054 .338 E01 .137 -.087 .574 -.408 .003

E02 -.060 .082 -.253 .712 .083 E03 .056 .026 .621 -.350 -.046 E04 .171 .188 .024 .598 -.027 Concern Empathic Empathic E05 .201 .362 .257 -.346 .146 E06 -.033 -.011 -.210 .762 .121 A01 .064 .381 .314 .011 .167 A02 .014 .179 .711 -.151 .171 A03 .088 .090 .517 -.233 .001 A04 .219 .720 .125 .192 .066 A05 -.351 .029 .594 .090 .097 A06 -.213 -.112 .694 .182 -.045 A07 .065 .087 .681 .040 .037 A08 -.143 -.028 .741 -.001 -.192 A09 -.129 -.002 .590 .060 -.162 A10 -.092 .590 .525 .172 .043

Absorption A11 .234 .487 .380 .024 .312 A12 -.231 -.060 .553 .143 -.504 A13 .359 .562 .140 .101 -.010 A14 .127 .591 .393 -.147 -.152 A15 -.013 -.132 -.097 .592 .080 A16 .250 -.235 -.293 .529 .062 A17 .161 .564 .075 .174 -.069 A18 .086 .804 .036 .153 .068

R01 .757 .368 -.205 .085 .083 R02 -.630 -.115 .155 .381 .038 Rumi nation R03 -.666 -.167 .241 .173 .070

114 R04 .826 .138 -.029 -.016 -.118 R05 .809 .190 -.042 -.042 -.014 R06 .873 .238 -.129 .071 .003 R07 .755 .070 .077 .020 -.031

R08 .842 -.005 .101 .100 -.017 R09 -.679 -.198 .021 .280 -.094 R10 .581 .148 .101 .344 .111 R11 .788 .074 .050 .181 -.018 D01 -.326 -.116 .006 -.350 .367 D02 -.147 -.158 .193 -.234 .445 D03 -.017 .091 -.216 -.191 .614 D04 -.512 -.093 -.097 -.322 .283 D05 -.273 -.272 -.028 -.331 .248 D06 -.271 -.163 -.219 -.360 .291 D07 .414 .203 -.120 -.021 -.353 D08 -.087 .185 -.113 .049 .632 D09 -.002 .136 -.099 .085 .589 D10 -.047 .232 -.187 -.109 -.158

D11 -.059 .111 -.406 -.157 .401 D12 .283 .080 -.371 .155 .363 D13 -.099 -.241 -.172 -.459 .300 D14 .050 -.332 -.038 -.070 .384 D15 .161 .059 -.039 -.147 -.537 Dissociation D16 -.181 .279 -.330 -.200 .330 D17 .164 .281 -.149 .182 -.151 D18 -.002 .054 -.121 -.160 -.566 D19 .228 .102 -.391 .115 .052 D20 .068 .026 .185 -.012 -.183 D21 .390 .496 -.027 .011 -.283 D22 -.244 -.237 -.261 -.079 .224 D23 .181 .177 -.144 .145 -.193 D24 -.037 -.176 .311 -.126 -.387 D25 .133 .181 -.031 .026 -.071 D26 .156 .088 .027 -.502 -.291 Q01 .177 -.127 .627 -.143 -.068

Q02 -.266 -.221 .166 -.001 -.409 Q03 -.391 -.133 -.028 .013 -.385 Q04 -.077 .003 .030 -.581 -.025 questions

Exploratory Exploratory Q05 .091 .152 -.188 -.399 .111

Eigenvalue 8.87 8.18 6.94 5.3 5.13 % of Variance 11.83 10.9 9.25 7.07 6.84 Squared Squared Sums Sums of Rotation Rotation

Loadings Cumulative % 11.83 22.73 31.98 39.05 45.88 Loadings ≥ 0.4 in bold. *See Appendix 1 for item descriptions

115 5.5 - DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

This study was intended to conduct an empirical investigation into the argument that the enjoyment of negative emotion in music could be explained in part by individual differences. The study specifically investigated five such sources of differences: empathy, absorption, fantasy proneness, rumination, and dissociation. After a questionnaire-based study of 59 participants was conducted, it was found that half of the sample reported enjoyment of felt negative emotion in music to at least some degree.

The paradox of why some people are attracted to negative emotion in music is a complex issue that seems to have no single answer. Rather, numerous factors appear to be interacting in the diverse responses of individuals to music. Various personality traits may allow some to experience pleasure when listening to sad music, while others may exhibit a preference for cheerful music alone. Some, such as Trapnell and

Campbell’s (1999) ‘reflective’ types may have various psychologically healthy reasons for listening to sad music at certain times. However, there are likely a number of people who are attracted to sad music despite the fact that it may perpetuate dysphoria.

The idea that listeners’ responses to negative emotions in music will differ from individual to individual is a point that seems generally to be ignored by many writers covering the topic of the paradox of sad music enjoyment. If it can be accepted that real emotions can be experienced based on an imaginary object, no matter how amorphous, then differences in capacities for imagination and empathy in various personalities may go some way towards explaining the diverse reactions people have.

116

The dissociation hypothesis provides a persuasive idea of the cognitive mechanism that may make it possible to experience the negative emotions without the usual accompanying displeasure. Thus it was first hypothesised that individuals who score highly on Dissociation or its normative manifestation of Absorption, would demonstrate a strong level of enjoyment of music evoking negative emotions.

However, this study did not reveal a significant relationship between pathological dissociation and enjoyment of negative emotion in music.

The clearest and most consistent predictor of enjoyment of negative emotion in music in this study was Absorption. That is, those with a propensity to experience states of absorption were more prone to enjoy negative emotions in music than those without.

This finding is consistent with previous findings on the connection between absorption and the importance of the arts in daily life (Wild et al., 1995), and others reporting a correlation between absorption and a liking for sad music (Kreutz, Ott et al., 2008). Therefore, absorption is more likely is a conscious manifestation of the cognitive dissociation mechanism proposed by Schubert (1996, 2010).

It was also hypothesised that other individuals who demonstrated a strong faculty for empathy or ‘music empathy’ would also demonstrate a liking for music inducing negative emotions. It was found that Music Empathy (as distinct from Empathic

Concern) did demonstrate a strong correlation with enjoyment of negative emotion in music. This suggests some insights and imaginative flexibility that music empathizers may possess—more so than the Fantasy Proneness subscale was able to predict—in enjoying music that evokes negative emotion. Absorption and music empathy suggest

117 adaptive connections with negative emotion in music (that is, the enjoyment of such music). A corollary to this finding is that the enjoyment of negative emotion in music is probably a psychologically normal, even if apparently paradoxical, behaviour in many people.

The factor analysis investigated how individual items from all subscales correlated with the exploratory variable of interest (enjoyment of negative emotion). This allowed a different perspective through which to understand liking of sad music and possible aspects of personality, and further allowed an investigation of the validity of the items in each subscale, which were expected to align within subscale, but not necessarily between subscales. Of the subscales examined, Rumination was the most robust, with all items of its subscale occupying a single latent factor. Other subscales clustered reasonably well, though one dimension was an amalgam of several items that appeared to represent a latent variable that was labelled ‘aloofness.’ However, the analysis confirmed that the most important dimension that predicts enjoyment of negative emotion is absorption, since responses to that question aligned most clearly with the latent absorption factor.

On the whole, the present results replicated and extended past research, holding some potentially important theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, the study seems to confirm the hypotheses of this chapter. First, it was envisaged that individuals who scored highly on Dissociation or its normative manifestation

Absorption, would show a high capacity to enjoy negative emotion in music. The results of the study substantiated the hypothesis regarding absorption.

118 However, the QED dissociation scale was not significantly correlated with enjoyment of negative emotion in music. There are several possible reasons for this finding.

Although the author of the QED (Riley, 1988) tested it within the general population, criticisms have been made of its effectiveness in measuring dissociation in non- clinical populations (Cleaves, Eberenz, Warner, & Fine, 1995). This may suggest that dissociation at a clinical level is not involved in Schubert’s dissociation model, and that enjoyment of negative emotion evoked by music is therefore an adaptive behaviour. Alternatively, the lack of correlation found with QED dissociation may indicate that absorption is the only aspect of dissociation implicated. Whether or not other aspects of dissociation are involved, or whether the mechanism that Schubert proposes devolves solely around absorption could be clarified in future research with instruments that are more effective in measuring dissociation in non-clinical populations.

Second, it was predicted that other individuals who demonstrate a strong faculty for empathy or its more specific form ‘music empathy’ also would demonstrate a liking for sad music. This second hypothesis was validated by the results in the present study. Interestingly, while the hypothesis concerning music empathy was validated, no connection was found with either fantasy proneness or general empathy. This may indicate that a more specialized form of connection to music is necessary before enjoyment of negative emotion is possible.

In addition, a positive association between rumination and a liking for sad music was predicted. There was no significant correlation found in this study. However, research on ‘self-absorption’ and perspective taking has found that rumination involves a focus

119 on the self that makes it difficult for ruminators to imagine the feelings of others and so to display empathy (Joireman, 2004). Therefore, it follows that some ruminators may also demonstrate less ‘music empathy.’ Given that the majority of subjects in the present study were music students, it is therefore not surprising that no significant correlation with rumination was found in the present sample. Music students might be likely to produce high scores on the music empathy scale, and thus be able to enjoy the arousal of emotions that don’t originate within themselves. They may therefore be less likely to score strongly on the Rumination scale. Studies on a population sample of more varied musical experience may yet find a connection between rumination and response to sad music.

It is also possible that while ruminators are attracted to negative emotions in music, they do not necessarily enjoy the experience. Since the enjoyment of music that made them feel sad was the question examined in this study, this may further explain the lack of a significant result for rumination. It is therefore proposed that rumination may still be found to be an important part of the relationship some individuals have with negative emotion in music in future studies.

The present study is based on self reports of a sample of students. Future studies would benefit from making a greater distinction between individual capacity to enjoy negative emotion in music and preference for such music. Some individuals may be capable of taking pleasure from listening to music expressing negative emotions, but demonstrate no particular bias towards it in their listening choices. The difference between these was not accounted for in the current study. Future research would also

120 benefit from looking at broader population samples in which the interactions between various personality traits may become clearer.

Therefore, it is suggested that response to negative emotion in music falls into four broad categories:

1. Individuals who have a strong tendency to absorption in combination with music empathy, and thus are able to enjoy the emotional arousal and aesthetic qualities of music, whether the emotions felt are positive or negative.

2. Individuals who score strongly on music empathy, but not on absorption or rumination, who thus may tend to avoid sad music because it makes them feel unpleasantly sad.

3. Individuals high in absorption with the attentional bias towards negative stimuli common amongst habitual ruminators who will experience sadness in response to sad music, but nevertheless exhibit an attraction to it, although not necessarily a liking for it.

4. If data support the first three categories, it follows that the opposite would also be true. Therefore, individuals who show low tendencies to absorption, low scores in music empathy, and low tendencies to ruminate will likely show little emotional response to music at all, or will demonstrate a preference for positive emotion in music.

121 In addition, individual differences are such that unique combinations of personality and experiences may make it difficult for some people to be categorized into any of the above groups. Some may move from one category to another due to age or life circumstances. Others may find that their typical response will differ from day to day depending on mood, or that their response will be mediated by the genre of music as influenced by memories and mental associations (Kreutz, Ott et al., 2008; Rentfrow &

Gosling, 2003). These are propositions that require further testing on a variety of broad population samples including those with little musical experience. Beyond their theoretical implications, the results of Study 1 may hold practical implications for psychology, music therapy, and music education. If future studies can demonstrate that for certain types of people there are psychological benefits associated with listening to negative emotions in music, this could highlight important processes for therapeutic intervention. For others, listening to this type of music could be a maladaptive practice.

122 SUMMARY

 Three hypotheses were derived from the literature analyses in Chapters 2 and

3:

(a) Individuals with high scores in dissociation or absorption will

show a high capacity to enjoy negative emotion in music.

(b) Other individuals who demonstrate a strong faculty for

empathy or ‘music empathy’ will also demonstrate a liking

for music inducing negative emotions.

(c) In addition, a positive association between rumination and a

propensity to listen to sad music was predicted in some

individuals.

 An online survey was designed using pre-established psychometric

instruments for testing the predictor variables, and a series of questions

relating to the enjoyment of sad music were designed to test the dependent

variable. The survey was administered to 59 students.

 Results revealed statistically significant positive relationships between

enjoyment of negative emotions in music with both absorption and music

empathy. Factor analysis and a regression model confirmed these results.

 No significant results were found for rumination, dissociation (as measured by

the QED), fantasy proneness or empathic concern. There is some argument

that rumination and dissociation could still hold some explanatory value

however, and this will require further examination in future experiments.

123

CHAPTER 6 – STUDY 2

124 6.1. – THE RATIONALE FOR THIS STUDY 10

The individual differences perspective, and in particular the concept of individual differences in dissociation lends plausibility to the explanations of catharsis, emotional communion and emotional resolution, as supported by the results from

Study 1, by allowing us to understand that not all people will be attracted to music expressing negative emotions for the same reasons.

The results of Study 1 substantiated the hypothesis with regards to absorption and music empathy. However, contrary to expectation, there was no significant correlation found with Rumination. It was found that half of the sample of 59 participants reported enjoyment of negative emotion in music to at least some degree. For others who indicated that they also listened to sad music it was unclear whether the experience was pleasurable or resulted in an improved mood. It was speculated that while ruminators may be attracted to negative emotions in music, they do not necessarily enjoy the experience. Since the enjoyment of sad music was the focus of

Study 1, it was proposed that rumination may still be found to be involved in the listening habits of some individuals. Thus the role of individual mood regulation strategies needed to be investigated further.

In addition, the speculation was made that some may find that their typical response will differ from day-to-day depending on mood, or that their response will be mediated by the genre of music as influenced by memories and mental associations

(Kreutz, Ott et al., 2008; Rentfrow & Gosling, 2003). Unique combinations of personality and experiences may make it difficult for the response of some to be

10 Parts of this chapter have been published as Garrido, S. & Schubert, E. (2012) Negative emotion in music: What is the attraction? A qualitative study. Empirical Musicology Review, 6(4).

125 captured entirely by a quantitative study. A complex interplay of factors may be involved in the case of each unique individual.

Thus, Study 2 will attempt to investigate individual differences more closely in a qualitative study, looking at both the motivations involved in seeking out sad music, and the cognitive mechanisms that may make it possible to enjoy the experience of negative emotions in an aesthetic context.

6.2 – HYPOTHESES

It was expected that a closer look at individual uses of music at a personal level in this qualitative study would not reveal a single answer to the question of why people listen to sad music, but rather a pattern of answers. Based on the findings from the literature review (Chapters 2 and 3) and Study 1 (Chapter 5) it was hypothesised that the pattern of answers that may emerge would include the information that:

a) Some listeners merely enjoy the emotional arousal of listening to sad

music

b) Some listeners may be seeking other psychological benefits from

listening to sad music

c) Sad music listening may be connected with ruminative behaviour and

depression in some listeners.

However, the nature of this study was largely exploratory as is described in the next section. Therefore it was thought likely that some unexpected facets relating to the reasons people listen to music evoking negative emotions would be revealed as the study progressed.

126 6.3 - METHOD

6.3.1 Research Design

This research was conducted under a realism paradigm. Realism research assumes that human experience is only a part of reality and that objective reality is not easily understood or measured (Wynn & Williams, 2008). Thus the current research was carried out with the understanding that while the participants do not necessarily have access to their own cognitive mechanisms, their perceptions can provide us with some evidence and a ‘window’ through which to view external reality (Sobh & Perry,

2006).

A further assumption, in line with both the realism paradigm and individual differences psychology, is that the research is unlikely to yield a single answer to the paradox. Rather it is likely that it will identify “patterns in experiences” (Sobh &

Perry, 2006, p.1200), resulting in a “family of answers” (Pawson & Tilly 1997 p.

152). The varying temperaments, life-circumstances and strategies for managing their moods that individuals have will likely result in different stories being told about their music-listening habits.

Given the focus on individual differences in this research, a case study method was chosen. The explanatory goals of the realism paradigm fit well with a case study method, which enables researchers to develop context-sensitive explanations of specific phenomenon (Wynn & Williams, 2008). Case studies are commonly used in research in the social science disciplines including psychology and allows a phenomenon to be examined in depth and in a real-life context (Yin, 2009). Thus, this method was chosen in order to provide a more focused approach on a smaller number

127 of participants. Five case studies were conducted in order to obtain and compare detailed pictures of more than one individual and for triangulation of the data (Healy

& Perry, 2000; Herriott & Firestone, 1983).

6.3.2 The Sample

Realism researchers use their conceptual framework developed from a knowledge of the literature in assisting them to select interviewees (Sobh & Perry, 2006). In this research, it was assumed that people who have a strong emotional response to music and especially music expressing negative emotions should provide information-rich examples of the personality traits and thought processes involved. For replication purposes it is also useful to choose cases where the results are expected to be similar or contrary for predictable reasons (Yin 1994). Therefore several participants from

Study 1 (Chapter 5) were selected for the current study based on the strength of their professed emotional response to music, and/or their enjoyment of music expressing negative emotions. An invitation to participate in the current study was sent by email.

The five participants were aged from 19 to 46 (see Table 6). Of the five, two participants were male and all but one were from non-English speaking backgrounds.

However, the study took place within an English language context in Australia in a variety of settings which were chosen by the participants. Music recordings were played on iPods brought to the interview by the participants.

128 Table 6

Profile of Participants

Case Study Age Gender Music Empathic Absorption Fantasy Dissociation Rumination Number Empathy Concern (M=42.80) Proneness (M=9.49) (M=3.30) (M=3.61) (M=11.97) (M=13.51) CS1 23 F 4 10 50 4 13 2.73 CS2 25 M 0 24 60 24 17 5 CS3 40 F 5 12 49 16 9 3.91 CS4 19 F 4 19 58 19 14 2.91 CS5 46 M 2 24 43 8 11 4.36 M = mean of sample in Study 3

6.3.3 Data Collection Procedure

Three main sources of data were used to conduct this study. The first was the online

survey from Study 1, which the participants had already completed. This instrument

contained several open-ended questions asking participants to describe and name

pieces of music that they liked and to explain what appealed to them about it. They

were also asked to spend a few moments imagining the sound of that music, and then

to indicate how vividly they were able to imagine it. Participants stated what emotions

they thought the music was attempting to express and how their own emotional

response compared. A similar set of questions followed regarding a piece of music

that the participant did not like. Participants were also asked whether they liked

listening to music that made them feel sadness or grief, or mostly liked music that was

cheerful or uplifting.

The second source of data used in this study was an interview with the chosen

subjects. The five participants all took part in an interview which included an on-the-

spot listening experience, rather than just asking participants to remember responses

129 the have had when listening to the music in the past. Participants were asked to bring recordings of music to which they had a strong emotional response. They were not specifically asked to bring music evoking negative emotions in order to minimise the effect of demand characteristics. The recordings were then played within the interview so that the subjects would have the benefit of immediacy in describing their emotional response and thoughts. Previous studies have played pre-determined excerpts for the participants (see for example Konecni et al., 2008). However the decision was made in this study to allow participants to bring music of their own choice because of the potential influence of genre preference and familiarity

(Schubert, 2007a).

Following the playing of the music chosen by the participant, they were asked several questions as to their experiences while listening. The aim was to find out how the listeners themselves described their experience, what thoughts or feeling arose while listening, how the emotions they experienced compared to what they perceived the music to be expressing, and, how the emotions experienced compared to emotions induced by ‘real-life situations’.

Subsequent to the listening experience, participants were interviewed about their broader listening habits and emotional response to music. These interviews were conducted using a general guide approach (Britten, 1995). The interview guide was developed based upon the theoretical framework drawn from a study of the literature

(Chapters 2 and 3) and the results of Study 1 (Chapter 5) (Sobh & Perry, 2006). Care was taken with the wording of questions so as not to influence the response of the subjects unduly. It was also considered important for purposes of triangulation to ask

130 the different interviewees the same questions in order to test the similarity of their perceptions. However the actual stream of questions was intended to be fluid rather than rigid, so as to allow the subject to speak at length. Open questions were used so as to uncover any areas that were missing from the initial conceptual framework

(Sobh & Perry, 2006). Appendix 2 contains a copy of the interview guide used for this study.

Demographic questions were left until the end of the interview so that the interviewee did not become primed to provide short-answer routine responses (Patton, 1990).

Instead, some general ‘warm-up’ questions designed to encourage the interviewee to talk at length about music were used to begin the interview.

The interviewer then attempted to find out what kinds of music the participants preferred to listen to and in what situations. These topics were discussed in relation to music in general, but particularly in relation to music expressing negative emotions.

Specifically, participants were asked to recall a piece of music that they would describe as ‘sad’, whether they liked the piece or not and what they would feel and think about while listening to it. It was not expected that subjects would have conscious access to the cognitive processes involved. Rather the study was expected to reveal how the listener themselves perceived their experience. In addition, based on the earlier findings from Study 1 regarding the correlation between an enjoyment of negative emotions in music and dissociation/absorption and other characteristics

(Chapter 5), participants were asked several questions relating to personality traits. In particular the traits of empathy, imagination, absorption and rumination were indirectly discussed. Although Study 1 used several published inventories to assess

131 these traits (Davis, 1983; Glisky & Kihlstrom, 1993; Trapnell, 1997), Study 2 aimed to encourage free response although guiding the participant in a general discussion of the characteristics of interest. It was considered inappropriate to explicitly mention the traits within the interview, although the participants’ scores on those scales were used as part of the data for the study.

The last question asked if there was anything that the interviewee thought relevant which they would like to add, as recommended by Sobh and Perry (2006). Both the interview and the listening experience responses were digitally recorded and transcribed before analysis.

Thirdly, since the participants had also taken part in Study 1, their scores on the personality scales in that study were extracted from the data for comparison in the present study (see Table 6).

6.3.4 Data Analysis

Thematic analysis was used for examination of the narratives collected during the interviews. Thematic analysis is “a method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) within the data” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 79). Themes are defined as units derived from patterns such as “conversation topics, vocabulary, recurring activities, meanings, feelings or folk sayings and proverbs” (Taylor & Bogdan, 1998, p. 143). Braun and Clarke (2006) argue that thematic analysis can be applied across a broad range of theoretical and epistemological approaches. This theoretical freedom provides a flexible and useful research tool which can potentially provide a rich and

132 detailed, yet complex, account of data. This study followed the procedure for thematic analysis outlined by them.

First, the recorded data were transcribed as described by Braun and Clarke (2006) and loaded into the NVivo 8 software program for analysis. After reading through the material initial ideas were noted. Next, the data were systematically allocated to the chosen codes (Miles & Huberman, 1994).

The initial codes chosen in this research were based on the theoretical framework and the general topics that were covered in the interview guide (Sobh & Perry, 2006).

Additional codes were added during the data-collection procedure and transcription process. Initially the data were coded under the topics: source of emotional response to music; purposes for music listening; mood regulation; and, music evoking negative emotions (see Table 7).

Once the data had been sorted according to these codes, the patterns were analysed and combined to create themes and sub-themes. The data under each theme were then subjected to both within-case analysis and cross-case analysis (Patton, 1990). The latter is particularly useful for understanding underlying structures and mechanisms

(Yin, 2009).

133 6.4 – RESULTS

6.4.1 Summary of Case Study 1

The first participant (CS1) was a 23 year old female student in a Masters of Music program. The participant’s taste in music is broad, from pop to classical. However, during the interview she said that she always responds to soft, slow music which could be described as sad or gloomy. She prefers this type of music over fast, strong or very emotional music and attributes this to being a soft, emotional person who cries easily. She also expressed a dislike of ‘meaningless’ music. The participant carries an iPod and listens to music every day often while travelling on the bus or waiting. Being a music student, she also listens to music for study purposes.

The participant obtained above average scores on absorption and dissociation (see

Table 6). She described herself as being easily distracted with most things. However, she has developed an ability to be strongly absorbed when practicing the piano. She credits this to greater interest in music than in other things. Her score in Music

Empathy was also slightly above the mean. Empathy, Fantasy Proneness and

Rumination were below mean, although the participant described herself as easily being moved to tears when she saw people suffering, for example on the television.

When answering the questionnaire the participant indicated that she was mostly attracted to music that is cheerful and uplifting but also likes music that makes her feel sadness and grief. She disagreed that the music has to resolve happily to be enjoyable, but strongly agreed that she likes all music whether sad or happy as long as it is good music. While enjoying some music for the emotions it arouses in her, when listening to other music she is mostly conscious of respect for the skill of the

134 performer or the talent of the composer. Pieces of music that she has studied herself may especially result in this kind of response.

One of the pieces chosen by the participant to listen to during the interview was a love song with lyrics in Japanese. Although the participant does not understand Japanese she described it as a sad song which had special significance for her because of the situation in which she first heard it. She explains that listening to this song makes her feel sad because of the memories associated with it. Mostly she would avoid listening to this song because she doesn’t want it to lose meaning for her. Interestingly, she described her response to the music as being a physical response in the beginning, which she then attributes to her understanding of the emotional associations with this piece of music. Other music that does not have the same mental associations for her may still cause a similar physical reaction but to a lesser degree because of the absence of a connection to sad memories. A second piece of music discussed with the participant is also something that she normally avoids listening to. The music causes her to feel uncomfortable because she associates it with the unstable mental state of an acquaintance who committed suicide.

Although this participant describes herself as having “a strong imagination” and being

“an emotional person”, she says: “but in the real life I don’t daydream a lot or think about the past or future. I just keep focusing on the things right now.” She regards thinking too much about the past as unhealthy behaviour and is usually able to keep control of her emotions so that she does not think too much about sad things. With regards to her study of music she finds it helpful to use her imagination in making performance decisions.

135 6.4.2 Summary of Case Study 2

The second case-study involved a 25 year old male (CS2) who is a self-taught musician. He is also very involved in his local church. His preferred music choices are hip-hop and R & B, an example of which was listened to during the interview. He also listens to Asian pop songs and love songs which are calm and slow or other slow, instrumental music. He claims to not be aware of the lyrics when listening to hip-hop music but to mostly enjoy the beat. He states that the content of the lyrics does not have any influence on him and does not make him feel more aggressive. Above average scores were obtained on Empathy, Absorption, Fantasy Proneness,

Rumination and Dissociation (see Table 6). The only score below average was Music

Empathy.

The participant listens to his preferred music when waiting for the bus, while working or studying and when relaxing. He feels that the energy of the music helps him to concentrate more, helps him to wake up in the mornings, to feel more optimistic about his future and more confident when going out to meet friends or doing something where he may otherwise feel unsure of himself. He also reports sometimes listening to the same music when trying to go to sleep, although at a lower volume. He sometimes chooses to listen to slower instrumental music when relaxing or when he wants to calm down. To illustrate the type of music he might choose in such situations, the participant played a recording of an instrumental piano piece of the jazz/blues genre with a slow drum beat.

In the questionnaire, the participant strongly agreed to mostly liking music that is uplifting and cheerful, but also strongly agreed to liking music which makes him feel

136 sadness or grief. He disagreed that the music needed to resolve happily and strongly disagreed that the valence had no influence over whether he liked it or not. In general, he prefers to avoid music that will make him feel too emotional or that will make him think about the past too much, such as love songs. However, he reports using such music at times when he wants to reflect on important or negative events to try to make sense of them. The participant also reports that listening to music on portable devices such as an iPod, gives him a sense of personal space and , like being in his own world.

It appears that this participant is very aware of mood regulation and uses music as an important tool for manipulating his emotional state:

If there was not such a thing as music, I was wondering how I would be able

to fluctuate, control my mood. But if there wasn’t music I think it would be

very difficult for me to do that (CS2).

6.4.3 Summary of Case Study 3

The participant of the third case-study was a 40 year old female (CS3) with no formal training in music although she is a self-taught guitar player. She is a part-time PhD student who also works in health education and does voluntary work in community welfare organisations. Her musical taste includes country and western, jazz,

‘contemporary independent pop music’, and classical. She describes her listening choices as being quite dependent on mood. Throughout the interview the participant several times mentioned being attracted to music that was “simple”. Like many others, she carries an iPod when travelling and will also listen to music while doing anything “mundane”, such as housework. She will also listen to music while working

137 on the computer or writing for her PhD, but in such a situation prefers music without lyrics.

Table 6 reveals scores for this participant that were slightly above average on every item except Dissociation which was marginally below the mean. She indicated in the questionnaire that she strongly agreed to mostly being attracted to cheerful music, but also strongly agreed to liking music that makes you feel sadness or grief. She strongly disagreed that the music has to resolve happily and strongly agreed that she liked all music whether happy or sad as long as it is good music. “A good tune” is a deciding factor in whether she will like a piece of music or not. She reports that anxiety and rumination are “issues” for her and mentioned having problems with depression several times throughout the interview.

The sentiments behind the music appeared to be a decisive factor in influencing the participant’s taste. The music chosen as an example of music she liked was described as communicating the fact that

...lots of people are unhappy - no one person has a monopoly on it. Lots of us

feel miserable and its not that unusual but there's no point letting it take over

your life (CS3).

The participant reported feeling sad while listening to it. In contrast, the piece given as an example of music she disliked expressed the opposite sentiment:

Of course the singer is the only person in the world to ever feel bad which is

transferred to the listener (i.e. nobody is as depressed as me and nobody can

138 understand how I feel) but at the end of the day it's just another song about a

boy and whether 'he likes me or not’ which is incredibly mundane (CS3).

The music chosen to be played in the interview also appeared to communicate a similar message: “don’t about the small stuff and try and be happy” (CS3). The piece was sung by Johnny Cash and had a slow, calm . The participant reported that she is usually attracted to this type of deep male voice which to her, portrays warmth. This music is something she would choose to listen to when she was feeling down, and she reports that it makes her feel better to listen to this. However, she also reports feeling a little bit sad on one level when listening to it. She attributes this to the complexity of human emotion; the fact that humans can feel sad and happy at the same time, and that there tends to be an element of sadness in any happiness.

This participant also appeared to be quite aware of the way music can be used as a tool for mood regulation. While mentioning her depression several times throughout the interview, she also expressed an understanding of how music can be used to either perpetuate her low moods or to help her shift out of them. In her own words:

You can sort of go two ways with it. Either put on something that is

depressing and can perpetuate the mood that you’re in. And sometimes

depending on the issue, you do want a time for grieving and feeling miserable.

And then there reaches a point where you know... its time to move on, get over

it, whatever (CS3).

A distinction was drawn between grieving and general feelings of sadness or low moods.

139 6.4.4 Summary of Case Study 4

The fourth participant (CS4) was a 19 year old female who has been studying piano and violin for approximately seven years. She is also studying nursing full-time at

University and works part-time as a swimming instructor. Her musical taste is wide and varied, from classical to contemporary, and she enjoys browsing on the internet to find new music. Scores on all scale items except Rumination were above average, with Absorption, Dissociation and Fantasy Proneness scores being notably high (see

Table 6).

In the questionnaire the participant strongly disagreed to being mostly attracted to cheerful music but disagreed with liking sad music. She strongly agreed that she likes all music whether happy or sad. However, the pieces chosen in the interview as examples of music that she enjoyed were described as causing some feelings of sadness. She also enjoys music which moves through a broad range of emotions, and attributes this to the fact that she tends to experience strong mood swings.

This participant again, appeared to have deliberate mood regulation strategies involving music. She listens to music while driving and when she needs to get things done quickly at home, claiming that orchestral music with big, fast, brass sounds make her feel “more co-ordinated”. She also listens to music to calm down if she is feeling stressed. She reports that usually she would avoid listening to music that makes her feel too emotional and sometimes may avoid music altogether if she is feeling mentally or emotionally overwhelmed. At times she listens to more complex music such as some classical pieces in an attempt to distract her mind from negative thoughts by focusing on the technical aspects of the music or she may listen to music

140 of neutral valence that has no association with particular memories. Like CS2, this participant uses music to boost her confidence prior to social events.

With regards to listening to sad music, the participant gave an extensive description of her use of music to help her “make sense” of events in her life. It does not appear necessary for the music to have any particular connection to memories, or any particular lyrical content. Even if the content is irrelevant to the events she wants to make sense of, the music can still be of assistance. She explained that the music helps in several ways: it makes her feel that someone has experienced similar feelings to hers; it may give her a sense of if the music seems to have a resolution; or it may simply help her to understand her own feelings because she feels “in sync” with the emotions in the music. She seems to find it particularly useful to listen to music which goes through numerous emotional changes and describes her experience of the emotional transitions as being “like a continuous stream that came from one person, the person who wrote it, to the person who listens to it”. She is not aware of any mediating thoughts when listening to such music, but appears to be intensely absorbed in an emotional journey along with the music.

One piece of music chosen to be played during the interview was a solo piano piece which caused the participant to feel “safe but sad” at the same time. The feeling of sadness appears to be mostly of a physiological nature which again is not connected to any particular thought or memory. The feeling of safety was attributed to the simplicity of the music, the fact that she can imagine someone’s hands playing the music and because the emotions expressed make sense to her. The music appears to give her an acceptable way in which to experience her own mood changes. However,

141 this music is not something she would listen to often. In fact she explains that when she wants to get out of a low mood she would listen to something more cheerful. In addition to her changeable moods, the participant attributes her attraction to this type of music to her reflectiveness and a tendency to “over-think”.

At times the participant could listen to the same music without feeling sad:

It always puts me in a mood where I’m in a little bubble. Like if I’m upset it

puts me in a major bubble where I’m just completely consumed by just feeling

upset. And then if I’m okay and I listen to it, then it will just make me feel not

heavier but lighter and I just feel like I’m looking at everything through a

window (CS4).

Thus prior mood seems to influence the emotional impact that the music will have, as will the level of concentration with which she listens to it.

Other music which tends to have associations with memories of her deceased father can evoke a deeper level of grief apart from the general feelings of sadness described above. The participant was not clear about how particular music has become associated with thoughts of her father.

6.4.5 Summary of Case Study 5

The participant of the final case-study was a 46 year old male (CS5) with extensive formal education in music and experience working as a musician. He likes most forms of music, but is particularly moved by music of his own cultural heritage. The psychometric scales revealed scores in Empathy, Absorption, Rumination and

142 dDissociation that were above average (see Table 6). The score on the Fantasy

Proneness scale was below average, and Music Empathy was also unusually low.

The participant strongly disagreed to being mostly attracted to music which is cheerful and uplifting; strongly agreed to liking music which makes him feel sad; strongly disagreed to only liking sad music if it resolved happily and strongly agreed to liking all good music whether happy or sad. He mostly listens to music when driving. At other times he tends to avoid listening to music other than for work or study purposes because he is too busy with other activities. When listening to music in relation to his work, he is mostly focused on the technical aspects of the music and/or the skill of the performer.

Being an immigrant to Australia, this participant appears to particularly enjoy music that reminds him of his childhood. He compares hearing such music to smelling something that reminds you of a different place and time. The nostalgia that he experiences seems to make him feel a sense of connection with the land of his birth and lessens the feelings of displacement related to his migration. However, the knowledge that his childhood can never be recreated makes the experience a sad one.

The music is also connected to other painful things that he experienced in his childhood. Mostly the type of music that he is attracted to is described as “romantic and melancholy...dark love songs”.

I listen to this kind of music as much as I can. But it does make me a little bit

blue and maybe sometimes I’d rather not do it, but I want to do it. It’s almost

addictive. ...but I need to, so I can kind of revisit that space and time that ...

almost bring back that time (CS5).

143

The participant reported having been diagnosed as suffering from anxiety and depression and he does not find it easy to put upsetting events out of his mind. He explains that listening to such music does not make him feel better. However, it gives him a sense of belonging and “it gives me a reason to be sad.” When asked to compare the intensity of emotions experienced when listening to music as opposed to during real life events, CS5 felt that emotions experienced when listening to music were “less intense” because in a music listening context, “there’s always that button that you can turn off”. Other music which does not have such strong connections to his childhood does not evoke a similar emotional response.

6.5 – CROSS-CASE ANALYSIS & DISCUSSION

Discussions with the participants tended to fall in several broad areas: the participants’ belief as to the reason for their emotional response to certain music; their purpose in choosing to listen to certain types of music; and, their experiences when listening to sad music or music expressing other negative emotions (see Table 7).

These will be discussed individually below.

6.5.1 Listening Experience; Source of the Emotional Response

Part of the philosophical debate regarding emotional response to music relates to the question of how emotions are triggered in the listener and whether the emotions experienced when listening to music are ‘real’. Although the resolution of this question may not be central to understanding the question of why people are attracted to negative emotion in music, the data in this study nevertheless revealed some interesting information relevant to the cognitivist/emotivist debate. The data also

144 serves to strengthen the argument that individual differences are crucial to understanding emotional response to music, including music evoking negative emotions, and that the failure to consider this may partly explain the strong differences between philosophers on this issue.

Table 7

Areas of Discussion in Interviews and Emergent Themes

Areas of Discussion

Source of Emotional Purposes for Music Mood Regulation Music Evoking Response Listening Negative Emotions Association with Create a sense of Seeking mental or Catharsis of negative memories personal space & privacy emotional stimulation or emotions arousal Physiological arousal Fill time while waiting, To relax or calm ‘Company in misery’ – to travelling or participating feel one is not alone in in mundane tasks experience of negative emotions Imagination Social purposes To distract from To enjoy a sense of hope negative emotions when the music resolves happily Aesthetic Pleasure Catharsis for negative Enjoyment of emotional Emergent Themes EmergentThemes emotions arousal Mood Regulation Reflecting on and Reflection on life-events; making sense of life- nostalgia; grief. events Mixed Emotions

Several themes were noted in analysing the data. All five participants mentioned the connection with memories. Association with memories was by far the most frequently mentioned mechanism which the participants believed to be the cause of their emotional response. It was mentioned both in connection with music with lyrics and without. On some occasions the music activated memories of the circumstances surrounding a prior hearing of the music; memories associated with the content of the words; because the genre of the music was the same or similar to other music

145 connected to particular memories; or, in the case of instrumental music, because the valence matched emotions associated with a particular event or person (the 'Darling, they're playing our tune' phenomenon, Davies, 1978, p. 69; Kivy, 1980, p. 18).

However, another pattern observed in discussions with each of the participants were responses related to the concept of arousal. It seems that on many occasions, particularly with instrumental music, the participants have the impression that the transmission of emotion from the music to them is something quite immediate that does not require the presence of any mediating thoughts, ideas or mental pictures.

After listening to the music in the context of the interview, several participants mentioned experiencing an instantaneous physiological response before any conscious thoughts or memories associated with the music would arise. For example,

I don’t have any pictures... after you listen this first your body feels

uncomfortable. Something in your throat, something in your stomach. And

then... I think your brain understands: ‘Oh, why you have this feeling?

Because this song is special for you’. ... just like it reveals all the memories for

you and after that you calm down. Then you think about something related to

this song (CS1).

The participants seemed to believe this to be a common experience for them when listening to music, even music that did not have any association with certain memories. CS4 also made frequent mention of responding to music that had a lot of mood changes. This is in harmony with Meyer’s belief that the occurrence of unexpected events within the music generates emotional arousal (1956, p. 32), or

146 Schubert’s (1996) suggestion that the listener’s arousal activation level gradually increases as they become habituated to the music. Therefore arousal is maximised by music that changes. The subject of arousal will be discussed in more detail under the heading of “mood regulation”.

There were also several allusions by the participants to the involvement of imagination in their emotional response. At times imagination was involved in creating a fictional scenario to accompany some instrumental music, or imagining the emotions of the composer or the performer. This is also an issue that has been the subject of extensive philosophical debate (see Chapter 2).

6.5.2 Purposes for Music Listening

In order to discover the reasons why individuals listen to music expressing negative emotions, it was considered important to discover their purpose in listening to music generally. Amongst the themes that developed regarding the reasons the participants listen to music were: to create a sense of personal space and privacy; to fill the time while waiting or travelling; for social purposes; and for the enjoyment of aesthetic pleasure (see Table 7). The most notable pattern that emerged from the data regarding listening purposes was behaviour relating to mood regulation. The different reasons for listening to music will be discussed under separate subheadings below.

Mood Regulation

The data from the case studies mostly supported the theory that listening choices will be based on a desire to improve or sustain a good mood (see mood management theory discussed above). Four of the participants used music as a deliberate

147 instrument for regulating their moods. This was particularly clear for CS2 and CS4.

CS5 was the only one who did not appear to use music in such a way.

Five specific ways in which music was used for mood regulation were distinctive: to provide mental and emotional stimulation or arousal; to relax and calm; using music to distract from negative emotions; as catharsis for negative emotions; and to assist in reflecting on and making sense of life-events. These last two themes will be discussed particularly in relation to the issue of listening to sad music.

Arousal

The data from the cases studied here lend support to the optimal-arousal theory. Each participant mentioned listening to music in situations lacking other stimuli such as waiting, travelling on buses, or during mundane activities such as driving or doing housework. Three of them carry iPods with them for the purpose of averting boredom in such situations. Similarly, several participants discussed listening to music while studying or working on the computer. While the type of music chosen in such situations differed between individuals, the use of music to improve alertness and concentration was a common factor. Other uses mentioned by the participants which also seem to involve arousal include using music to wake them up, make them feel less lazy, or to help them get things done quickly.

In addition CS2 and CS4 mentioned using music to make them feel more confident.

CS2 tends to prefer hip-hop music and states that: “when I listen to this kind of music it makes me look forward towards my future, what I want to do. It makes me gain more confidence in what I’m doing at the moment and also it motivates me to have

148 more confidence in my future, the upcoming events... And if I’m about to go outside and meet friends then I would listen to the fast-beat music.” CS4 although preferring classical and instrumental music also mentions listening to such music to prepare herself when about to go out with friends, especially if she does not feel in the mood.

Relaxation and Calming

Also in agreement with the optimal-arousal hypotheses is the use of music to relax and calm. This is in harmony with findings that individuals who feel over-stimulated, may use music to lower their state of arousal (Labbe, Schmidt, & Babin, 2007;

Lesiuk, 2008). The participants spoke about using a different style of music from what they might otherwise choose in order to help them calm down, or to help them relax and go to sleep. CS2 often changes from hip-hop to a more relaxing type of ballad or other instrumental music when he wants to fall asleep. Similarly, CS3 explains that she sometimes prefers to listen to simple music in order to counteract the ‘clutter’ of her daily life.

Distraction

At other times the participants appear to use music as a method of distracting themselves from negative emotions. CS2 listens to hip-hop to “avoid being emotional”. Similarly, CS4 will avoid emotionally charged music and listen to neutral music or more complex music that can engage her mind in analysis in order to avoid thinking about day-to-day issues that are causing stress.

149 6.5.3 Music Evoking Negative Emotions

The participants also discussed the reasons they sometimes listen to sad music. These will be discussed under several subheadings below.

Reasons Relating to the Philosophical Literature

Several themes became apparent within the discussions, many of which were reminiscent of some of the philosophical arguments discussed in Chapter 2. Some participants indicated that at times listening to sad music allows them to vent their own negative emotions. This is similar to Aristotle’s notion of catharsis, or the venting of strong emotions, as an explanation for the enjoyment of tragedy (Levinson,

1990b).

Other participants said that the music makes them feel that they are not alone in their experience of negative emotions. This is similar to the reward of Emotional

Communion of Levinson (1990b), who argued that we benefit from feeling that we are sharing the emotions of another human being.

The theoretical literature has also offered the suggestion that people enjoy the feeling of triumph over sadness resulting from the sad music resolving happily (Levinson,

1990b). Four of the participants explicitly disagreed with this. CS4 however, did mention that when she feels that the music “goes somewhere and could resolve itself”, it makes her hopeful. Her different response to this question may be because much of her listening is music from the romantic period which tends to have more variability of emotion thus enhancing her awareness of the issue of resolution.

150 The philosophical discussions include several criticisms of the explanations of catharsis, emotional communion and emotional resolution (see Davies, 1997, p. 245;

Eaton, 1982, p. 53; Kivy, 1989, p. 249; Levinson, 1990b, p. 323). Such criticisms are often based on the argument that there are exceptions to these explanations. For example, Levinson (1996) argues that catharsis can only be of benefit to people experiencing negative emotions who are in need of relief. Thus the argument of catharsis cannot give a valid explanation for the enjoyment of people who are not experiencing negative emotions prior to listening to the sad music. An individual differences perspective, and in particular the concept of individual differences in dissociation lends plausibility to the explanations of catharsis, emotional communion and emotional resolution, as supported by the results from this study, by allowing us to understand that not all people will be attracted to music expressing negative emotions for the same reasons. It is possible that they may all be true of some people, some of the time, depending on various factors including personality and life circumstances.

Arousal/ Absorption

Several of the participants also mentioned the arousal-type responses (as discussed above), in connection with sad music. For example, CS2 spoke about using sad music in order to relax (see Section 6.4.2).

At other times, the participants spoke about enjoying being absorbed in the emotional journey of the sad emotions in the music: "Its not the kind of piece that you would sort of bounce around to in the car. It's more something that you just let yourself be engaged by and then that’s it" (CS4). CS4 also commented that she liked music that

151 "communicated properly". "That’s the things that I like about it, is that it is able to evoke something in me". It appears that this participant is enjoying the emotional arousal of the sad music without the sadness having a deep effect on her mood. This is in harmony with the findings of Study 1 which supported the idea that individuals with high scores in Absorption have the capacity to be engaged and moved by the emotions of the music without experiencing the displeasure that would usually accompany feelings of sadness.

Reflection

Within the mood management paradigm, Zillmann (2000) has argued that sometimes people delay in order to achieve some other ultimately beneficial goal.

Four of the participants in this study mentioned listening to sad music for the purpose of reflecting upon events in their life. Some of the benefits obtained from engaging in such reflection included: thinking over the events in order to find positive thoughts about them; resolving issues or ‘making sense’ of them; and, learning from past mistakes. Listening to certain kinds of music appears to help these processes although the listener may experience some form of sadness while listening.

Trapnell and Campbell (1999) argue that ‘reflective private self-attentiveness’, the disposition and capacity to reflect and to examine the self, is a highly adaptive and psychologically healthy trait. It is distinct from ruminative tendencies which are associated with neuroticism, depression and poor self-esteem. Consistent with this idea, these participants all mentioned a point where they move away from their reflective thoughts. “But if I’ve got nothing else to do but music then it just makes me think too much and if I go past the stage where its already resolved but got nothing

152 else to do but keep thinking of something that’s unnecessary I will try to find something else to do” (CS2).

CS4 gave an extensive description of her use of music to help her ‘make sense’ of events in her life. Even if the subject matter of the lyrics are different to her own experiences or the music has no lyrics at all, it can still be of assistance in helping her to understand her own feelings because she feels ‘in sync’ with the emotions in the music. She also demonstrated an awareness that it is not always helpful to her to listen to sad music. When she feels it will not benefit her she will listen to more neutral music, or will avoid listening to music altogether. Thus this participant appears to use sad music in two distinctive ways: (i) as a way of making sense of and dealing with daily upsetting events; (ii) as a generally absorbing and pleasing aesthetic experience when not previously in a sad mood. It seems possible that in this second situation, the participant’s strong propensity for absorption and dissociation make the listening experience a pleasant and uplifting one. She appears to merely enjoy an experience of neurological arousal. Presumably, she would enjoy the same experience whether the music was happy or sad. However, if the participant is feeling sad prior to listening the music would intensify her sadness. Thus she avoids listening to such music when in a sad mood, unless she feels a need to think through and “make sense of” events, or to deal with her grief for a short period.

Nostalgia

Feelings of nostalgia were also a prominent theme in the discussions with all participants, although this is not a theme that was anticipated by a prior investigation of the literature. Nostalgia appears to be an experience that can be happy or sad or a

153 combination of both (Wildschut, Sedikides, Arndt, & Routledge, 2006; Zimbardo &

Boyd, 1999). CS1 described listening to music that evokes sad memories, but things that are “worth it to remember”. However, she avoids listening to it too often. CS4 also reported indulging in nostalgia on occasion, but again, not too often.

In contrast, CS5 reported that music evoking nostalgia is his preferred kind of music, and that if possible, he would listen to this music all the time. Being an immigrant to

Australia, he was particularly attracted to music that reminds him of his childhood.

The nostalgia that he experienced seems to make him feel a sense of connection with the land of his birth and lessens the feelings of displacement related to his migration.

However, the knowledge that his childhood can never be recreated makes the experience a sad one. The music is also connected to other painful things that he experienced in his childhood.

I listen to this kind of music as much as I can. But it does make me a little bit

blue and maybe sometimes I’d rather not do it, but I want to do it. It’s almost

addictive. ...but I need to, so I can kind of revisit that space and time that ...

almost bring back that time.

This attraction to music connected with ones roots appears to be a common part of the diasporic experience (Akhtar, 1999). However, other participants in the study were migrants as well, but did not show the same strength of attraction for nostalgic music as did CS5. Again it may be the case that whereas some nostalgia is a natural and normal part of the adjustment process for migrants, the focus on past memories may continue to a point where the psychological benefit to the individual is minimal. This behaviour may come under the description of rumination.

154

CS1 in contrast, regards thinking about the past as unhealthy. Similarly, CS2 prefers in general, to avoid music that will make him feel too emotional or that will make him think about the past too much, such as love songs. However, he reports using such music at times when he wants to reflect on important or negative events to try to make sense of them.

Grief

Two of the participants mentioned a distinction between grief and more general feelings of sadness or low moods. Both CS3 and CS4 have experienced the loss of someone close to them. Sad music at times played a role in their grieving process.

CS4 mentioned music associated with memories of her deceased father. She felt that that music evoked a deeper level of grief than music that was sad in a more general way.

While mentioning her depression several times throughout the interview, CS3 also expressed an understanding of how music can be used to either perpetuate her low moods or to help her shift out of them. Again the participant drew a line between a healthy and natural grieving process and behaviour which steps beyond it into the maladaptive practice of rumination.

I do think its important to at least validate how you’re feeling at the time.

There’s probably not much point in wallowing in depression but at the same

time it’s a real emotion. It exists. It needs to be recognised for what it is. And

sometimes things happen where if you didn’t get depressed, well, that would

be awful too. Like a death of a close friend or family member. Stuff like that I

155 think you do want to grieve and it’s important to grieve and music can help

you do that.

Interestingly, Zisook & Schucter (2001) argue that there is a distinction between the normal grief that occurs with bereavement and the depression that some individuals experience along with it. It may be that when bereaved individuals focus on the negative emotions that accompany grief, they have difficulty moving away from them. Nolen-Hoeksema et al. (1994) thus suggest that it may be the ruminative quality of their coping-style that is detrimental.

It seems likely that CS3 has experienced both the natural grieving process and a less healthy form of rumination, but has become aware of the potential for music to be used as a tool to make her feel better. However, she still seems strongly drawn to music which makes her feel sad. This may be connected to the obviously ongoing struggle that this participant has against depression. While the participant’s depression or treatment thereof was not discussed in detail during the interview, it may be the case that her listening choices would differ during an episode of depression from listening behaviour between episodes. Her lesser capacity to dissociate from the displeasure of the music or the memories that it stirs perhaps incline her to avoid sad music at times, or to indulge in the sad feelings it arouses when she is struggling against ruminative tendencies.

Mixed Emotions

Several participants mentioned experiencing ‘mixed emotions’ when listening to sad music. CS3 for example said:

156 Things are complex. Things are never that simple. You can feel happy and feel

sad at the same time and I think music can portray that range of emotion and it

seems a conflict on the surface to feel happy and sad by one piece of music but

I think good music can do that to you I suppose. Because, yeah, in any happy

event in life or any happiness there’s always an element I think (CS3).

Similarly, CS4 spoke about music that made her feel “safe but sad”, although she was unable to articulate how the music was able to evoke the two contrasting feelings in her at the same time.

These expressions on the part of the participants seem to indicate that the music is able to evoke both positive and negative responses in them at the same time. This is an intriguing idea. Larson, McGraw and Cacioppo (2001) argue that this phenomenon is an important reason for not limiting our understanding of sadness and happiness as being at extreme ends of a single dimension. Alternatively, Watson & Tellegen (1985) propose that positive and negative affect may be understood as being two separate unipolar dimensions which can thus potentially co-exist.

Alternatively, it could be that rather than experiencing two separate emotions at the same time, listeners are actually experiencing a ‘pleasurable sadness’. Schubert’s

Dissociation Theory of Emotion in Aesthetic Contexts explains mechanistically how this could be possible. Thus Charland (2005) argues that there may be two distinct types of valence being experienced, ‘emotion valence’ and ‘affect valence’, with the latter referring to how good or bad the emotion feels as distinct from the actual character of the emotion being experienced.

157

Other Negative Emotions

In general, music which aroused other negative emotions tended to be avoided by the participants. CS1 described avoiding music which made her feel emotionally

“uncomfortable” or scared, as did CS4. CS3 and CS4 also described music which made them angry either because it is aesthetically displeasing or because they dislike the content of the lyrics. It appears that they will both tend to avoid such music. In this case it is likely that the particular stimuli do not cause them to dissociate or to experience absorption. Therefore their displeasure nodes are not deactivated and the participants are experiencing ‘real’ unpleasantness.

On the other hand, despite his assertions that hip-hop music did not make him more aggressive, CS2 reported using it “...if I want to make myself angry or if I want to have some payback or want to try harder to beat my goals...”. His apparently contradictory answers may be because of the disapproval of fellow church members of such music as mentioned by the participant in the interview. Studies on college-age males who use heavy-metal music have found that they often listen to such music to release or unload their pent-up frustrations through the loud and intense sounds

(Arnett, 1991). In this case however, CS2 appears to be using the music when his aim is to bring himself into a state of high emotional arousal.

6.6 - CONCLUSIONS

This study involved case studies of individuals who reported experiencing a strong emotional response to music. The data included the individual’s scores on the personality measures drawn from Study 1 (Chapter 5), and an interview during which

158 the participant listened to a self-selected piece of music and described their experience when listening to it. The data in this study revealed some interesting information relevant to the cognitivist/emotivist debate. It also served to strengthen the argument that individual differences are crucial to understanding emotional response to music including music evoking negative emotions.

Based on the above discussion, it is proposed that individual response to sad music may fall into several categories:

1. Individuals who prefer to listen to music that enlivens and uplifts.

These may have lesser capacities for dissociation or absorption and therefore prefer to avoid music that evokes negative emotions.

2. Individuals who are strong dissociators and can therefore enjoy the neural activation of listening to music of either a negative and positive valence. Given the findings that music with the most emotional variance tends to elicit the strongest arousal, they may still demonstrate a preference for music containing passages that make them feel sad (Schubert, 1996).

3. Individuals who enjoy a capacity for absorption and dissociation, and who - due to other conditions such as the need to reflect on negative life events, deal with grief or adjust to other changes or losses in their life such as migration - may enjoy the psychological benefits of catharsis, emotional connection or emotional resolution without the usual attendant pain and displeasure.

4. Individuals with ruminative tendencies. Some may have a lesser capacity to dissociate and will therefore experience sadness and displeasure when listening to sad music, but will nevertheless continue due to their difficulty in disengaging from negative stimuli. Others may have a strong capacity for absorption,

159 but because of the attentional bias common amongst ruminators find this absorption mostly activated by stimuli with a negative content.

CS1 and CS4 seem to fit within the description of the second category. Both had high scores in Absorption and Dissociation and low scores in Rumination. They both appeared capable of enjoying the emotional arousal of all music regardless of valence.

However, CS4 demonstrated some interesting changes depending on prior mood.

When affected by a sad mood, she appears to find it beneficial to use sad music for a time in order to reflect upon events or as part of the grieving process (category 3).

However, she appears only to indulge in such reflection for a certain period of time.

CS2 also seemed to mostly fall within the second category. His scores for Absorption and Dissociation were the highest amongst the five participants. Interestingly, the two male participants (CS2 and CS5) were the only ones of the five who scored below average in Music Empathy. This is in accord with the study by Kreutz, Schubert and

Mitchell (2008, p. 65) which found that music-systemizing as opposed to music- empathising tends to be a masculine listening style. CS5’s claim that he is only aware of the emotions in the music when they are of a sad, melancholy type may demonstrate an interesting interplay between a non-empathic listening style, and the bias for negatively valenced stimuli which is common to ruminators (Chapter 3).

CS3 and CS5 appear to fit the fourth category. Both participants displayed high scores in Absorption and Rumination. They both mentioned problems with depression and seem to experience a strong pull towards sad music. CS3 however, demonstrated a greater awareness of the benefits of using music to break out of a negative mood.

160 Thus at times, she used music in a way that fit the description of the first category.

Also within the parameters of the first category is the fact that her Dissociation score was the lowest of all participants. CS5 on the other hand did not exhibit the same capacity to break out of his ruminative behaviour.

The study also tends to support the hypothesis that absorption and dissociation make it possible for some individuals to enjoy sad music without the usual accompanying displeasure. Participants also mentioned experiencing mixed emotions while listening to sad music. Whether or not this is the simultaneous experience of two distinct emotions, or the experience of a negative emotion which is pleasurable as Schubert’s

Dissociation Theory of Emotion in Aesthetic Contexts proposes, is something which this study was not able to clarify but which will provide a fascinating aspect of the topic for future investigation.

While much of the time the emotional arousal may be the aspect that attracts, prior mood may cause some to seek out sad music in order to experience particular psychological benefits such as reflecting on life-events, enjoying emotional communion, or engaging in a process of grieving in circumstances of bereavement or other major life-changes such as migration. However, there appears to be a point where the normal and healthy practices of reflecting, remembering or grieving come to an end. Where most individuals would eventually move on from these processes, some individuals appear to become caught in ruminative behaviour despite the fact that this perpetuates their dysphoria.

161 As a consequence of the emergent themes in this qualitative analysis it is possible to speculate on a model of attraction to negative emotion in music, which can be divided into adaptive and maladaptive outcomes. Figure 1 summarises how each of the main goals of listening to sad music that emerged from the interviews could be experienced in a ruminative way, as though trapping the listener into focussing on unpleasant aspects of the music and its associations, or in an adaptive manner, leading to pleasurable, ‘cleansing’ outcomes, or allowing the experience itself to be ‘enjoyed’ in a state of absorption. While my conclusions are that it is possible to have several kinds of goals activated, and that both adaptive and maladaptive outcomes are possible, a novel aspect of this study is the identification of maladaptive attraction to negative emotion in music.

Whether or not the outcome for the listener is adaptive or maladaptive may be dependent on both personality and learned response styles. Since rumination is associated with clinical depression it may well be that for some the maladaptive outcome is not a voluntary goal, but rather a result of the involuntary bias towards negative stimuli that characterises many mood disorders. This is probably in part based on the particular unbalanced brain chemistry involved in the disorder. For others it may be a learned pattern of behaviour in response to stress which continues despite the fact it does not help the listener to achieve the goal of improving his or her mood (Moulds et al., 2007).

There were some limitations to this study. Firstly, it cannot be expected that these participants would have access to the mental processes involved in their behaviour.

Therefore, it is important to remember that the results of this study are not necessarily

162 reflective of the true mechanisms involved, but merely the participants’ perceptions.

Some minor differences between answers in the questionnaire and the interviews were found. This may reflect the feeling of distance and anonymity that may tend to evoke more honest answers when completing a survey (Hawkes, 2004), while the presence of an interviewer in person may cause some participants to modify their answers. In relation to maladaptive behaviour or behaviour considered to be less socially acceptable, such as rumination or listening to aggressive music, some responses in the interview may have reflected a desire to justify one’s behaviour rather than a true understanding of the motivations and processes involved in the music listening.

Alternatively, it could reflect differing moods at the time the survey was completed.

Adaptive outcome Absorption, Catharsis,

Resolution

Goal Arousal Reflection Nostalgia Grief

Maladaptive outcome Rumination

Figure 1 - A model of adaptive and maladaptive attraction to negative emotion in music

Although this study was based upon a small sample size it enlarges upon Study 1 by supporting the hypothesis that absorption and dissociation make it possible for some individuals to enjoy sad music without the usual accompanying displeasure. While

163 much of the time the emotional arousal may be the aspect that attracts, prior mood may cause some to seek out sad music in order to experience particular psychological benefits such as reflecting on life-events, enjoying emotional communion, or engaging in a process of grieving in circumstances of bereavement or other major life- changes such as migration. However, there appears to be a point where the normal and healthy practices of reflecting, remembering or grieving come to an end. Where most individuals would eventually move on from these processes, some individuals appear to become caught in ruminative behaviour despite the fact that this perpetuates their dysphoria.

Future studies should consider the impact of treatments for depression on listening choices amongst ruminators. It will also be important to consider whether the tendency of various individuals to ruminate is a stable response style or a transient behaviour present only during a depressive episode. Several of the participants seemed to move between categories based on conditions such as mood, or the need to deal with life events. Thus the study illustrates the variables that can influence individual cases. Future studies will therefore also need to consider the influence of prior mood in more depth, and gender related differences in music-empathy.

164 SUMMARY

 Given the focus on individual differences in this thesis, the purpose of Study 2

was to investigate the phenomenon of attraction to negative emotions in music

in a qualitative study so as to be able to examine the phenomenon at a personal

level and to contrast varying perspectives.

 The study was conducted under a ‘realist paradigm’, the purpose of which is

not to find a single answer, but to find patterns of experiences and ‘families’ of

answers. The data were analysed by means of ‘thematic analysis.’

 Five participants from Study 1 were chosen for the strength of their attraction

to negative emotions in music. Data were collected from three main sources:

(i) a set of open-ended questions from the online survey in Study 1 which the

participants had already completed; (ii) face-to-face interviews which included

a live music listening experience; (iii) the scores from the personality

measures of the individual participants derived from the data in Study 1.

 The data from the case studies reported in this chapter fell into several broad

categories: (i) the participants’ beliefs as to the reason for their emotional

responses to certain music; (ii) their purpose in choosing to listen to certain

types of music; and, (iii) their experiences when listening to sad music or

music expressing other negative emotions.

 Some of the types of mood regulation purposes that music served were: (i) to

give mental or emotional stimulation or arousal; (ii) to relax or calm; (iii) to

distract from negative emotions; (iv) an opportunity for catharsis of negative

emotions; (v) to create a situation conducive to reflecting on and making sense

of life-events.

165  In relation to music evoking negative emotions, participants gave the

following reasons for listening: (i) for the catharsis of negative emotions; (ii)

for ‘company in misery’; (iii) to enjoy a sense of hope when the music

resolves happily; (iv) for the enjoyment of the emotional arousal experienced

when listening; and, (v) for the opportunity it afforded for reflecting on life

events, indulging in nostalgia, or facilitating the experience of grief, (vi) an

experience of mixed emotions.

 The data support the idea that individual differences are important to an

understanding of why people are attracted to music evoking negative

emotions, and that differences in absorption and dissociation may in part

underlie these individual variations in response. Motivations for listening to

sad music support optimal arousal and mood management theories. In

addition, some listeners appear to be seeking other psychological benefits such

as the opportunity to reflect on and process life events, or to purge negative

emotions that are currently being experienced. The findings suggest a model

of attraction to music evoking negative emotions which involves both adaptive

and maladaptive outcomes.

166

CHAPTER 7 – AN EXPANSION OF THE LITERATURE

REVIEW: NOSTALGIA & REFLECTIVENESS

167 AN EXPANSION OF THE LITERATURE REVIEW:

NOSTALGIA & REFLECTIVENESS

7.1 Why Consider Nostalgia and Reflectiveness?

The study reported on in Chapter 6 revealed two reasons for listening to music evoking negative emotions which had not been considered in the previous chapters.

Participants reported listening to such music, among other reasons, for the purpose of indulging in nostalgia and for the opportunity it presents for reflecting on life-events.

Nostalgia-proneness and tendencies towards reflectiveness are both measurable personality traits (see the discussion below) and may therefore provide additional information regarding individual differences in response to negative emotions in music. Therefore, it was decided to conduct a brief investigation of the literature on these two personality traits in order to inform the design of a further study.

7.2 Nostalgia

The New Oxford Dictionary of English ("Nostalgia," 1998) defines nostalgia as “a sentimental longing or wistful for the past.” It is found cross-culturally in young and old (Sedikides, Wildschut, Arndt, & Routledge, 2008) and is a common experience in Western cultures. Over 80% of British undergraduates report experiencing nostalgia at least once a week (Wildschut et al., 2006).

The function of nostalgia has been variously argued to be an attempt to reinterpret and recover the past (Cassia, 2000), to evoke positive affect and to counteract a negative mood (Wildschut et al., 2006), to increase self-esteem (Sedikides, Wildschut, Arndt et al., 2008), to foster stronger social bonds (Sedikides, Wildschut, Arndt et al., 2008;

168 Wildschut et al., 2006), to cope with existential threat (Sedikides, Wildschut, Arndt et al., 2008) and to cope with discontinuity in a person’s life (Sedikides, Wildschut,

Gaertner, Routledge, & Arndt, 2008).

Various studies have found that it is often triggered by music (Barrett et al., 2010;

Zentner, Grandjean, & Scherer, 2008). In fact Juslin et al. (2008) found that nostalgia was triggered more often in the context of music than in non-musical episodes. Barrett et al. (2010) found that the extent to which nostalgia is evoked by a particular piece of music depends on the autobiographical salience of that music for the individual as well as how prone to nostalgia the individual is.

There are interesting connections between nostalgia-proneness and negative emotions and moods. Wildschut et al. (2006) found that participants in a negative mood were more nostalgic than those in a positive or a neutral mood. The authors of that study concluded that nostalgia must therefore act so as to counteract a negative mood.

However, that study did not measure the actual effect of nostalgic experiences upon mood. The possibility exists as discussed in Chapter 6 in connection with rumination, that an indulgence in nostalgia may not always be motivated by rational purposes.

Alternatively, even if the listener’s rationale for listening to music that induces nostalgia is to improve their mood, it is possible that if may not always have the effect that they desire. It has also been demonstrated that nostalgia-proneness is related to the Sadness dimension of The Affective Neurosciences Personality Scale and

Neuroticism from the Big Five Personality Index (Barrett et al., 2010), indicating that it may in fact be related to maladaptive behavioural patterns. While it seems to give rise to predominantly positive emotions, the experience of nostalgia can be happy or

169 sad or a combination of both, and thus has often been called ‘bittersweet’ (Barrett et al., 2010; Wildschut et al., 2006; Zimbardo & Boyd, 1999).

Given the connections between sadness and nostalgia and the capacity of music to trigger nostalgic episodes, it follows that nostalgia might play some role in the attraction to sad music of some individuals. This hypothesis will therefore be explored in Study 3. In addition, it is not altogether clear from the literature whether indulgence in nostalgia is a healthy habit which serves to counteract a negative mood, or whether it may be part of an unhealthy cycle of behaviour which only prolongs a negative mood. Given the conflicting arguments regarding whether nostalgia is a positive psychological experience or a negative one in the literature, it is hoped that Study 3 will contribute to clarifying an understanding of the psychological functions and benefits (or otherwise) of nostalgia.

7.3 Reflectiveness and the Contrast with Rumination

As discussed in Chapter 3, rumination can be understood as an involuntary focus on negative and pessimistic thoughts (Conway et al., 2000; Joorman, 2005). It is strongly related to depression (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991b) and involves an attentional bias towards negative stimuli (Gotlib et al., 2004). It is also associated with behaviour that prolongs sadness and a reduced motivation to do things that would improve one’s mood (Forbes & Dahl, 2005). Thus it has been argued that ruminators may find themselves attracted to sad music due to its negative valence despite the fact that listening to it only perpetuates their dysphoria (see Chapter 3).

170 On the other hand, Trapnell and Campbell (1999) argue that “reflective private self- attentiveness”, the disposition and capacity to reflect and to examine the self, is a highly adaptive and psychologically healthy trait, distinct from ruminative tendencies.

Reflectiveness is a form of self-attentiveness motivated by and an enjoyment of analysing oneself (p. 297). This distinction was proposed by Trapnell and

Campbell (1999) as a solution to the ‘self-absorption paradox,’ the fact that a disposition to self-reflect is often found to be a healthy, adaptive trait, but is also associated with neuroticism, depression and poor self-esteem. Trapnell and Campbell argued that it is the ruminative rather than the reflective aspect of private self-focus which is maladaptive. Subsequent studies have further investigated this distinction

(Elliott & Ioker, 2008; Joireman et al., 2002; Wolfe et al., 2003). It would likely be rumination in this sense that would cause a depression sufferer to choose music that will not help improve their mood.

On the other hand, for reflective people, music could provide a medium for self- analysis with the possible psychological benefits that greater self-knowledge can confer (Trapnell & Campbell, 1999, p. 299). This seemed to be indicated by the participants of the study reported in Chapter 6. Therefore a further investigation of whether reflectiveness is related to the attraction to music evoking negative emotions may shed further light on the individual differences involved in the phenomenon.

171 SUMMARY

 Both nostalgia and reflectiveness emerged in Study 2 (Chapter 7) as

reasons for listening to music evoking negative emotions. These had not

been considered in previous chapters.

 Nostalgia has been described as ‘bittersweet’ and is often associated with

prior negative mood. We could therefore expect that it might be related to

an attraction to music evoking negative emotions. However, it is not clear

whether such attraction would be from the rationale desire to counteract a

negative mood or may be part of a maladaptive cycle of behaviour which

may actually serve to prolong negative moods.

 Reflectiveness is distinct from rumination in that it demonstrates a healthy

tendency to self-analyse and process life events. Listening to music that

evokes negative emotions, may provide an opportunity for such adaptive

psychological processes.

172

CHAPTER 8 – STUDY 3

173 8.1. – THE RATIONALE FOR THIS STUDY11

The previous studies reported in this thesis support the argument that individual differences play a role in the complex reasons why people are attracted to music evoking negative emotions. Previous findings demonstrated that the personality traits of absorption and music empathy are correlated with the enjoyment of sad music

(Chapter 5). It was argued that individuals with high scores in these special traits have the capacity to dissociate or de-activate displeasure in aesthetic contexts. Thus they are able to enjoy the emotional stimulation of listening to sad music without the displeasure that would usually accompany an experience of sadness (Schubert, 1996).

However, the question remains as to whether there may be additional psychological benefits involved other than immediate hedonic pleasure. In the long term, listening to sad music may help to increase pleasure if it helps the listener to purge or process negative emotions or helps them to feel less alone in their experience of sad emotions

(Levinson, 1990b; Nabi et al., 2006). Previous research has not considered this, or considered the personality traits that could be associated with such listening behaviour. In addition, the possibility that some people may listen to sad music without such rational motivations or benefits has not yet been clearly established.

The present study therefore attempted to build on the previous studies by examining further the possible involvement of nostalgia and reflectiveness. In addition this study further examined the possibility that people with maladaptive mood regulation strategies such as rumination may listen to sad music despite the fact that it perpetuates their sadness and they derive little psychological benefit from it. This

11 A version of this chapter has been accepted (subject to revisions) for publication in Musicae Scientiae as: Garrido, S. & Schubert, E. (in-press) “Adaptive and maladaptive attraction to negative emotions in music”.

174 study will also attempt to replicate the findings of the previous studies in relation to absorption and music empathy.

8.2 – HYPOTHESES

The current study tested the hypothesis that Absorption and Music Empathy are each correlated with the enjoyment of sad music, in confirmation of the previous studies.

Since Reflectiveness involves an enjoyment of self-analysis, it was further hypothesised that it would also be correlated with an enjoyment of sad music. On the other hand, it was hypothesised that Rumination would be correlated with an attraction to sad music although not necessarily an enjoyment of it. Given the mixed valences associated with nostalgia, no specific hypotheses were formulated about

Nostalgia-Proneness. Rather it was included as an exploratory variable as were

Empathic Concern and Fantasy-Proneness.

8.3 – METHOD

8.3.1 Procedures

Participants completed an online survey in their own time. There was no time limit for completing the survey and there was no requirement to complete it in a single session. Data were collected over a period of six months. The opening screen requested information about symptoms of depression that participants might be experiencing and this was followed by 120 questions grouped according to the various inventories used, as described in the measures section.

175 8.3.2 Participants

152 participants were recruited from numerous sources. This included 72 students from a university in Australia, most of whom were undergraduate music students and students partaking in a general music subject, but with no music prerequisites. They participated in the study in exchange for course credit. In addition several organisations with access to groups of people to whom the study might have been of interest were approached and asked to distribute information regarding the survey either by means of a newsletter or by posting a link on their websites. These included organisations of music lovers who were not necessarily musicians themselves, an association for depression sufferers and a meditation school. 80 participants were recruited from these groups. No incentives were offered to the non-student participants. 15 participants were later omitted due to missing data, giving a total of

137 participants. Participants had a mean age of 30.87 years (SD = 14.93; range 12 to

75 years). The sample was composed of 97 females and 55 males. Most participants had played a musical instrument to varying degrees (89.5%), with those who did describing themselves as either having had some kind of formal education in music

(90.2%), or being self-taught (9.8%).

8.3.3 Measures

The instrument used was a cross-sectional survey of 71 items (see Appendix 3). Given the emotional nature of some of the survey questions and the potential for some participants with mood disorders to be disturbed by them, it was considered necessary to begin the survey with some pre-screening questions. These questions were based on the depression pre-screener designed by Rogers and colleagues (2002). Participants were asked three or four questions (depending on their response to the first) designed

176 to gauge their current level of depression, if any. If the participants’ responses indicated that they suffered from severe depression they were redirected to a page that thanked them for their time but stated that no further questions were required to be answered. It also suggested that they seek the assistance of a professional counsellor.

Participants whose responses indicated mild or no depression were directed to the next question in the survey.

The next two questions in the survey related to age and gender. Four questions then gathered demographic information regarding musical experience, based upon the instrument developed by Cuddy, Balkwill, Peretz and Holden (2005).

In the subsequent part of the questionnaire a ‘Like Sad Music Scale’ (LSMS) was developed based on Oliver’s (1993) Sad Film Scale (SFS). Oliver’s scale was developed specifically to test a tendency to experience sadness when watching sad films and the enjoyment of such sadness. The SFS consisted of 15 items including some designed to reflect tendencies to experience emotional responses to sad films, and some to reflect enjoyment of that emotional response. Oliver reported good reliability (Chronbach’s alpha =.93 for males and .91 for females). Since this was a similar purpose to the current study, it was considered an appropriate foundation for the development of a scale for liking sad music.

The scale was adapted primarily by substituting the word ‘music’ for the word ‘film/s’ wherever it had been used in the SFS. However, there were some questions, such as those relating to film characters or storylines that could not be so easily modified for use with the topic of music. Therefore, only 7 of the original SFS items were retained.

An additional four items were constructed, resulting in a total of 11 items in the proposed LSMS. One item was especially designed to investigate the possible

177 involvement of grief to the use of sad music (Huron, 2011). Two items addressed the issue of whether a happy resolution of the music was necessary for the enjoyment of sad music, and the possibility that valence is of no influence at all, and the final item explicitly asked about the enjoyment of sadness and grief (see Appendix 3). It was expected that the resulting scale would measure liking of sad music whether the motive for listening was hedonic pleasure, catharsis or other psychological benefits.

Agreement with each item was recorded on 5-point scales ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

In addition to the LSMS which was designed to measure liking of sad music, the survey also intended to look at listening habits which might reflect the case of participants who have a pattern of listening to sad music despite their deriving little or no enjoyment from it. Previous studies have asked participants to estimate the amount of time in minutes that they spent listening to music per day (North et al., 2000;

Schwartz & Fouts, 2003; Stratton & Zalanowski, 1997). We added to that an additional question asking participants to estimate how much time they spent listening to sad music, with the intention of then calculating the percentage of total music listening time that was spent listening to sad music. This was considered the most appropriate measure to use in this study, given that ruminators may not actually enjoy, and therefore possibly may not ‘prefer’ this kind of music. They may merely listen to it out of an inability to disengage from negative stimuli.

The remainder of the survey was designed using sub-scales for each of the independent variables drawn from studies by various authors, several of which were also used in Study 1 (Chapter 5). The measure for absorption was taken from the

Absorption, Intellectance and Liberalism Questionnaire (AIT; Glisky & Kihlstrom,

178 1993). This instrument included a 12-item subscale for absorption drawn from the

Tellegen Absorption Scale (TAS; Tellegen & Atkinson, 1974), one of the most commonly used measures of absorption (Tellegen, 1982). The AIT is reported by the authors (p. 117) to have high reliability (Carmine’s theta), with the absorption subscale scoring .84. Agreement with each item was recorded on 5-point scales ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Kreutz, Schubert and Mitchell (2008) developed an instrument for the measurement of ‘music empathisizing’ by adapting a general empathisizing-systemizing measure

(Wakabayashi et al., 2006) to music. The authors reported that their scales were found to be internally consistent and reliable and results aligned with that of the general empathizing scale. Reliability was reported as 0.69 (Chronbach’s alpha) for the music empathising subscale (Kreutz, Schubert et al., 2008, p. 67).The short form of the

Music Empathy scale developed in that study was used in the present study.

Agreement with each item was recorded on 4-point scales ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree) according to the method used by the authors.

The scales for general Empathic Concern and Fantasy-Proneness were drawn from the

Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1980). Davis reported internal reliability coefficients (standardized alpha) of 0.72 for males and 0.70 for females for the

Empathic Concern subscale, results which were further confirmed in subsequent studies (Davis, 1983; Jackson et al., 2005; Litvack-Miller et al., 1997).The internal reliability coefficients for Fantasy-Proneness (standardized alpha) were 0.78 for males and 0.75 for females. The 5-point Likert response scale of the original instrument was

179 retained for use in this study (A= does not describe me well – E= describes me very well).

Rumination was tested using the Rumination-Reflection Questionnaire (RRQ;

Trapnell & Campbell, 1999). The rumination subscale of the RRQ was developed based on a discussion of the distinction between the traits of Neuroticism and

Openness to Experience from the five-factor model of personality and their association with depression. The final version of the scale was a 24-item questionnaire designed to assess the instance of chronic self-attention and focus on negative thoughts about the past (p. 293). The authors reported that the internal consistency analysis yielded a score of 0.91 (Chronbach’s alpha) (p. 294). Questions were answered using a 5-point Likert scale response pattern (1= strongly disagree, 5= strongly agree) as in the original scale by Trapnell and Campbell. In addition the

Reflectiveness subscale from Trapnell and Campbell’s Rumination-Reflection

Questionnaire was used. This allowed further examination of the distinction between ruminative and reflective behaviours and the enjoyment of sad music. Agreement with each item was recorded on 5-point scales ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5

(strongly agree).

The Southampton Nostalgia Scale (SNS; Routledge, Arndt, Sedikides, & Wildschut,

2008), was added as a measure of nostalgia proneness. Nostalgia Proneness, as measured by the SNS is considered a trait-level construct and therefore reflects a stable tendency to nostalgia (Barrett et al., 2010). Routledge et al. reported a reliability co-efficient of .92 and good correlation scores with other nostalgia inventories. Participants in the present survey were given a definition of nostalgia (“a

180 sense of longing when recalling specific or general events, places or people from the past”) and requested to answer the five questions which followed relating to the frequency with which they experience feelings of nostalgia. The scale has been used in further studies as a measure of Nostalgia-Proneness (Barrett et al., 2010). The authors of this study used a mixture of multiple choice responses and a 7-point likert scale. The original method was retained in this study.

In Study 1 (Chapter 5) a one-way ANOVA revealed a statistically significant difference between the level of liking of sad music on the QED (dissociation scale) (F

(4, 54) = 2.75, p = .038). However, a Pearson correlation analysis did not show any significant relationship between a liking for sad music and dissociation as measured by the QED. Among the possible reasons for these indecisive results is the fact that the QED may not be the most effective tool for measuring dissociation in normative populations (Cleaves et al., 1995). Alternatively, it was argued that absorption, a subcomponent of clinical dissociation (Waller, Putnam, & Carlson, 1996) which did obtain significant results in both analyses, may be the only aspect of dissociation implicated. Schubert’s theoretical construction of dissociation (the inhibition of displeasure) does not necessarily relate to all aspects of self reported dissociative experiences. However this was something requiring further clarification. Therefore, an instrument that may be more effective in measuring dissociation in non-clinical populations was selected for the present study

.

An alternative to the QED for measuring dissociation is the Dissociative Experiences

Scale (DES, Bernstein & Putnam, 1986). Respondents to the original DES are asked to place a tick on a 100-mm line to denote what percentage of the time they spend

181 having each of the 28 experiences. Researchers are supposed to measure responses to the nearest 5 mm. Bernstein and Putnam chose this response method rather than simply asking people whether they ever had the dissociative experience as in the

QED, so that their scale “could reflect a wider range of dissociative symptomatology”

(Carlson & Putnam, 1993, p. 16). However, many researchers found it impractical to measure responses to the nearest 5 mm. In addition, when using that scale with a non- clinical problem, most participant's scores will pool around the lower end of the range, giving skewed results (Wright & Loftus, 1999). The DES II (Carlson &

Putnam, 1993) appears to have similar problems (Wright & Loftus, 1999). However, when Wright and Loftus changed the response format so that participants were asked how often they had these experiences compared with most other people (DES-C,

1999), the observed distribution was unskewed and avoided floor effects. The authors claimed that “large numbers of people who scored near the lower limit on DES II were differentiated with DES C” (p. 512). Therefore, this response format was adopted for the current study.

Participants were given the following instructions:

The following questions are about experiences that you may have in your daily

life. We are interested in how often you have these experiences compared to

other people. It is important, however, that your answers show how often these

experiences happen to you when you are not under the influence of alcohol or

drugs. To answer the questions, please determine to what degree the

experience described in the question applies to you and click the appropriate

circle.

182 It asked participants to rate the frequency of their dissociative experiences as “much less” (scored 1), “about the same as others” (6), or “much more than others” (11) on an 11-point scale. Wright and Loftus reported a reliability coefficient (Chronbach’s alpha) of .93. After data collection the 11-point scale was converted to a 0 to 100 scale to make it compatible with the original 100-mm line used by Bernstein and

Putnam.

8.3.4 Scoring

To investigate the relationship between liking of sad music and the independent variables of music empathy, empathy, absorption, fantasy proneness, rumination, reflectiveness, nostalgia and dissociation, scale scores for the LSMS (the dependent variable) and for each of the independent variables were calculated.

Scores for the LSMS were calculated by reverse coding negative items (LSMS02,

LSMS04, LSMS06 and LSMS09, as listed in Appendix 3) and then summing all item scores. The percentage of total time spent listening to sad music was then calculated by dividing the subsequent two items which asked for hours spent listening to music in general (denominator) and hours spent listening to sad music (numerator) (PS01,

PS02) and the result was multiplied by 100 to give a percentage.

The measures for Music Empathy, Absorption, Rumination, Empathic Concern and

Fantasy-Proneness were calculated as described in Chapter 5, following the scoring methods indicated by the authors of the scales. The Reflectiveness subscale was calculated as a mean of each item score like the rumination subscale from the same instrument by Trapnell and Campbell (1999). The Southampton Nostalgia Scale was obtained by calculating the sum of the item scores after reverse coding the fourth item

183 (N04: The scale for this item ran from 1 [At least once a day] to 7 [Once or twice a year]). The DES-C was scored according to the method outlined by Wright and Loftus

(1999), by transforming the responses as 1=0, 2=10, 3=20 up to 11=100 and then obtaining the mean score for each participant.

8.4. – RESULTS

8.4.1 The Like Sad Music Scale

The internal consistency of the proposed ‘Like Sad Music Scale’ (LSMS) was examined and returned a Chronbach’s alpha of .722. An item analysis revealed that the Corrected Item Total Correlation was lowest for the 10th item of the scale which read: “Whether music is happy or sad has no influence on whether I enjoy listening to it or not” (LSMS10). This item also lacked face validity since it was neither positive nor negative. With that item deleted the final version of the scale had a total of ten items, with a Chronbach’s alpha of .803. Responses to at least one item were missing from 15 cases, so these cases were eliminated from further analysis. All analyses reported in this study involving the LSMS therefore had n = 137.

Validity of the LSMS was further tested by examining the association between participant scores and the reported frequency of listening to sad music. A positive correlation was found between Percentage of Sad Music Listening and LSMS scores

(r=.293, p=.001).

Data were further analysed in several ways to investigate the hypothesis that enjoyment of negative emotion in music is related to personality. First, a correlation analysis of subscale scores including the LSMS was conducted to see if overall subscale patterns could be identified (see Table 8). A correlation analysis with

184 individual items of the LSMS was also conducted to test whether any specific aspect of the enjoyment of sad music was particularly implicated with the presence of certain variables (see Table 9). Second, a regression model of subscale scores onto the LSMS was performed (see Table 10). The results of these analyses will be outlined below under headings relating to the individual variables.

Since relatively high correlations existed among several predictor variables, collinearity of predictors was also evaluated using a variance inflation factor (VIF) for each variable. All VIF values remained lower than the suggested threshold value for collinearity (10; see Cohen & Cohen, 1983).

8.4.2 Absorption

Table 8 shows the results of a Pearson correlation analysis between all variables.

Absorption and Reflectiveness returned the strongest positive correlations with the

LSMS with equal results of r = .333, p < .001. Absorption was also correlated with

Reflectiveness (r = .409. p < .001), Nostalgia-Proneness (r = .324. p < .001),

Empathic Concern (r = .352, p < .001), Fantasy (r = .353, p < .001), and Music

Empathy (r = .295, p = .001).

The correlation analysis with the individual items of LSMS (see Table 9) revealed that

Absorption was strongly correlated with several items from the scale, including “I enjoy feeling strong emotions in response to music” (LSMS01) (r = .312. p < .001), “I like sad music because it helps release the sadness” (LSMS03) (r =.300, p < .001), “I like listening to sad music because I can relate to the feelings and emotions being expressed” (LSMS05) (r = .268, p = .002), “It feels good to cry when listening to sad

185 music” (LSMS07) (r =.252, p = .004), and “I enjoy feeling sadness or grief when

listening to music” (LSMS10) (r = .244, p = .005).

Table 8

Pearson Correlations

Percentage Rumination Reflectiveness Absorption Music DESC Nostalgia Empathy Fantasy Sad Music Empathy Dissociation Proneness Proneness Listening LSMS .293** .179* .333** .333** .086 .012 .292** .177* .141 Percentage .254** .102 -.137 .084 .260** .037 -.036 .049 Sad Music Listening Rumination -.026 .053 .077 .266** .261** -.032 .179* Reflection .409** .050 .225** .293** .195* .161 Absorption .295** .069 .324** .352** .353** Music .065 .230** .228** .181** Empathy DESC .311** -.110 .208* Dissociation Nostalgia .164 .226* Proneness Empathy .409** * p<.05, ** p<.01

Table 9 Pearson Correlations among Individual Items of LSMS

Enjoy Rather Helps Too Can Prefer Feels Grieve Only if Enjoy strong feel release Depressing relate uplifting good when resolves sadness emotions Happy sadness to music to cry listening happily or grief sadness Reflectiveness .213* .107 .272** .149 .173* .131 .270** .343** .045 .241** Absorption .312** .105 .300** .195* .268** .075 .252** .178* .093 .244** Nostalgia .118 .079 .279** .075 .263** .098 .336** .291** -.052 .189* Proneness Rumination .093 .065 .335** .010 .238** -.016 .132 .176* -.076 .053 Percentage .093 .169 .248** .148 .229** .168 .136 .189* .137 .175* Sad Music Listening Fantasy .137 -.031 .196* .057 .200* -.033 .281** .144 -.111 -.041 Proneness * p< .05, ** p< .01, bold coefficients indicate r > .3.

186 OLS Stepwise regression of all subscale scores in addition to age onto the LSMS produced three coefficients in the final model that were entered (with criterion of probability of F to enter <= .05 and probability of F to remove >= .10). These were

Absorption, Reflectiveness and Rumination, with Reflectiveness giving a slightly stronger contribution (based on standardized coefficients of .229, .235 and .181 respectively, see Table 10). Adjusted R2 for this model was .153.

8.4.3 Nostalgia-Proneness

Nostalgia-Proneness demonstrated a similar positive correlation with the LSMS in the correlation analysis (r = .292, p = .001). It was also positively correlated with

Absorption as noted above, Rumination (r = .261, p = .003), and Reflection (r = .293, p = .001). Individual items of the LSMS to which Nostalgia-Proneness was significantly correlated were “One reason I like sad music is because it helps me to release my own sadness” (LSMS03) (r = .279, p = .002), “I like listening to sad music because I can relate to the feelings and emotions being expressed” (LSMS05) (r =

.263, p = .003), “It feels good to cry when listening to sad music” (LSMS07) (r =

.336, p < .001), and “I often find myself grieving as a result of listening to music”

(LSMS08) (r = .291, p = .001).

Table 10 Coefficients for Entered Variables in Stepwise Regression Model of Like Sad Music Scale

B Std. Error Beta t Sig. (Constant) 13.471 4.434 3.038 .003 Reflectiveness 1.904 .750 .235 2.537 .013 Absorption .208 .084 .229 2.480 .015 Rumination 1.483 .697 .181 2.126 .036

187 8.4.4 Rumination

Because high rumination scores represent a maladaptive response style, it was possible that the distribution of scores received would be negatively skewed for a typical population. However, for the present analysis it was important to have a wide distribution of scores to test the hypothesis that rumination is correlated with an attraction to sad music. Data from the Rumination variable were tested for normality of distribution using the one-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Results were non- significant (p = .578) demonstrating that the distribution of scores was approximately normal.

The correlation analysis with the LSMS (see Table 8) returned significant results for

Rumination but the effect size was relatively small (r = .179, p = .036). However, correlation with Percentage of Sad Music Listening was somewhat stronger (r = .254, p = .003). The variable was also included in the final model in the regression analysis

(see Table 10). The correlation analysis using the individual items of the LSMS also revealed a stronger result than with the overall LSMS scores, with a positive correlation with Rumination being found for the items “One reason I like sad music is because it helps me to release my own sadness” (LSMS03) (r = .335, p < .001) and “I like listening to sad music because I can relate to the feelings and emotions being expressed” (LSMS05) (r = .238, p = .005). Rumination was also positively correlated with Nostalgia-Proneness (see above) and with the DESC (r = .266, p = .003).

8.4.5 Reflectiveness

There was a similar positive correlation between Reflectiveness and the LSMS (r =

.333, p > .001). Reflection was also positively correlated with Absorption and

188 Nostalgia-Proneness (see above). As discussed above, Reflectiveness was also retained in the regression model. Given the close relationship between Reflectiveness and Absorption and the fact that both variables returned equal correlation coefficients with the LSMS and were both retained in the regression model, it was decided to calculate partial correlations in order to rule out the possibility of false predictions.

The partial correlations were first computed with LSMS and Absorption with

Reflectiveness held constant. Partial correlations for Absorption and LSMS dropped to r = .228, p = .010). When computed between LSMS and Reflectiveness with

Absorption held constant, results were similar with the correlation coefficient dropping to r = .229, p = .009. Therefore we can infer that the relationship with the

LSMS is equally mediated by Reflectiveness and Absorption. It was thought that gender differences might be involved and therefore partial correlations were conducted with cases split according to gender. Results are reported in Section 8.4.8.

The correlation analysis with the individual items of the LSMS against all variables showed that the strongest correlation of Reflectiveness was with the item “I often find myself grieving as a result of listening to music” (LSMS08) (r = .343, p < .001). Other significant results were with the items “One reason I like sad music is because it helps me to release my own sadness” (LSMS03) (r = .272, p = .001), “It feels good to cry when listening to sad music” (LSMS07) (r = .270, p = .002), and “I enjoy feeling sadness or grief when listening to music” (LSMS10) (r = .241, p = .005).

189 8.4.6 Dissociation

In this analysis the correlation between dissociation as measured by the DESC and the

LSMS was not significant. Correlation with Percentage of Music Listening was slightly stronger, p = .004, with the effect size approaching medium, r = .260. It was also positively correlated with Rumination, Reflectiveness and Nostalgia (see above under relevant subheadings).

8.4.7 Empathic Concern

Correlation analysis showed a positive correlation between Empathic Concern and the

LSMS, (p = .046, with a small effect size r = .177). Empathic Concern was also correlated with Reflectiveness, Music Empathy and Absorption (see above).

8.4.8 Gender

Two separate OLS stepwise regression analyses were conducted with cases divided into male and female in order to test for gender differences. Results were similar to the regression model discussed above. In the first regression analysis, the three variables retained in the final model were Reflectiveness, Absorption and Rumination.

In the gender analysis, these variables appeared to be split according to gender.

Absorption was the only variable retained for males (with criterion of probability of F to enter <= .05 and probability of F to remove >= .10) with a standardized coefficient of .342. Adjusted R2 was .093. Two coefficients were produced for females which were entered in the final model (with criterion of probability of F to enter <= .05 and probability of F to remove >= .10). They were Reflectiveness and Rumination with standardized coefficients of .342 and .233 respectively. Adjusted R2 for this model was .140.

190

Similar results were found when the partial correlations (discussed in Section 8.4.5) were re-calculated with cases split according to gender. Between the LSMS and

Reflectiveness with Absorption held constant, results were not significant for males (r

= .196, p = .198), but were significant for females (r = .257, p = .020). Between the

LSMS and Absorption with Reflectiveness held constant, results were not significant for females (r = .157, p = .160), but were significant for males (r = .292, p = .052).

8.4.9 Percentage of Sad Music Listening

As discussed above, Percentage of Sad Music Listening was positively correlated with the LSMS, Rumination, and the DESC (see Table 8). Individual items of the LSMS that were significantly correlated with Percentage of Sad Music Listening were “One reason I like sad music is because it helps me to release my own sadness” (LSMS03)

(r = .248, p = .004) and “I like listening to sad music because I can relate to the feelings and emotions being expressed” (LSMS05) (r = .229, p = .008).

8.4.10 Fantasy-Proneness, Music Empathy and Group Analysis

There were no significant correlations found with Fantasy and the LSMS. Only one of the individual items was significantly correlated, which was “It feels good to cry when listening to sad music” (LSMS07) (r = .281, p = .001). As noted above, Fantasy was found to correlate with Absorption.

Correlation analysis did not return significant results for Music Empathy with either the LSMS or the individual items of the LSMS. Significant correlation was found

191 between Music Empathy and Absorption, (r = .295, p = .001), Empathic Concern (r =

.228, p = .010) and Nostalgia-Proneness (r = .230, p = .009).

In addition, independent samples t-test analyses of the subscale values with participants divided into students and non-students produced no significant results, with the exception of Rumination (Non-Student M = 2.97, SD = .744; Student M =

3.490, SD=.597; t(135) = 4. 537, p < .000, and for Reflectiveness (Non-Student M =

3.696, SD = .715; Student M = 3.351, SD = .678; t(133) = -2.878, p = .005) with

Bonferroni adjustment for multiple comparisons.

8.5. – DISCUSSION & CONCLUSIONS

The results of these analyses suggest that the feelings of sadness elicited from listening to sad music is enjoyable to many listeners, while some are attracted to it for other reasons. The findings mostly support the proposed hypotheses which will be discussed individually below.

It was hypothesised that Absorption and Music Empathy would be correlated with an enjoyment of sad music. This was supported in the case of Absorption which was found to be correlated with the overall liking measure (the LSMS), and in particular to the item relating to enjoyment of the strong emotions experienced when listening to sad music (LSMS01 and LSMS10). Participants also agreed that it felt good to cry when listening to sad music although the wording of this item (LSMS07) did not allow us to distinguish between participants who were referring to a purely hedonistic pleasure and those who were referring to other things that may feel good such as catharsis. On the other hand, the correlation between Absorption and other items of

192 the LSMS demonstrates that some participants did specifically derive benefits in addition to pleasure such as the release of their own sadness (LSMS03) or the feeling that they are sharing the emotions of another human being (LSMS05) (Levinson,

1990b).

In contrast to the findings of Study 1 (Chapter 5), no significant correlation was found between the LSMS and Music Empathy, although a slightly stronger correlation was found between the LSMS and the more global trait of Empathic Concern. This may be due to the differences in the samples used. The previous research used primarily undergraduate music students while the current study was comprised of a broader sample. The result brings into question whether empathy has any more than an idiosyncratic relation to enjoyment of negative emotion in music.

Contrary to expectation, Reflectiveness did not seem particularly strongly correlated with the enjoyment of listening to sad music. Rather, Reflectiveness was correlated with LSMS scores, but most strongly to the tendency to grieve when listening to sad music. This may suggest an inclination on the part of reflective people to use opportunities such as listening to sad music to process and come to terms with events in their own lives. It seems that this is particularly true in relation to females.

The hypothesis with regard to Rumination was also supported. The findings indicate that participants with high scores in this variable do not necessarily enjoy sad music but are nevertheless attracted to it because of the perceived opportunity for catharsis and because they can relate to the sad emotions being expressed. Although they do not seem to like it, their listening habits nevertheless indicate an attraction to it. This proved to be the same with Dissociation as measured by the DESC. Since high scores in Rumination and the DESC both appear to indicate the presence of abnormal

193 psychology, the relatively higher percentage of sad music they listen to may be a manifestation of maladaptive mood regulation strategies. Thus Ruminators may be predominantly attracted to sad music because of their own negative emotions and frame of mind. These participants may believe that they are benefiting from the purging of their own negative emotions, while in fact it appears that such behaviour only perpetuates feelings of dysphoria (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991b).

These differing results between the personality traits offer an intriguing picture of the individual differences at play in the paradox of sad music listening. While the personality traits of Absorption and Reflectiveness were each significantly correlated with an overall liking of sad music, the basis of such liking appears to differ depending on the personality trait in question. Those participants with high scores in

Absorption seem capable of enjoying sad music for purely hedonistic reasons. This is in agreement with the previous findings in this thesis and supports Schubert’s argument (1996) that some listeners are able to dissociate or de-activate displeasure in aesthetic contexts so as to enjoy the emotional arousal of the music.

At the same time, when life circumstances require it, those with high scores in

Absorption are able to make use of sad music in order to purge their own negative emotions or to experience a sense of emotional communion. This appears to be particularly so for male participants. Participants with high scores in Reflectiveness on the other hand, appear to be attracted to sad music for the other benefits it confers rather than for the pure pleasure of listening. Results indicate that this was primarily a female characteristic. Female participants were also more prone to listening to sad music with rumination as a factor, indicating possibly maladaptive listening habits.

194 Nostalgia-proneness turned out to be of lesser influence on LSMS scores. However, of interest to our further understanding of Nostalgia-Proneness as a personality trait is that it was also correlated with Rumination, Reflectiveness, Absorption, Music

Empathy and Dissociation as measured by the DESC. It therefore appears that

Nostalgia-proneness manifests itself as both an adaptive and a maladaptive trait at various times. Barrett (2010) suggested two possible profiles for the nostalgia-prone: the neurotic ruminator brooding on the past, and a person more motivated by curiosity and at the interconnectedness of past and present. These archetypes neatly fit the two types of private self-attention identified by Trapnell and Campbell (1999):

Rumination and Reflectiveness. Sedikides et al. (2008) also found that individual differences played a role, with nostalgia being an enabler of self-continuity for happy but not unhappy persons. Thus for ruminators who are vulnerable to depression, an indulgence in the ‘bittersweet’ experience of nostalgia may be part of their negative attentional bias although of little advantage in enhancing their mood. For others who engage in the more psychologically healthy habit of self-reflection, the benefits to mood and well-being may be greater.

These findings thus tend to confirm the previous studies in this thesis regarding the role of absorption in the enjoyment of sad music. In addition they add new information providing an intriguing picture of the role of individual differences in emotional response to sad music. The results demonstrate that some listeners may be motivated to listen to sad music by reasons other than the purely hedonic ones that stimulate those high in absorption. Some of those motivations may be adaptive while others appear to be maladaptive. As discussed in Section 6.6 in relation to the results of Study 2, the pattern emerging from the data in Study 3 also supports the presence of four broad groups of listeners:

195 1. Although not directly tested in Study 3, individuals with lesser capacities for dissociation or absorption may prefer to avoid music that evokes negative emotions, and demonstrate a preference for music that enlivens and uplifts.

2. Those who are able to dissociate or de-activate displeasure in aesthetic contexts such as listening to sad music and are thus able to enjoy the purely hedonistic pleasure of emotional arousal that sad music provides them. This appears to be associated with the trait of absorption.

3. Those who derive psychological benefit from listening to sad music, such as the opportunity to purge themselves of feelings of sadness, to enjoy emotional communion, or any of the other benefits that nostalgia is believed to confer in some individuals. This appears to be associated with the trait of reflectiveness although listeners with high scores in Absorption who listen largely for the pleasure of it may also derive similar benefits.

4. Those whose attraction to sad music is a manifestation of maladaptive mood regulation strategies or other generally unhealthy psychological habits such as rumination, over-indulgence in nostalgia or pathological levels of dissociation. These listeners may find themselves drawn to sad music despite its limited value or even detrimental influence on their mood -state.

In addition, the current study provides some interesting insights into the individual variables such as nostalgia-proneness about which little is currently understood. It also holds implications for further investigation into the ‘paradox of tragedy’ within other arts such as film or drama.

196 SUMMARY

 Study 3 was designed to substantiate the findings of the previous studies in

this thesis with regards to the relationship between Absorption, Music

Empathy and the enjoyment of music evoking negative emotions. It was also

hoped to further investigate whether some listeners may have motivations

other than purely hedonic pleasure as indicated by the previous findings,

including some maladaptive music listening habits. Nostalgia-proneness and

Reflectiveness were included as variables.

 An online survey was designed including the Like Sad Music Scale (LSMS)

which was constructed in order to measure many of the various motivations

that might be involved in an attraction to sad music. Pre-established

psychometric instruments were used for testing the independent variables. The

survey was administered to 152 participants, although 15 were later eliminated

due to missing data.

 Consistent with the previous findings of this thesis, Absorption was a good

predictor of the LSMS and was particularly correlated with the enjoyment of

strong emotions in connection with sad music. Rumination correlated with

LSMS items ‘Helps release sadness’ and ‘Can relate to sadness’ while

Reflectiveness correlated with the item ‘I often find myself grieving as a result

of listening to sad music’. These correlations suggest both adaptive and

maladaptive uses of sad music for mood manipulation. Rumination and

Reflectiveness were best predictors of the LSMS for females, whereas

Absorption was the best predictor for males.

197

CHAPTER 9 – STUDY 4

198 9.1. – THE RATIONALE FOR THIS STUDY

The previous studies reported in this thesis (Studies 1-3) have demonstrated that an attraction to music evoking negative emotions appears to be related to both adaptive and maladaptive mood regulation strategies in various listeners. The fact that some listeners with strong capacities for absorption may listen to sad music purely for the enjoyment of the emotional arousal it produces has been supported by all of the three previous studies. In addition, Studies 2 and 3 (Chapters 5 and 6) supported the hypothesis that some listeners derive other psychological benefits from listening to sad music, particularly those listeners with strong tendencies towards reflectiveness.

Indications were also gathered from Studies 2 and 3 that still other listeners may not have such rational motives, and that their listening habits may in fact be related to maladaptive mood regulation strategies.

However, this aspect of the maladaptive uses of music inducing negative emotions requires further clarification. Further investigation is required in order to confirm whether or not listening to sad music does in fact result in any improvement in mood amongst those prone to unhealthy, negative thinking patterns such as ruminators. The question also remains as to whether such listeners are able to perceive the effect of the music on them, or whether they may rather tend to rationalise their behaviour much the same as depression sufferers often claim that they benefit from ruminative behaviour when in fact the evidence indicates otherwise (Barnhofer, Kuehn, de Jong-

Meyer, & Williams, 2006; Papageorgiou & Wells, 2001).

In addition, Section 3.1 discussed the importance of looking at the effect of prior mood on listening to sad music. Although some brief discussion of this arose in the

199 interviews in Study 2, the previous studies in this thesis have not examined the influence of prior mood in any detail.

As discussed in Chapters 2 and 3, the philosophical literature suggests several solutions to the paradox of why people listen to music evoking negative emotions which are based on the assumption that the listener is experiencing a negative mood from which they are seeking relief. Several studies seem to support the idea that when in a negative mood, listeners may sometimes seek music that matches their mood for mood regulatory purposes (Saarikallio, 2008; Saarikallio & Erkkila, 2007). However, it is not clear from these studies whether the goals for listening to such music matches the outcomes. Other studies report conflicting results (Chen et al., 2007; Dillman

Carpentier et al., 2008). Therefore, further investigation is needed to clarify whether being in a negative mood prior to listening to sad music will result in an improvement to mood as a result of such listening.

This chapter therefore reports a study (Study 4) that builds on the previous studies by focusing on the maladaptive uses of sad music. It investigates further the actual effects of listening to sad music upon the mood of ruminators and others as well as the descriptions of such effects that listeners give. In addition, it will consider whether the resulting change to mood is different for listeners who are in a negative mood prior to listening to sad music. The effects upon mood of listening to sad music will be compared to the effects of listening to happy music.

Additionally, it was decided to investigate some other personality traits thought to be indicators of unhealthy psychological strategies. Since Neuroticism and Openness to

Experience appear to be involved in the underlying distinction between Rumination and Reflectiveness (Trapnell & Campbell, 1999), it was decided to add these to the

200 study to see if they further illuminated the issue of adaptive and maladaptive uses of music.

Furthermore, Study 4 investigated the possible relationship between arousal and maladaptive listening behaviours. Depression is often characterized by high levels of anhedonia, blunted affect and low emotional arousal (Moratti, Rubio, Campo, Keil, &

Ortiz, 2008). Low emotional arousal indexed by deficient arousal modulation in the temporoparietal cortex is often associated with depression (where anxiety is not involved) (Moratti et al., 2008). Thus, listeners with depression or other mood disorders may find that the arousal and neural activation of listening to sad music is a welcome relief from their blunted, deadened state despite the fact that the valence of their emotional state has not changed. Since the evidence indicates that individuals suffering from depression often have a negative attentional bias (Chapter 3), it may be that music evoking negative emotions is the only type of music that is able to engage their attention and allow them to experience heightened neural activation or arousal.

As research on rumination has demonstrated, the actual outcomes of such behaviour may be unconnected with its expressed purpose or believed benefits. Music can be a powerful negative emotional force and part of a pattern of self-destructive behaviour

(Bushong, 2002). As is the case with other ruminative behaviours, there are likely many complicated psychological processes involved here. As many psychologists theorise, ruminative behaviour has become reinforced in the individual somehow.

There may be various reasons that such behaviour has become reinforced in the individual, such as assisting them in gaining sympathy or affection from other people or allowing them to evade responsibility or work (Moulds et al., 2007). In the case of music, it is arguable that the arousal is somehow attractive to depression sufferers

201 despite its negative valence because of its preference to a state of anhedonia or catatonia.

Such listeners may be unaware of the detrimental effect the music has upon them, and may thus rationalise their behaviour or express motivations for the behaviour which appear healthy. As one would expect if this is the case, Study 3 participants with high scores in Rumination claimed that they liked listening to sad music because it gave them the opportunity to purge negative emotions, and because they can relate to the feelings of sadness. These are quite similar to the types of explanations that people with depression often give for their ruminative behaviour. For example, Papageorgiou and Wells (2001) found that despite the negative consequences of their behaviour, participants in their study believed that ruminating helped them to better understand past mistakes. Watkins and Baracaia (2001) cited similar reasons given by their sample, including increased self-awareness and the capacity to solve problems or prevent future problems. In fact their study found that the stronger the positive beliefs about the benefits of rumination, the more likely people were to engage in such behaviour. However, one problem with these studies is that they fail to distinguish between rumination and reflectiveness which can have significant psychologically healthy benefits (Trapnell & Campbell, 1999). Thus Study 4 will attempt to distinguish between the two as well as finding out whether there are tendencies among ruminators to use similar justifications for listening to sad music.

202 9.2 – HYPOTHESES

This study tested the hypothesis that ruminators would not experience an improved mood after listening to sad music, but that post-listening mood scores would still indicate the presence of depression, mood disturbance or a negatively valenced state. Similarly, since the mood-related result of listening to sad music is expected to be strongly mediated by whether the listeners’ mood regulation strategies are adaptive or maladaptive, it is hypothesised that prior mood will not of itself, be of significant influence on mood related outcomes.

Since ruminators appear to have a tendency to justify their maladaptive behaviours it was further hypothesised that they will still claim to have benefited from the sad music listening experience, despite the lack of improvement in depression levels.

On the other hand, it was hypothesised that listeners with high scores in Absorption and/or

Reflectiveness would not evince high depression or mood disturbance scores after listening to sad music, consistent with the literature review and the findings of Studies 1-3 (Chapters

5-8).

In addition, although no specific hypotheses were formulated in relation to them,

Neuroticism and Openness to Experience were included as exploratory variables, given their respective connections to Rumination and Reflectiveness (see Section 9.1). Arousal measures were also included as exploratory variables so as to consider whether arousal plays a role in the attraction to sad music experienced by ruminators. While it was expected that most listeners would experience an improved mood from listening to happy music, it was considered possible that ruminators would not experience such benefits due to their possible difficulty in engaging with positive stimuli.

203 9.3 – METHOD

9.3.1 Procedures

Participants completed an online survey in their own time. There was no time limit for completing the survey and there was no requirement to complete it in a single session. The survey took participants approximately 20 to 30 minutes to complete. Data were collected over a period of two months.

After the ethics declaration, the opening page requested that listeners select a piece of music that makes them (or is likely to make them) sad. This music would be listened to as part of the survey. They were instructed to try to obtain a digital link on the internet (such as from

YouTube) for the piece they chose, if possible, and to try to do the survey on a computer with a good sound system, in a private place and with the use of good quality headphones. This was followed by 91 questions (some of which involved multiple words or statements) grouped according to the various inventories used, as described in the measures section. Half the participants completed the personality measures prior to listening to the sad music and the other half completed them after the listening exercise.

Similarly, the participants were asked to select a piece of music that makes them (or is likely to make them) happy and to provide a digital link for the music. This was listened to as part of the concluding section of the survey both for comparative purposes and in order to counteract any possible negative effects to mood from listening to the sad music.

Mood and arousal scores were obtained three times during the survey: prior to listening to the sad music, after listening to the sad music (and prior to listening to the happy music), and after listening to the happy music.

204 9.3.2 Participants

335 participants were recruited from the University of New South Wales. They participated in the study in exchange for course credit. Participants had a mean age of 21.1 years

(standard deviation 3.6; range 17 - 51 years). The sample was composed of 199 females and

136 males. Most participants had played a musical instrument to varying degrees (90.45%), with those who did describing themselves as either having had some kind of formal education in music (49.5%), or being self-taught (50.5%).

9.3.3 Measures

The instrument used was a survey of 91 items (see Appendix 4). Participants were divided into two groups. One group completed a set of personality measures

(described below) at the beginning of the survey. The other group began with the baseline mood measures described below, and completed the personality measures after the music listening section. This was done to control for the possible priming effect of the personality measures on the mood measures and subsequent questions.

Personality Measures:

Trapnell and Campbell’s Rumination Reflection Questionnaire (1999) was included in its entirety as was the Absorption subscale from the Absorption, Intellectance and

Liberalism questionnaire by Glisky and Kihlstrom (1993). These measures were used in both Studies 1 and 3 (detailed descriptions and reliability ratings can be found in

Chapters 5 and 7).

Trapnell and Campbell (1999) also discussed the relationship between the Big Five

Personality factors of Neuroticism and Openness to Experience. In this study

205 subscales from the Big Five Aspect Scale (BFAS, DeYoung, Quilty, & Peterson,

2007) were used. They divide each of the ‘Big Five’ scales into two aspects.

Neuroticism was hypothesised to have two aspects: withdrawal and volatility, while

Openness to Experience was argued to include both Intellect and Openness components. These measures of Neuroticism and Openness to Experience were employed in the present study to try to narrow down the particular types of adaptive or maladaptive behaviours that might be implicated in the use of music evoking negative emotions.

This particular scale for measuring the two personality traits in question might provide a more specific identification of the thought patterns or behaviours involved than other Big Five inventories. However, it was possible to obtain scores comparable to scores on other Big Five inventories from the BFAS by adding the scores for the two aspects together. DeYoung, Quilty and Peterson (2007) report no significant differences between scores on their scales and those on the Big Five Inventory (John

& Srivastava, 1999), the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (Costa, McCrae, & Dye,

1991) or the Mini-Markers Big Five Domain Scores (Saucier, 1994) in the samples they tested. They report reliability scores of .89 (Chronbach’s alpha) for each of the three samples tested for the Neuroticism subscale and of .84, .79 and .81 for each sample for the Openness to Experience subscale.

The BFAS subscales used included 39 short phrases which participants were requested to rate on a scale of 1 to 5 (strongly disagree to strongly agree) to the extent that they agreed the statement applied to them. They were instructed to be as honest as possible, but to try to rely on their initial feelings rather than thinking too much about

206 each item. The statements included items such as ‘Seldom feel blue’, ‘Am quick to understand things’, ‘Enjoy the beauty of nature’ etc (see Appendix 4). The items on the BFAS subscales were mixed as instructed by the authors of the original scale.

Baseline Mood Measures:

As one of the baseline mood measures, an abbreviated version of the Profile of Mood States

(POMS, McNair, Lorr, & Droppleman, 1971) was used. Several studies have used abbreviated versions of this measure before, arguing that length of the original instrument (65 items) limited its use (Baker, Denniston, Zabora, Polland, & Dudley, 2002; Curran,

Andrykowski, & Studts, 1995; Shacham, 1983). The original POMS contained 6 subscales:

Tension, Anger, Fatigue, Depression, Vigour, and as well as a number of dummy items. The current version retained the majority of items in each subscale as well as a number of the dummy items, while reducing the number of items to the more manageable figure of

47 with a possible range of total scores from -28 to 136. Reliability tests returned a score of

.880 (Chronbach’s alpha), indicating that this abbreviated version provided a reliable measure of mood states.

POMS was designed to measure current mood states on the various subscales, as well as an overall ‘Mood Disturbance Index’. The version of POMS used consisted of 47 adjectives such as ‘friendly’, ‘tense’, ‘angry’ (see Appendix 4 for an entire list). Participants were requested to describe how they felt “right now” by rating each word on the list on a scale of 1 to 5 (“Not at all” to “Extremely”). The items of the various POMS subscales were presented to participants in mixed form as in the original instrument. The items were presented in the same order each time the POMS subscales were used within the survey.

207 In addition, a multidimensional measure of arousal was included. Emotion measures are often bi-dimensional, asking participants to rate their feelings of arousal on one dimension and valence on the other (Russell, 1979; Schubert, 1999). However, several authors have argued that arousal includes at least two dimensions of tenseness and energy (Dickman,

2002; Schimmack & Rainer, 2002; Thayer, 1978, 1989). Dickman (2002) also argued for a distinct dimension of alertness. Since one purpose of the current study was to determine whether depressed listeners may be experiencing some kind of heightened arousal after listening to sad music, it was decided that a multidimensional measure of arousal could prove more enlightening than a more general measure of arousal. Therefore, participants in this study were asked to rate how they were currently feeling on a scale of 1 to 5 on 3 dimensions of arousal: Calm/Anxious, Tired/Energetic, and Sleepy/Alert, in addition to a fourth scale of valence as commonly found in bi-dimensional emotion measures (Negative/Positive).

Sad Music Listening:

Following the baseline mood measures, all participants were asked to provide the URL of the sad piece they had chosen, or sufficient information in order to locate a recording of the piece. They were then asked to listen to the piece and return to the survey after hearing it in its entirety. The online survey was set up in order to time how long participants spent on that page in order to make it possible to check whether they had spent a reasonable amount of time listening to the chosen piece of music. Of course it was not possible to be certain that participants had listened to the entire piece given the online nature of the survey. However, the likelihood of inaccuracies here were reduced by having a reasonably large participant pool (Gosling, Vazire, Srivastava, & John, 2004; Tulbure, 2011; Whitty & Joinson, 2009).

208 Following those brief questions relating to listening conditions, participants then were asked to complete the abbreviated POMS and the arousal and valence measures once more in order to be able to determine whether there had been any change from the baseline measures.

The following question contained 12 statements relating to the participants’ perception of how the music had affected their moods and emotions. Some of these related to good feelings or effects of listening to the sad music, such as ‘It made me cry which made me feel peaceful and relieved afterward’, or ‘I felt sad, but becoming immersed in those feelings was enjoyable’ (see Appendix 4 for an entire list). Other statements reflected a negative effect from listening to the sad music, such as ‘It reminded me of some sad things in my life which made me feel sadder than before’, or ‘I felt sad, and this was not an enjoyable experience for me’. Participants were asked to rate each statement on a scale from 1 to 6 (“Definitely does not apply to me” to “The most important reason for me”). A further question asked participants to describe the key moment of the music for them. The final 7 questions gathered demographic data such as gender, age, and musical experience.

Happy Music Listening

The final part of the survey consisted of listening to a self-selected piece of happy music. The same instructions were given as had been given in relation to the sad music. After listening to the happy music, participants completed the mood and arousal measures a final time.

9.3.4 Scoring

Scale scores for each of the variables were first calculated. The scores for Rumination,

Reflectiveness and Absorption were calculated as described by the authors and outlined in the previous chapters of this thesis (Chapters 5 and 7). The scales for the

209 subscales of the BFAS were calculated as described by DeYoung, Quilty and Peterson

(2007). Scores for each aspect: Volatility, Withdrawal, Intellect and Openness were obtained by adding scores on each item. The subscale scores for Neuroticism and

Openness to Intellect were obtained by adding the scores of their respective aspects.

POMS scores were obtained as described by McNair, Lorr and Droppleman (1971) by first calculating the scores of each subscale: Tension, Anger, Fatigue, Depression,

Vigour and Confusion, adding the item totals after first reversing negatively scored items. Some items were not included in the scoring having been added to the measure as ‘dummy items’. A total Mood Disturbance Index (MDI) was obtained by adding the scores of all subscales except Vigour, and then subtracting the Vigour subscale scores (since Vigour represented a positive mood state). This method for calculating

POMS scores was completed for both instances in which participants completed the measure within the survey.

In addition, in order to investigate whether or not the experience of listening to sad music had resulted in any large shifts in mood or arousal, the difference between pre- and post-test POMS and arousal measures were calculated.

9.4. – RESULTS

9.4.1 Preliminary Analysis12

Analysis was first performed to determine whether there was any significant difference between scores in the two groups who had completed the survey with

12 All analyses were conducted using statistical software SPSS Version 20.

210 personality questions either before (PTF, ‘Personality Tests First’) or after (LF,

‘Listening First’) the sad music listening experience. Demographic information revealed that the groups were closely matched in terms of gender (PTF: 66 males, 104 females; LF: 70 males, 95 females), age (PTF: m = 21.0, SD = 3.8, Range = 17-50;

LF: m = 21.1, SD = 3.4, Range = 17-51), and level of musical experience (PTF:

92.4% had played a musical instrument, years played m = 7.69, SD = 4.82, Range =

1-19; LF: 88.5% had played a musical instrument, years played m = 7.96, SD = 5.19,

Range = 1-20). Order effects were tested by conducting a MANOVA to discover whether there were any significant differences between the scale scores, baseline mood and arousal measures according to the order in which the tests were taken.

There was no overall significant difference (F(13, 321) = 1.081, p = .375).

9.4.2 Personality Tests

In keeping with expectations, all personality traits generally considered to be

‘unhealthy’ in the literature, tended to group together. Pearson product moment correlations were performed, with significant correlation coefficients found between

Rumination and Neuroticism (including both of the sub-facets and the overall Big

Five score), as well as the POMS Mood Disturbance Index and Depression subscales.

The same personality measures also tended to have significant correlation coefficients with ratings of positive or negative valence (See Appendix 4, Item Val01), and tension or anxiety levels such as the POMS Tension subscale or the Calm/Anxious rating (Item Ar01) (see Table 11 for all correlation coefficients).

In addition, as would be expected, the more ‘healthy’ traits were correlated.

Specifically, Reflectiveness and Absorption demonstrated significant correlation

211 coefficients with Openness to Experience (including both the sub-facets and the overall Big Five score), as well as the Vigour subscale (POMS). They also tended to be significantly correlated with higher valence ratings (Item Val01), lower tension and depression from the POMS subscales, and lower anxiety levels (POMS and Item

Ar01). These findings, while not particularly important to the hypothesis under examination in this study, tend to support the validity of the measures used.

9.4.3 Baseline Mood and Arousal Measures

A Pearson’s product moment correlation analysis was conducted between the personality measures and the baseline measures of mood and arousal to see whether

Ruminators, or those with high scores on other personality traits may have significantly higher or lower mood states prior to the music listening experience.

The results indicate that there were significant negative correlations between

Rumination and Neuroticism with Valence scores (r = -.369, p < .001 and r = -.489, p

< .001 respectively), suggesting that people with high scores in these traits were in a more negative mood at the outset of the experiment than other participants, regardless of the order of experimental items (see Table 11). There were also significant correlations between Rumination and Neuroticism with the baseline Tension (r =

.328, p < .001 and r = .389, p < .001 respectively) and Depression scores from the

POMS subscales (r = .376, p < .001 and r = .372, p < .001 respectively) as well as the overall Mood Disturbance Index (r = .346, p < .001 and r = .421, p < .001 respectively). Neuroticism was also significantly correlated with high baseline levels of anxiety and confusion (r = .370, p < .001 and r = .325, p < .001 respectively).

212 Table 11

Pearson Correlations between Personality Measures and Baseline Mood and Arousal Scores

Rum Refl. Absor W’draw Volat. Intellect Open Big Five Big Five Tens. Anger Fatig. Depr. Vigour Confus. MDI Calm Tir/ Sleepy Neurot. Open. /Anx Ener /Alert Rumin. 1 .190** .234** .564** .416** -.088 .159** .546** .049 .328** .275** .169** .376** -.052 .258** .346** .276** -.042 -.017

Reflect . 1 .467** -.061 .031 .311** .518** -.014 .511** .056 .061 .031 -.040 .063 -.011 .002 -.010 .069 .049 Absorp 1 .066 .125* .129* .651** .109* .489** .048 .050 .017 .021 .135* .040 .001 .025 .090 .027 W’draw . 1 .580** -.277** -.007 .874** -.167** .391** .208** .186** .413** -.253** .320** ,430** .341** -.137* -.093 Volatil . 1 -.205** .080 .903** -.069 .307** .229** .148** .259** -.165** .262** .326** .318** -.020 -.024 Intell. 1 .341** -.269** -.172** -.269** -.172** -.128* -.236** .076 -.372** -.291** -.213** .114* .148* Open. 1 .044 .835** -.062 -.016 .025 -.069 .027 -.030 -.046 .029 .049 .044 BF: . 1 -.129* .389** .246** .186** .372** -.232** .325** .421** .370** -.084 -.063 Neur. BF: 1 -.197** -.111* -.059 -.182** .062 -.236** -.200** -.106 .098 .115* Open Tension 1 .671** .417** .618** -.106 .587** .793** .608** -.087 -.089 Anger 1 .439** .692** -.036 .484** .770** .403** -.072 -.078 Fatigue 1 .455** -.220** .460** .685** .242** - -.452** .497** Depr. 1 -.111* .610** .829** .397** -.149* -.123* Vigour 1 -.111* -.416** -.219** .550** .444** Confus. 1 .745** .465** - -.191** .177** MDI 1 .550** - -.331** .373** Calm/ 1 -.054 -.054 Anx Tired/ 1 .722** Energ Sleepy/ 1 Alert Note: * p<.05, ** p<.01. Refer to Appendix 4 for abbreviations and a full list of items.

213 9.4.4 The Effect of Listening to Sad Music on Mood and Arousal

Rumination scores were split according to percentiles and groups created containing only the highest (scores > 4.33 n = 33) and lowest 10% (scores < 2.58, n = 33) of scores

(Rumination Groups). Trapnell and Campbell (1999) reported a mean of 3.46 in their sample. Similar divisions were conducted for Absorption (Absorption Groups) and

Reflectiveness (Reflectiveness Groups) (Absorption highest: scores > 54 , n = 33 , lowest: scores < 35, n = 33; Reflectiveness highest: scores > 4.33, n = 33, lowest: < 2.58, n = 33).

Glisky and Kihlstrom (1993) reported a mean of 41.45 for Absorption in their sample, while Trapnell and Campbell (1999) reported a mean of 3.14 for Reflectiveness in their study.

A mixed between-within subjects analysis of variance was first conducted to assess the overall impact of both the sad and happy listening conditions on Depression scores as measured by the POMS subscale. Time point of Depression (baseline, post-sad music and post-happy music) was the within-subject factor, and Rumination Group (high and low) was the between-subject factor. There was a significant main effect of time on Depression

(Wilks Lamda = .322, F (2, 63) = 66.358, p < .001, partial eta squared = .67813). There was also a significant interaction effect between time and Rumination Group, indicating that high ruminators did experience different effects over time from low ruminators (Wilks

Lamda = .616, F (2, 63) = 19.606, p < .001, partial eta squared = .384). The test of between-subject effects indicated that there was also a significant effect of Rumination

Group on Depression scores (F (1, 64) = 59.786, p < .001, partial eta squared .497).

Subsequent analyses were carried out and are reported below.

13 For a cautionary note on interpreting partial-eta squared as a measure of effect size, see Pierce, C. A., Block, R. A., & Aguinis, H. (2004) Cautionary note on reporting eta-squared values from multifactor ANOVA designs. Educational and Psychological Measurement 64(6), 916-924. 214

Figure 2. POMS Depression scores across three time measures for Rumination Group

(high and low).

A similar test was conducted to examine the overall impact of both the sad and happy listening conditions on the POMS Mood Disturbance Index, with Rumination Group as the between-subjects factor. Time point of Mood Disturbance (baseline, post-sad music and post-happy music) was the within-subject factor, and Rumination Group (high and low) was the between-subject factor. There was a significant main effect of time on Mood

Disturbance (Wilks Lamda = .268, F (2, 63) = 85.977, p < .001, partial eta squared = .732).

There was also a significant interaction effect between time and Rumination Group, indicating that again high ruminators did experience different effects over time on Mood

Disturbance scores from low ruminators (Wilks Lamda = .690, F (2, 63) = 14.158, p <

.001, partial eta squared = .310). The test of between-subject effects indicated that there

215 was a significant effect of Rumination Group on Mood Disturbance scores (F (1, 64) =

33.045, p < .001, partial eta squared .341), (see Figure 3). Follow-up analyses will be reported below.

Figure 3. POMS Mood Disturbance Index across three time measures for Rumination

Group (high and low).

Follow-Up Tests

Follow up tests were performed to determine whether the significant effects in the previous

two analyses (see Figures 2 and 3) resulted from the sad or happy music listening

conditions. A mixed between-within subjects analysis of variance was therefore conducted

to assess the impact of listening to the self-selected piece of sad music on Depression scores as measured by the POMS subscale. Time point (baseline and post-sad music) was

the within-subject factor, and Rumination Group (high and low) was the between-subject

factor. Consistent with the overall analysis reported above, there was a significant main

effect of time on Depression (Wilks Lamda = .603, F (1, 64) = 42.184, p < .001, partial eta

216 squared = .397) with Depression scores increasing after listening to sad music (Figure 2, effects of happy music are discussed in Section 9.4.6). However, a lack of interaction between time and Rumination Group indicated significant that Rumination Group was not a significant factor differentiating changes in scores after listening to sad music and that both high and low ruminators experienced consistent effects from listening to sad music

(Wilks Lamda = .969, F(1, 64) = 2.031, p = .158, partial eta squared = .031). These results indicate that Depression scores of all groups increased after listening to sad music, in partial support of the hypotheses in Section 9.2. Between subject effects were also significant with high ruminators having higher Depression scores than low ruminators to begin with (see Figure 2) (F(1, 67) = 62.702, p < .001, partial eta squared = .483). This is consistent with the results of the correlation analyses reported in Section 9.4.3.

A similar test was conducted to examine the impact of listening to sad music on the POMS

Mood Disturbance Index, with Rumination Group as the between-subjects factor. Results were similar, with Mood Disturbance scores rising significantly after listening to sad music

(see Figure 3) (Wilks Lamda = .707, F(1, 64) = 26.546, p < .001 , partial eta squared =

.293) but no significant interaction effect of Rumination Group, (Wilks Lamda = .993, F (1,

64) = .448, p = .505 , partial eta squared = .007), indicating that all groups experienced a similar rise in Mood Disturbance scores. Between subject effects were also significant (F(1,

64 = 41.842, p < .001, partial eta squared = .395), with high ruminators having significantly higher Mood Disturbance scores than low ruminators to begin with (see Figure 3).

To compare the results of rumination with that of absorption and reflectiveness in relation to sad music listening, two further mixed between-within subjects analyses of variance were conducted, with Absorption Group (high and low) and Reflectiveness Group (high and low) as the between-subject factors. Again, there was a significant main effect of time

217 (Wilks Lamda = .534, F(1, 64) = 55.777, p < .000, partial eta squared = .466) (see Figure

4), but no significant interaction with Absorption Group (Wilks Lamda = .972, F(1, 64) =

1.824, p = .182, partial eta squared = .028). Between-subjects effects were also non- significant (F (1, 64) = 2.367, p = .129, partial eta squared = .036) indicating that

Absorption Group did not influence Depression scores from the outset. Results for

Reflectiveness Group demonstrated a similar pattern. Depression scores rose with time (see

Figure 5) (Wilks Lamda = .575, F(1, 64) = 48.061, p < .001, partial eta squared = .425) but

there was no significant interaction with Reflectiveness Group, Wilks Lamda = 999, F(1,

64) = .044, p = .835, partial eta squared = .001, or significant between subjects effects, F(1,

64) = .181, p = .672, partial eta squared = .001. Thus, these results did not support the

hypothesis in relation to reflectiveness and absorption.

Arousal

Since arousal measures were included only to explore their impact on sad music listening,

only the baseline to post-sad music scores were analysed. Separate mixed between-within

subjects analysis of variance were conducted with Alertness (Item Ar03), and Anxiety

(Item Ar01) as the within-subjects factors, and Rumination Group as the between-subjects

factor. Alertness scores dropped significantly after listening to sad music (see Figure 6),

(Wilks Lamda = .641, F(1, 64) = 35.849, p < .001, partial eta squared = .359), with no

significant interaction effect of Rumination Group, (Wilks Lamda = .968, F(1, 64) = 2.121,

p = .150, partial eta squared = .032). Anxiety scores (Item Ar01) rose after listening to sad

music (see Figure 7), Wilks Lamda = .864, F(1, 64) = 10.059, p = .002, partial eta squared

= .136, with no significant interaction for Rumination Group, (Wilks Lamda = .993, F(1,

64) = .462, p = .499, partial eta squared = .007). Thus, the arousal scores measured were

not found to have any relationship to the effect of listening to sad music on high

ruminators.

218

Figure 4. POMS Depression scores across two time measures for Absorption Group (high

and low).

Figure 5 . POMS Depression scores across two time measures for Reflectiveness Group

(high and low).

219

Figure 6. Sleepiness/Alertness levels across two time measures for Rumination Group

(high and low).

Figure 7. Calmness/Anxiety levels across two time measures for Rumination Group (high and low).

220 9.4.5 The Effect of Listening to Happy Music

As a further follow-up analysis, a mixed between-within subjects analysis of variance was conducted to assess the impact of listening to the self-selected piece of happy music on

Depression scores as measured by the POMS subscale. Time point of Depression (pre- and post- happy music) was the within-subject factor, and Rumination Group (high and low) was the between-subject factor. There was a significant main effect of time on Depression,

(Wilks Lamda = .363, F (1, 64) = 112.417, p < .001, partial eta squared = .637) with

Depression scores decreasing after listening to happy music (see Figure 2). There was also a significant interaction between time and Rumination Group (Wilks Lamda = .763, F (1,

64) = 19.930, p < .001, partial eta squared = .237), indicating that high ruminators experienced a steeper drop in Depression scores after listening to happy music than low ruminators (see Figure 2). Thus, although all groups experienced a similar rise in

Depression scores after listening to sad music (as discussed in Section 9.4.4), high ruminators experienced a more significant drop in Depression scores than other groups after listening to happy music.

Results comparing scores on the Mood Disturbance Index (MDI) before and after listening to happy music were similar, with a significant interaction between time and MDI scores,

(Wilks Lamda = .448, F(1, 64) = 78.729, p < 001, partial eta squared = .552) and a significant interaction between Rumination Group and MDI scores (Wilks Lamda = .756,

F(1, 64) = 20.662, p < .001, partial eta squared = .244) (see Figure 5). This indicated that high ruminators again experienced a greater impact on Mood Disturbance scores after listening to happy music than others.

221 9.4.6 Perceived Effects of Listening to Sad Music

A final analysis examined the relationship between rumination and the perceived effects of listening to sad music. A MANOVA was conducted with Rumination Group (high and low) as the fixed factor and the 11 items relating to the perceived effect of listening to sad music as the dependent variables (Items SM01 to SM11). Results were significant (F (11,

40) = 4.571, p < .000, Wilks Lamda = .443). Between-subject effects were most strongly significant for items SM02, SM04, SM07 and SM11, with significant results also being found for items SM01 and SM03 (Table 12).

These results from the MANOVA partially supported the hypothesis that high ruminators would claim to have benefited from listening to sad music despite the fact that their mood levels did not improve. However, it was also found that high ruminators reported feeling worse after listening to sad music. Therefore analyses were conducted to examine whether other variables may be influencing the predicted effect of Rumination. Regression analyses were conducted on the four items which returned the most significant results in the

MANOVA, to see whether it might be a combination of Rumination with some other factor that was influencing the apparently contradictory results.

Table 12

Between Subjects Effects of Rumination Group and Perceived Effects of Listening to Sad

Music

F p SM01 – “Made me cry which made me feel peaceful and relieved” 5.070 .029* SM02 – “Reminded me of sad things; felt sadder than before” 14.520 .000** SM03 – “ Made me reflect about sad things in my life; felt better after” 5.229 .026* SM04 – “Could relate to the person singing; felt good to know other people feel like me” 9.415 .003** SM05 – “Felt sad, but becoming immersed was enjoyable” .953 .334

222 SM06 – “Felt sad, but sad feelings made me feel more alive” 1.662 .203 SM07 – “Felt sad. Not an enjoyable experience” 10.697 .002** SM08 – “Usually this music makes me sad, but not today” .007 .442 SM09 – “Usually enjoy this music, but today did not want to feel sad, so listening was uncomfortable” .601 .442 SM10 – “Sadness helped release bad energy” 2.460 .123 SM11 - “Made me think of past events in my life; a bittersweet nostalgic experience” 14.006 .000**

Note: * p < .05, ** p < .01. Between-subjects df = 50.

OLS Stepwise regression of all personality scores and baseline mood and arousal measures

onto the item ‘Reminded me of sad things in my life; felt sadder than before’ (SM2)

produced two coefficients in the final model that were entered (with criterion of F to enter

<=.05 and probability of F to remove >= .10). These were Rumination, (standardized coefficient of .221, p < .001), and baseline Anger scores as measured by the POMS subscale (standardized coefficient of .127, p = .021). Adjusted R2 for the model was .075

(see Table 13.

Table 13

Co-efficients for Stepwise Regression Model of ‘Reminded me of sad things in my life; felt sadder than before’ (Item SM02)

B Std. Beta t Sig. Error (Constant) 1.514 .444 3.412 .001 Rumination .514 .127 .221 4.035 .000 Baseline Anger (POMS) .049 .021 .127 2.326 .021

OLS Stepwise regression was then performed as above onto the item ‘Felt as if I could relate to person singing. Felt good to know other people felt like me’ (SM4). Reflectiveness

223 and baseline Depression as measured by POMS were retained in the model (standardized coefficients of .161 and .024, adjusted R2 = .098) (see Table 14).

Table 14

Co-efficients for Stepwise Regression Model of ‘Felt as if I could relate to person singing.

Felt good to know other people felt like me’ (Item SM04)

B Std. Beta t Sig. Error (Constant) 1.534 .564 2.719 .007 Reflectiveness .569 .161 .242 3.540 .001 Baseline Depression .072 .024 .206 3.023 .003 (POMS)

A similar regression analysis was performed on the item ‘Felt sad; not an enjoyable experience’ (SM07). Rumination and the Big Five Openness to Experience measure were retained in the final model (standardized coefficients of .178 and -.147, adjusted R2 = .044)

(see Table 14), indicating an inverse relationship with Openness to Experience (see Table

15).

A final regression analysis was performed on the item ‘Reminded me of past events; a bittersweet nostalgic experience’ (SM11). Rumination, Reflectiveness and baseline scores on the Confusion subscale (POMS) were retained in the final model, with standardized coefficients of .133 (p = .018), .144 (p = .008), and .135 (p = .015) respectively. Adjusted

R2 for this model was .064 (see Table 16).

224 Table 15

Co-efficients for Stepwise Regression Model of ‘Felt sad; not an enjoyable experience’

(Item SM07)

B Std. Beta t Sig. Error (Constant) 2.599 .759 3.423 .001 Rumination .380 .120 .178 3.157 .002 Big Five Openness to -.472 .181 -.147 -2.608 .010 Experience

Table 16

Co-efficients for Stepwise Regression Model of ‘Reminded me of past events; a bittersweet nostalgic experience’ (SM11)

B Std. Beta t Sig. Error (Constant) .401 .637 .629 .530 Rumination .353 .148 .133 2.374 .018 Reflectiveness .364 .137 .144 2.664 .008 Baseline Confusion .064 .026 .135 2.450 .015 (POMS)

9.5. – DISCUSSION & CONCLUSIONS

9.5.1 Rumination, Absorption and Reflectiveness

The current study tested the hypothesis that those with high scores in Rumination would not experience an improved mood after listening to sad music, but that post-listening mood scores would still indicate the presence of depression or low moods. Results indicated that participants with high scores in Rumination and Neuroticism had significantly lower moods and higher tension and anxiety levels than non-ruminators from the outset of the study. As hypothesised, there was no significant mood improvement after listening to sad music. In fact, as Figure 2 demonstrates, depression levels tended to rise after listening to sad music.

225 Therefore, the first hypothesis was partially supported. What was of , however, was that this effect appeared to be the same for all listeners not just those with high Rumination scores. It had also been hypothesised that those in the high Absorption Group and the high

Reflectiveness Group would not experience the same rise in Depression or Mood

Disturbance, a hypothesis which was not supported by the findings.

Results in relation to this were unexpected. While those in the high Absorption Group or the high Reflectiveness Group appear to have begun participation in the study with more positive baseline mood levels than those in the high Rumination Group, all groups experienced a similarly significant increase in depression and mood disturbance after listening to sad music as other listeners. It might have been expected given the findings in

Studies 1-3, that if participants with high scores in Absorption were gaining some pleasure from the emotional arousal of listening to sad music, that an increased positivity of mood or higher levels of arousal would have been in evidence. This study, however, unlike

Studies 1 and 3, did not relate to the music that listeners would voluntarily choose to listen to, but rather specifically requested that listeners select a piece of music that made them sad. Therefore, we cannot be sure that the music selected by participants in this study would be their preferred choice for listening in everyday circumstances.

In addition, the regression analysis on item SMS4 (‘Felt as if I could relate to the person singing. Felt good to know other people felt like me’) found that the item was predicted by

Reflectiveness in addition to baseline Depression scores. This indicated that people with high levels of Reflectiveness appear able to derive some benefit from listening to sad music when their prior mood is depressed. This supports the findings of Study 3, in that for those with the adaptive mood regulation habit of reflectiveness, listening to sad music can provide an opportunity to enjoy certain psychological benefits when circumstances require

226 it. The resultant benefit to mood from listening to the sad music may not be immediate, since the immediate benefits are postponed in favour of long-term gains, as predicted by mood management theory (Knobloch & Zillmann, 2002).

The same may have occurred in relation to those in the high Absorption group. The findings regarding Absorption in Studies 1 and 3 suggest that people with high capacities for absorption are capable of experiencing actual sadness while still enjoying the experience. The mood measures used after the sad-music listening condition in this study did not necessarily distinguish between an experience of sadness that was pleasant and one that was unpleasant. In addition, the research conducted so far in this thesis is not conclusive as to how far removed in time from the listening experience the expected improvement to mood resulting from the pleasure would occur. It is possible that the immediacy of the mood measures used in this study resulted in a finding of higher depression whereas measures taken somewhat later might have found different results in relation to those with high capacities for Absorption.

In contrast, although high ruminators began the study with higher Depression scores than other listeners, they did not derive any greater benefits from listening to sad music than other listeners. When comparing the results for Reflectiveness and for Rumination it seems to support the hypothesis that prior mood would not of itself be predictive of the effect of listening to sad music on mood. The effect of prior mood on the outcome of listening to sad music is probably highly dependent upon whether the strategies the listener has derived for regulating their moods is either adaptive or maladaptive.

An unexpected but highly interesting finding in Study 4 was that ruminators experienced greater mood improvements than other listeners after listening to happy music. Since

227 Studies 2 and 3 indicated a tendency to be attracted to sad music despite its mood lowering effect, this finding supports the argument that they may be engaging in maladaptive mood regulation strategies when listening to sad music. It seems that those with high levels of depression and mood disturbance may derive greater benefits from listening to happy music than other listeners, and therefore despite the justifications of benefit they may offer for listening to sad music, they would experience more mood improvement if they listened to happy music. However, the fact that the happy music listening condition occurred after depression levels had been elevated by first listening to sad music, makes it difficult to be certain if this effect would also occur in daily life without such artificially altered mood states. Additionally, it could be reflective of a tendency to emotional instability and mood swings on the part of those prone to depression. Therefore, further investigation will be necessary to clarify this point.

9.5.2 Perceived Effects of Listening to Sad Music

It was further hypothesised that ruminators would still claim to have benefited from the sad music listening experience, despite the lack of improvement in depression levels. However, results revealed a mixture of both positive and negative perceived effects. Participants with high scores in Rumination recognised that they felt sadder after listening to the sad music, and that it was not enjoyable for them, with anger also tending to be related to this perceived effect. However, high ruminators also claimed some benefit from feeling that other people experienced the same emotions as them, or from the opportunity to purge themselves of negative emotions. In addition they reported a ‘bittersweet, nostalgic’ effect from listening to sad music. Consequently additional analyses aimed to probe the matter further.

228 The regression analyses on these items revealed that Rumination was in fact, most strongly associated with a claim to have felt sadder after listening to sad music whereas items claiming benefit from listening to sad music was more strongly associated with adaptive personality traits such as Reflectiveness. The results, therefore, do not appear to support the hypothesis that ruminators will use rational justifications for listening to sad music despite the fact that it doesn’t result in an improved mood. Although such justifications would be typical of ruminators (Barnhofer et al., 2006; Papageorgiou & Wells, 2001), many

participants were cognizant of the negative effect listening to sad music had upon them.

Further investigation will be required to examine this more closely. Clarification of this

issue might result from asking participants to predict the effect the music would have upon

them, rather than asking them the actual effect after listening to the music. Such a study

design would indicate more clearly whether participants are aware of the effect that sad

music has upon them in their daily lives or not.

Alternatively, it is possible that just as some depression sufferers are more self-aware than

others, the apparently conflicting results merely reflect these varying levels of awareness

amongst participants. Another possible reason for these results could be that ruminators

experience mixed emotions when listening to sad music. This is similar to findings in other

studies. Evans & Schubert (2008), for example, report that one of their participants

described experiencing mixed emotions in response to ‘Pachelbel’s Canon’. Interestingly,

the item relating to listening to sad music resulting in a bittersweet, nostalgic experience,

was predicted by both Rumination, Reflection and Confusion. This may be indicative of a

‘confused’ or mixed emotional experience involved in listening to sad music, especially for

participants with high scores in Rumination who may be more prone to feeling the negative

valence of the music than other listeners due to their own negative emotional state.

229 While support was not found in this study for the hypothesis that ruminators will justify and rationalise their listening choices, the results in relation to the perceived effects of listening to sad music do tend to support the overall argument that for high ruminators listening to sad music is maladaptive since moods in fact worsened after listening to sad music while improving significantly after listening to happy music.

In addition, the results in relation to nostalgic experiences tend to support the argument proposed following Study 3. The concluding discussion of Chapter 6 proposed that nostalgia could be manifest in both an adaptive and a maladaptive manner. In that study

Nostalgia-proneness was also found to be correlated with both Rumination and

Reflectiveness. It was proposed in harmony with the distinction between Rumination and

Reflectiveness that there were in fact two types of nostalgia-proneness, a neurotic ruminator brooding on the past and a person more motivated by curiosity and wonder at the interconnectedness of past and present to whom the benefits to mood and general well- being may be greater. The results in relation to nostalgia in this study strengthen that argument.

9.5.3 Arousal

Arousal measures were also included as exploratory variables in order to consider whether arousal plays a role in the attraction to sad music experienced by ruminators. Results were not conclusive. In light of the high incidence of anhedonia and even catatonia in cases of depression (which is highly correlated to rumination), it was proposed that ruminators

would have lower baseline arousal levels than other listeners which would then become

higher after listening to sad music. However, this was not the case. All arousal measures

including the Calm/Anxious, Tired/Energetic, and Sleepy/Alert scores tended to be higher

for the high ruminators than for low ruminators. The POMS subscales of Tension and

230 Vigour (a positive dimension) were also stronger for high ruminators, although Fatigue was elevated as well. In addition, alertness and energy levels dropped for all groups after listening to sad music, while anxiety levels rose, with no significant interaction with

Rumination scores.

This may be reflective of the different ways that depression and/or rumination manifests itself in different individuals. Anxiety has a high rate of comorbidity with depression

(Brady & Kendall, 1992; Sartorius, Ustun, Lecrubier, & Wittchen, 1996). Therefore further research distinguishing between depression with anxiety and depression unaccompanied by anxiety could help to clarify the effect of sad music on the arousal levels of various listeners and whether it may be a factor in the attraction to sad music of depression sufferers with low arousal measures.

Alternatively, it may be that the arousal involved in an attraction to sad music is actually cognitive arousal and is therefore something that the individual does not have direct conscious access to. Interestingly, David & Thaut (1989) found that participant-selected

music for relaxation actually increased physiological arousal despite reported decreases in

subjective anxiety. Therefore, while the chosen music may be subjectively either arousing

or relaxing, physiologically the intense emotions may still be accompanied by high arousal

levels (Rickard, 2004). As this study used only self-report measures of arousal and not

physiological measures, the results are therefore inconclusive regarding arousal. As this

study was highly exploratory in regards to arousal, further research should be carefully

designed so as to account for individual differences in baseline arousal and optimal arousal

levels.

231 9.5.4 Conclusions

Overall, while highly exploratory in nature, Study 4 provides a useful rounding out of the results of the previous studies reported in this thesis. The focus of this study differed from the previous studies in that it aimed to examine the direct effect on mood of listening to a piece of sad music, rather than looking at attraction to it. In addition, the focus was on the possible maladaptive uses of music rather than on the previous studies which have resulted in strong findings in relation to adaptive uses of sad music.

The results of this study tend to confirm that high ruminators do not experience mood improvements after listening to sad music. In fact, it appears that the potential benefits they could gain from listening to happy music is greater than for other listeners, thereby supporting the argument that an attraction to sad music on their part is maladaptive.

However, many questions remain to be answered in future research. Further study of the effect of happy music upon depressed listeners with happy music listening as a controlled condition will be necessary to confirm the results of Study 4. The effect of the presence of anxiety needs to be investigated further, as does the question of whether ruminators are aware of the lack of benefit they are deriving from listening to sad music. In addition the influence of arousal requires careful investigation with studies designed to account for the influence of individual differences. Such investigations will have important implications for the use of music in therapy situations and for enhancing the benefits that listeners can obtain from music in their everyday lives.

232 SUMMARY

 The aim of this study was to further investigate maladaptive uses of sad music.

 As a progression from the previous studies, it was hypothesised that participants

with high scores in Rumination would not experience mood improvements after

listening to sad music. However, it was expected that they might display a lack of

awareness of this and a tendency to justify their listening choice. On the other hand

it was hypothesised that high scores in Absorption and Reflectiveness would not

demonstrate high levels of mood disturbance after listening to sad music. Arousal

measures were also included as exploratory variables.

 Results supported the first hypothesis, with ruminators generally evincing rising

levels of mood disturbance and depression after listening to sad music. Ruminators

also tended predominantly to recognise that listening to sad music made them

sadder, although strong associations were also found with items indicating some

self-perceived benefits or ‘bittersweet’ effects of listening to sad music.

 Listeners with high scores in Reflectiveness who were experiencing a depressed

mood prior to listening to sad music reported having benefited from a feeling of

connection with other people experiencing the same emotions.

 A further finding was that ruminators experienced greater mood improvements after

listening to happy music than other listeners, a finding which supports the

arguments that listening to sad music is part of the maladaptive mood regulation

strategies that such listeners may have developed.

 These findings have important implications for the use of music in therapy

situations as well as for mood regulation in everyday life. However, further research

is required in order to clarify several issues in relation to maladaptive uses of sad

music.

233

CHAPTER 10 – DISCUSSION

234 CHAPTER 10 – DISCUSSION

10.1 A Summary of the Approach Taken in This Thesis

This thesis aimed to address the fascinating question of why people are attracted to negative emotions in music. The topic was approached by first considering the philosophical discussion that has been taking place for centuries about this phenomenon. A consideration of the philosophical literature revealed that authors on this subject are in conflict over some of the most basic issues relating to it, such as whether sad music actually makes people sad or not. It was argued that the conflict which is evident in the literature is likely based on the fact that the authors primarily consider the topic at a personal level of explanation. Rather than conducting empirical investigation, the discussion thus far has involved chiefly ‘arm-chair’ philosophising based on the authors’ own experiences (with one notable exception, see Section 2.1.5). This thesis thus proposed testing the subject empirically in order to resolve some of these conflicting philosophical arguments.

The approach to this empirical investigation involved examining three related lines of argument. These included: (i) individual differences psychology, (ii) a mechanistic explanation for the enjoyment of sad music, and (iii) mood management theory.

Individual Differences

After a review of the philosophical literature, it was argued that the obvious failure of explanations at a personal level to find a single coherent answer to the question of why people are attracted to negative emotions in music, is evidence that there may not be a single answer at all. Rather, individual differences may mean that there is in fact a set of answers to the paradox depending on various characteristics of the individuals involved. It was therefore decided that the investigation in this thesis should examine the question with

235 theories drawn from individual differences psychology as a primary theoretical underpinning.

The Investigation of Mechanism

In addition, it was argued that looking at the paradox from a mechanistic perspective might begin to uncover the basis of such individual differences in response to music evoking negative emotions. One such mechanistic approach was found in Schubert’s (1996)

Dissociation Theory of Emotion in Aesthetic Contexts. This theory proposes that in aesthetic contexts listeners are able to dissociate or disconnect the displeasure usually experienced in connection with sadness. This thesis argued that they are thus able to enjoy the arousal of the sad experience without any accompanying displeasure.

Interestingly, this process seems to be related to dissociation as it is known in a clinical sense, which in everyday life is primarily manifested in experiences of absorption. The theory of aesthetic dissociation thus provided the basis for the studies to follow, which were able to test individual differences in absorption in order to assess its relation to an attraction to negative emotion in music. The literature on absorption demonstrated correlations between that personality trait and others. In particular, it was decided to look at imagination as evidenced by fantasy-proneness because of its connection with absorption.

Empathy was another key personality trait often mentioned in connection with the enjoyment of sad music in the literature, and it was thus decided to investigate this trait along with a more specialised form, ‘music empathy’.

236 Mood Management

Further, a consideration of mood management theory provided the third theoretical framework for designing the studies to come. In particular, it was argued that although the literature seemed to indicate that people were mostly motivated in their listening choices by a desire to improve or sustain a good mood, mood management theory did not consider the possibility that maladaptive mood management strategies may be at work in some individuals. It was determined that the research in this thesis should attempt to distinguish between adaptive and maladaptive behaviours involved in listening to sad music.

Rumination was identified as an important personality trait that might help to pinpoint individuals with maladaptive listening habits.

10.2 A Summary of the Findings from the Four Studies

Study 1 was an online survey administered to 59 participants (Chapter 5). Pre-established

psychometric instruments were used to measure the predictor variables of dissociation,

absorption, empathy, music empathy, fantasy-proneness and rumination and a series of

questions relating to the enjoyment of sad music were designed to test the dependent

variable.

Results revealed statistically significant positive relationships between enjoyment of

negative emotions in music with both absorption and music empathy. Factor analysis and a

regression model confirmed these results.

Study 2 (Chapter 6) expanded on these findings by means of a qualitative study designed to

examine attraction to negative emotions in music at a personal level. Five participants from

Study 1 were recruited based on the strength of their attraction to negative emotions in

music, and were invited to participate in some further interviews which included listening

237 to a self-selected piece of music. The focus of this study was to examine in depth the

varying responses and uses that participants made of music in their daily lives, in mood

regulation and in particular their reasons for listening to music evoking negative emotions.

Thematic analysis of the raw data from the interviews and subsequent cross-case analysis

demonstrated that music listening choices tended to support theories of optimal arousal and

mood management. Support was also found for the idea that individual differences in

absorption and dissociation may in part underlie the individual variations in response to

music evoking negative emotions. In addition, some listeners appeared to be seeking

additional psychological benefits such as the opportunity to reflect on and process life

events, or to purge negative emotions that they were currently experiencing.

Interestingly, the interview data also suggested a distinction between adaptive and

maladaptive uses of music evoking negative emotions. While some participants appeared to

use music in a healthy way to deal with negative emotions and events in their lives, one

participant in particular demonstrated an almost compulsive attraction to music evoking

negative emotions despite the fact that listening to it did not result in an improved mood.

This appeared to be related to his clinical depression and a strong tendency to rumination.

This interview was a turning point in the thesis and warranted further investigation of

maladaptive uses of music evoking negative emotions, an aspect of the topic which had not

received much attention in the literature.

Strong themes emerging from the interview data which had not previously been considered

in this thesis, were that of nostalgia and the use of music for reflective purposes. Study 3

(see Chapter 8), was therefore designed to investigate these additional factors as well as to

substantiate the results of Study 1. Given the indications from Study 2 that some listening

238 choices may be based on maladaptive mood regulation strategies, it was decided to look more closely at rumination and dissociation in its more pathological manifestations despite the fact that no significant correlations were found with these variables in Study 1. It was hypothesised that the lack of significant results may have been because the questions in

Study 1 focused on the enjoyment of music evoking negative emotions, whereas, where maladaptive uses of sad music are concerned there may be a strong attraction to such music without the pleasure that is hypothesised to be experienced by other listeners.

Study 3 therefore, consisted of an online survey administered to 152 participants, which included a newly devised instrument called the Like Sad Music Scale (LSMS) designed to measure all the various motivations (both adaptive and maladaptive) that might be involved in an attraction to music evoking negative emotions. A further question was added which looked at the percentage of music listening time which was devoted to listening to sad music, as a method of testing actual listening habits as opposed to enjoyment of it. The independent variables of absorption, dissociation, empathy, music empathy, fantasy- proneness, rumination, reflectiveness and nostalgia-proneness were tested using pre- established psychometric instruments.

Results confirmed that listeners use sad music for mood manipulation in both adaptive and maladaptive ways. Gender differences were also discovered in this study. It was revealed that Absorption was the best predictor of a liking for sad music in males, whereas

Rumination and Reflectiveness were the best predictors for females. For those listeners with strong scores in Absorption, the particular motivation for listening to sad music appeared to be enjoyment of the experience of strong emotions. Ruminators tended to listen

to sad music because they felt it could help release their sad feelings or they could relate to

the sad feelings experienced in the music. Participants with strong scores in Reflectiveness

239 reported a tendency to ‘grieve’ while listening to sad music, indicating the inclination of such listeners to use music as an opportunity to deal with and process emotions relating to real-life occurrences in their lives.

No significant correlations were found with Nostalgia-proneness and the LSMS or its

individual items. However, Nostalgia-proneness was found to be related to both

Rumination and Reflectiveness. These are interesting findings given the little that is

understood about the psychological purposes and outcomes of nostalgia in the literature. It

tends to reflect the idea that nostalgia is also an experience that can be either adaptive or

maladaptive and is subject to individual differences. Barrett (2010) suggested two possible

profiles for the nostalgia-prone: the neurotic ruminator brooding on the past, and a person

more motivated by curiosity and wonder at the interconnectedness of past and present.

Thus where music listeners report an involvement of nostalgia in their experiences, whether

this is of psychological benefit to the listener or not, again perhaps depends on whether

they have developed ruminative or reflective mood regulation strategies.

Study 4 (Chapter 9) focused on maladaptive mood regulation strategies and the actual

effect of listening to sad music, particularly on listeners with high scores in Rumination.

Results confirmed that ruminators did not experience significant improvements to mood

after listening to sad music. It was expected that ruminators might claim to have benefited

despite the fact that they did not experience mood improvements. However, the data in this

case, revealed that they were mostly aware of having felt sadder after listening to sad music

although they also reported some benefits and a ‘bittersweet, nostalgic’ experience.

However, future research will be able to clarify whether these results are borne out in study

designs of a different nature. In addition it was found that listeners with high scores in

Reflectiveness who were experiencing a depressed mood prior to listening to the sad music,

240 were able to experience some psychological benefit from listening to the music, although the effect upon their mood was not immediate. In addition, it was found that ruminators experienced greater improvements to mood after listening to happy music than did other listeners, tending to support the argument that listening to sad music is part of a set of maladaptive mood regulation strategies that ruminators have.

The findings from these studies thus tend to support the three main concepts which have informed this research (summarised in Section 10.1). These will be discussed below.

10.3 Individual Differences

The four studies tended to support the argument that individual differences is an important part of understanding the phenomenon of the attraction to music evoking negative emotions. The first two quantitative studies revealed that individual differences in the personality traits of absorption, reflectiveness and rumination are particularly implicated in explaining why some people are attracted to sad music and others are not.

In addition, Studies 2 and 3 indicate that the varying personal circumstances of individuals may also affect whether or not they choose to listen to sad music. Study 2, for example, illustrated that at times events occurring in the lives of listeners may result in a necessary period of grieving or the need to spend time reflecting on events and their resultant emotions. Individuals with high scores in Reflectiveness may find themselves particularly drawn to the use of sad music for the opportunity it presents to accomplish these purposes.

This was supported by the findings in Study 3.

These findings help to explain the apparent conflict that arises in the philosophical literature. Since most of the arguments found in the literature are approached from a

241 personal level of explanation and are based on the authors own perceptions of their experiences, an understanding that individuals’ experiences will differ depending on these factors makes much of the argument about which answer is right or wrong, obsolete. It is entirely possible that several of the arguments presented in the philosophical literature are true of some individuals. Some of these arguments will be considered in the light of the findings in this thesis in more detail below.

10.4 Dissociation Theory of Emotion in Aesthetic Contexts

A second theory which formed the basis for this study was the Dissociation Theory of

Emotion in Aesthetic Contexts (see the discussion in Chapter 2). The findings of the first three studies in this thesis also tended to support this theory. Absorption, one of the most common non-clinical aspects of dissociation, was found in both Studies 1 and 3 to be

strongly correlated to the enjoyment of sad music. This was also in accordance with the

findings from the interview data in Study 2 where participants reported a capacity to enjoy

the strong emotions evoked by sad music without any experience of displeasure.

Thus, although the Dissociation Theory of Emotion in Aesthetic Contexts may not in itself

provide a full answer to why people listen to music evoking negative emotions, it provides

a plausible mechanistic explanation for the enjoyment of music evoking negative emotions.

The theorised deactivation of the displeasure usually associated with sadness which occurs

in aesthetic contexts may also make listening to sad music a more attractive way to

experience some of the other psychological benefits that it may confer. It thus lends

validity to several of the philosophical explanations found in the literature, which will be

discussed in more detail below.

242 10.5 Mood Management Theory: Adaptive and Maladaptive Mood Management

The understanding of attraction to music evoking negative emotions is further completed by the findings in relation to mood management theory (see the discussion in Chapter 3) from the studies. This theory provided a third theoretical framework for approaching the question of why people listen to music evoking negative emotions. The theory of mood management argues that people will choose to listen to music that will either serve to improve their mood or maintain a previously good mood.

For the most part, this theory was supported by the results of the studies. The findings in each of the studies that absorption is correlated with an enjoyment of sad music, clearly indicate that the pursuit of pleasure and the positive impact on mood resulting was a prime motivation for some listeners in choosing sad music even if the effect upon mood is not immediate.

However, it appeared that the pursuit of pleasure was not always the primary motivating factor in seeking out music evoking negative emotions. Some listeners appeared to be motivated by a desire to experience other psychological benefits. The need to do so was at times dictated by negative emotions arising from events within the participants’ lives. The fact that they are able to enjoy the experience of listening to the sad music or at least not experience the displeasure that would usually occur with an experience of sadness, meant that individuals with high scores in Absorption could pursue these other benefits without discomfort.

Other listeners without a high capacity for absorption may nevertheless have been motivated by the same psychological goals. Within the mood management paradigm,

Zillmann (2000) has argued that sometimes people delay gratification in order to achieve

243 some other ultimately beneficial goal. In harmony with this extension of mood management theory, individuals with high scores in Reflectiveness may be prepared to undergo a delay in pleasure or mood improvement, or even a willingness to experience some temporary displeasure, for the long-term psychological gains enjoyed from the experience.

However, exceptions to mood management theory were identified in the data. Although no significant correlations between rumination and the enjoyment of sad music were found in

Study 1, Study 2 demonstrated that some listeners seek out this kind of music despite the apparent lack of either pleasure or other long-term gains. Study 3 confirmed that rumination was correlated with an attraction to sad music or habitual listening to it, but not the enjoyment of it. Thus it was argued that this is evidence that the listening choices of some individuals are influenced by maladaptive mood regulation strategies and that these listeners thus provide an exception to the predictions of mood management theory. Study 4 confirmed that listeners high in rumination still evinced high levels of depression and mood disturbance after listening to sad music, and actually derived greater benefits from listening to happy music than other listeners, thus supporting the idea that attraction to sad music by these individuals is related to maladaptive mood regulation strategies.

10.6 Pleasure & Arousal

A concept that became increasingly significant as the first three studies in this thesis progressed, was that of arousal. Arousal may be a key factor in determining whether an individual perceives certain music as enjoyable or not, for reasons that will be outlined below.

244 Arousal is notoriously difficult to define and is not always consistently used within the literature. In everyday terms, to be aroused means to be wide awake, alert, vigorous, excited, and full of pep (Thayer, 1989). At times it is used to refer to physiological arousal, or activation of the autonomic nervous system (Glass & Holyoak, 1986; Juslin & Vastfjall,

2008). Others refer to it as a “continuum of sensitivity to environmental stimuli” ranging

from sleeping to various waking states (Berridge, 2008) The Dorlands Medical Dictionary

("Arousal," 2011) defines it as “a state of responsiveness to sensory stimulation or

excitability” (p. 133).

Bipolar models of emotion such as the circumplex model for example (Russell, 1979),

would place sadness within the model as a low arousal emotion. However, arousal can also be defined in more psychological terms as being related to the intensity with which an emotion is experienced, but not its quality. For example, one can be more or less happy, more or less angry, more or less disgusted (Benjafield, 1997; Duffy, 1962). According to this understanding, as sadness increased in intensity, it would increase in arousal.

Another alternative understanding of arousal is that it is multidimensional. Thayer (1989), for example, argues that arousal itself includes at least the two dimensions of energy/tiredness and tension/calmness. According to his theory (Thayer, Newman, &

McClain, 1994), for the majority of people the most comfortable mood states involve relatively low tension but high energy. Moderate levels of arousal can therefore be equated with feelings of alertness and vigour, although extremely high levels are felt as tense and unpleasant (Thayer, 1989). With this understanding of arousal, sadness can be perceived as an emotion that may fluctuate in intensity.

245 How then, is arousal related to the pleasure that some people experience in listening to sad music? Martindale argues that the amount of pleasure a particular stimulus will invoke depends upon the number of ‘cognitive units’ or neural networks it activates (Martindale &

Moore, 1988). Similarly, in Duffy's (1962) activation theory arousal is synonymous with activity in the brain reticular formation, projecting to the cortex. In harmony with

Martindale’s proposal, if we understand arousal according to Thayer’s energy/tiredness dimension to be a state of alertness, excitability or increased energy without tension, it would seem that the more neural activation that is triggered by the music, the more arousal the listener experiences. Martindale argues that this neural activation is ‘inherently pleasurable’. Therefore, we could say that arousal is prima facie pleasurable. Thus we could expect as a basic assumption that as the intensity of an emotion increases, the arousal and therefore the pleasure levels of the listener also increase. This assumption has various qualifying factors, however, which will be discussed later in this section.

That the intensity of an emotion is related to the level of arousal finds empirical support from various studies. A consistent theme across general theories of emotion is that intense emotions are accompanied by increased levels of physiological arousal (Rickard, 2004).

Physiological arousal measures such as skin conductance, heart rate and respiration have been reported in response to both exciting, joyful music as well as sad music (Rickard,

2004). This tends to support the idea that sadness is not always accompanied by low arousal as would be assumed when looking at the circumplex model. Krumhansl (1997) found that some indices of physiological arousal decreased in response to sad music, while others increased. Rickard (2004) thus argues that individual personality differences such as whether a person is an introvert of extravert may mediate the relationship between emotional response and arousal levels.

246 The findings of this thesis tend to support the argument that some listeners will enjoy the increased arousal of intense emotional responses to music, even when the valence of the emotion experienced is usually considered negative, such as in the case of sadness.

Although more research is required to clarify the findings in relation to arousal in Study 4,

The Dissociation Theory of Emotion in Aesthetic Contexts (Schubert 1996, 2009-2010) which formed one of the theoretical frameworks for this investigation, argues that dissociation in aesthetic contexts leaves listeners able to enjoy the ‘neural activation’ of listening to the sad music without the usual displeasure of an experience of sadness. This

‘neural activation’ could also be understood as ‘arousal’. This is supported by studies which have found associations between increased activity in the arousal regions of the brain, and music that produces pleasure even when that music is sad (Blood & Zatorre,

2001). Interestingly, one study (Schubert, 2007a) reports that most subjects experienced

greater emotional arousal when listening to pieces expressing negative emotion than to

other types of music. Similarly, Steinbeis, Koelsch and Sloboda (2005) argued that musical

tension created by departure from the expected pattern and often found in sad music, led to

higher arousal in their participants and increased ratings of in the music.

Thus, if the listener has the capacity to dissociate in the sense proposed by Schubert, sad

music may provide a particularly powerful medium for experiencing intense emotions and

the pleasurable arousal that accompanies it. The basic assumption that as the emotional

reaction intensifies so will the pleasure, is therefore qualified by two further assumptions:

(i) that the context be that of aesthetic enjoyment such as music listening, and (ii) that the

listener have the capacity to dissociate. The second qualifying statement appears to be

related to the listener’s capacity for absorption as indicated by the findings in this thesis.

247 However, since some high-arousal states are in fact quite unpleasurable (most people do not enjoy feeling over-tense or overstimulated), it is obvious that there are other moderating factors on the level of arousal an individual will seek to achieve with their music choices. Both under-stimulation and over-stimulation can be unpleasant. Therefore,

it has been argued that an individual will seek to optimise their level of arousal (Zentall &

Zentall, 1983). This theory, known as the “optimal stimulation theory” based on the work

of Berlyne and others (see for example Duffy, 1962; Fiske & Maddi, 1961), assumes that

for each individual there is an ideal level of arousal that is most comfortable and productive. The level most comfortable to an individual and the type of stimuli they will choose to achieve this can vary depending on factors such as the intelligence of the individual, whether they are introverted or extroverted, and how much stimulation they are experiencing at the time of listening within their environment (Chamorro-Premuzic &

Furnham, 2007; Eysenck, 1967; Rentfrow & Gosling, 2003).

Thus, it is proposed that arousal can at times be enjoyable regardless of the valence of the

emotion. The resulting enjoyment of the emotion, may have a positive effect on mood. The

dissociation from displeasure that occurs when experiencing negative emotions in an

aesthetic context, leaves the listener free to enjoy the cognitive activation or increased

emotional arousal invoked by the music provided the music matches the arousal level that

is optimal for the individual at the time.

This explanation was supported by the cases in Study 2 (Chapter 6). Participants in that

study used music both to provide mental or emotional stimulation (arousal) or to relax or

calm. While the type of music chosen in such situations differed between individuals, the

use of music to improve alertness and concentration was a common factor. Also in

agreement with the optimal-arousal arousal, was the use of music to lower the state of

arousal when feeling over-stimulated.

248

It is possible that levels of arousal are even implicated in the motivations for listening to sad music of individuals evidencing maladaptive listening behaviours. Depression is often characterized by high levels of anhedonia, blunted affect and low emotional arousal

(Moratti et al., 2008). Low emotional arousal indexed by deficient arousal modulation in the temporoparietal cortex is often associated with depression (where anxiety is not involved) (Moratti et al., 2008). Thus, listeners with depression or other mood disorders may find that the arousal and neural activation of listening to sad music is a welcome relief from their blunted, deadened state despite the fact that the valence of their emotional state has not changed.

Since the evidence indicates that individuals suffering from depression often have a negative attentional bias (Chapter 3), it may be that music evoking negative emotions is the only type of music that is able to engage their attention and allow them to experience heightened neural activation or arousal. In the absence of stimuli that is able to improve their mood, they may find some kind of satisfaction in merely achieving an increase in arousal levels.

Thus we could summarise the arguments surrounding the concept of arousal as supported by the findings of this thesis in the following way:

(a) arousal levels increase as the intensity of emotional response increases

(b) the arousal experienced in aesthetic contexts is prima facie pleasurable

(c) sad music often produces an intense emotional response and this may

particularly be the case with depressed people who have a negative

attentional bias

249 (d) the assumption that pleasure increases as arousal levels rise is qualified by the

individuals’ capacity to dissociate as indicated by absorption levels, and

the level of stimulation which is optimal for them at the time

(e) if the preceding assumptions are met, the listener can enjoy the emotional

stimulation and accompanying arousal without displeasure even if the

valence of the emotion experienced is a negative one.

The findings of Study 4 were inconclusive in relation to arousal due to study design. That study found that high ruminators tended to have higher baseline arousal levels than other participants although these (except for anxiety) tended to decrease for all participants after listening to sad music. However, as Rickard (2004) suggests, individual differences may tend to cloud results regarding emotional stimulation on arousal. It is difficult to be sure given the design of Study 4 what level of arousal would have been optimal for the participants at the time of listening, or whether they would have chosen to listen to that music at that time outside of the experimental situation. In addition, David & Thaut (1989) found that participant-selected music for relaxation actually increased physiological arousal despite reported decreases in subjective anxiety. Therefore, there may be a difference between physiological arousal and self-reports of arousal. As this study used only self- report measures of arousal and not physiological measures, the results are therefore inconclusive regarding arousal and further investigation would be required in order to clarify the issues in relation to arousal.

10.7 Relationship of the Findings to the Philosophical Debate

Do we actually experience negative emotions when listening to music?

As discussed in Chapter 2, cognitive theorists such as Peter Kivy would argue that the only emotion we experience in relation to sad music, is ‘aesthetic awe’ which we then mistake

250 for sadness. Although the answer to this question was not fundamental to the argument of this thesis, the findings of this thesis support the idea that negative emotions can indeed be induced by music. The Dissociation Theory of Emotion in Aesthetic Contexts explains how those with high scores in absorption to experience such negative emotions in a musical context without displeasure or discomfort.

In addition, the findings in support of the theory of aesthetic dissociation also rule out the need for any re-definition of emotion, or new category of emotion to be created as many emotivists would argue , in order for sad music to be enjoyed. Everyday ‘garden-variety’ emotions can be experienced and actually enjoyed at the same time.

Additionally, the claims of participants in both the qualitative study (Chapter 6) and the quantitative study (Chapter 7) that the music allows them to process negative emotions, or purge negative emotions etc. would seem to indicate that actual emotions are being experienced in response to the music.

Compensatory or Functional Explanations

Compensatory explanations (also known as functional explanations) claim that the benefits obtained from listening to music evoking negative emotions compensate for the unpleasant emotions experienced. These include explanations such as Aristotle’s description of catharsis, and others proposed by Levinson such as emotional resolution, expressive potency and emotional communion (Levinson, 1990b) (see Chapter 2 for discussion).

No evidence was collected in this thesis in relation to the explanations of expressive potency. None of the participants in Study 1 who said they liked sad music agreed with the notion that they only liked sad music in order to enjoy the ‘emotional resolution’ when the

251 music resolves happily. However, the studies reported in this thesis did find limited support for several functional explanations. Rumination, Nostalgia-Proneness and Absorption were correlated with catharsis as a motivation for listening to sad music in Study 3. Rumination and Absorption were also correlated to an item designed to measure emotional communion.

In addition, the participants in Study 2 reported some experiences of absorption and ruminative behaviour in relation to listening to sad music. However, as argued above, it is possible in the case of ruminators that the purposes in listening to sad music may not match the actual outcomes. Therefore, whether or not these are actual benefits of listening to sad music would require further research.

Listeners with high scores in Absorption are likely able to actually enjoy the experience of the strong emotions. Thus in their case, their may be no need for any ‘compensation’ for the experience of sadness. The pleasure of the experience may be the only motivation necessary. However, this may leave them able to further enjoy some additional benefits such as the opportunity for catharsis or a sense of emotional communion as demonstrated by the findings in Study 3. The idea that some people may be able to enjoy merely the emotional arousal of the music without being motivated by the opportunity to gain any of these additional benefits addresses many of the theoretical flaws inherent in the functional/compensatory explanations. Again, individual differences in response to music evoking negative emotions as evidenced by the studies reported in this thesis, reveals that no single answer will be applicable to all music listeners.

Organicist

Organicist explanations argue that listeners desire the whole gamut of emotional experiences involved in listening to music, which would include the experience of negative emotions. Objections to these type of theories include the argument that this still does not

252 explain why some listeners are attracted to music evoking negative emotions over more cheerful music.

However, once again, the findings in this thesis help to clarify how such motivations for listening to sad music may work. The findings in relation to listeners with high scores in absorption indicate that some listeners are indeed attracted to the strong emotional experience inherent in listening to music evoking negative emotions. The mechanism of dissociation would enable this emotional response to be enjoyed without discomfort or displeasure. As argued above, many listeners find that their emotional response is strongest when listening to sad music. Thus, if the experience of strong emotions is indeed what some listeners are seeking with their listening choices, it is not surprising that they may be attracted to music evoking negative emotions above other music.

Conversionary

Conversionary explanations, primarily offered by emotivist philosophers, argue that the aesthetic context of listening to music transforms the experience into an agreeable one, given that the experience is devoid of psychological and behavioural consequences. Some philosophers thus argue that the emotions experienced are a special type of ‘aesthetic emotion’ or are a weaker form of everyday emotions rather than being ‘full-fledged’.

The Theory of Aesthetic Dissociation as supported by the findings in this thesis, suggest that this is a process which can occur in aesthetic situations. However, the theory makes unnecessary the philosophical contortions of re-defining emotion or creating new categories of emotions. The theory more simply argues that the emotions experienced in the context of music listening are the same as emotions evoked by everyday experiences, with the exception that the displeasure circuits of the brain are de-activated.

253 10.8 Imagination, Empathy and Fantasy-Proneness

The philosophical literature also suggested a connection between imagination, empathy and fantasy-proneness and an attraction to music evoking negative emotion. The findings in the four studies in this thesis were not conclusive in regards to the involvement of these personality traits. Study 1 found a positive correlation between music empathy and the enjoyment of sad music. However, this was not substantiated by the later studies. Similarly the connection between general empathy and an attraction to sad music was weak in the studies reported in this thesis.

However, other studies have found stronger connections with empathy (Vuoskoski,

Thompson, McIIlwain, & Eerola, 2012). This may have something to do with the particular measures used. The studies reported in this thesis for example, used only the Empathic

Concern and Fantasy subscales from the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI, Davis, 1980), while the study cited above used the entire scale. Therefore, it may be that certain aspects of empathy as measured in the IRI are involved in an attraction to music evoking negative emotions, while the aspects tested in this thesis are not.

In any case, it could be argued that empathy would likely be related to the attraction to sad music only in some listeners. Rumination, for example, has been linked to what is called the ‘self-absorption paradox’ (Chapter 3), or an unhealthy focus on the self. It is possible that such listeners would actually be deficient in capacities for empathy, particularly during periods of depression. Lacking a capacity for identifying with the emotions of others including those expressed in music, they may find themselves only able to be engaged by music expressing emotions matching their own.

254 The involvement of imagination in an attraction to sad music, particularly as measured by the Fantasy subscale of the IRI, was also not strongly supported by the findings reported in this thesis. However, this does not rule out the possibility that imagination is involved for some listeners. Several participants in Study 2, for example, mentioned imagination in relation to the source of their emotional response to the music. However, the mechanisms concerned in triggering an emotional response to music, although interesting, were not a primary focus of this thesis (for a discussion, see Juslin & Vastfjall, 2008).

10.9 Other Negative Emotions

Grief

As discussed in Chapter 2, the relationship between grief and music provides a complicated picture. The distinction between sadness and grief is difficult to define and appears to relate mostly to the trigger for the emotions, which in the case of grief will usually be some kind of loss (Neufeldt & Guralnik, 1988). Grief may also be a more long-lasting emotion. Grief, or the process of grieving, may not always exclusively involve sadness either, but may at times be evidenced by a sense of celebration in remembering the thing lost (Chapter 2). In addition grief may differ from sadness in that it has higher arousal levels (Jefferies et al.,

2008).

The studies conducted as part of this thesis did not investigate grief comprehensively.

However, several participants in Study 2 mentioned using music as part of their grieving

process. In addition, participants with high scores in Reflectiveness in Study 3 reported

often finding themselves grieving when listening to sad music. This may be evidence of the

tendency of such listeners to use music as a tool for processing and dealing with negative

emotions as arising from real life situations such as loss.

255 Once again, the involvement of grief with an attraction to sad music appears to have both an adaptive and a maladaptive outcome (Chapter 6). While the process of grieving is a necessary and healthy one which music can help to facilitate (McFerran et al., 2010), in most people, the grieving process appears to reach a point of resolution or , and the bereaved person is able to move on. However, in ‘complicated grief’ (Schnider, Elhai,

& Gray, 2007), natural grief processes may become entangled with the more maladaptive thinking patterns associated with depression, and the sufferer may find themselves having difficulty resolving their emotions. These patterns may again be evidenced by music listening habits. Music may serve to facilitate the expression and processing of grief in psychologically healthy individuals, who would likely then choose to move on to other listening choices once their psychological purposes have been achieved. However, in people experiencing ‘complicated grief’, music listening habits may be evidence of a cycle of unhealthy, ruminative behaviour which results in little psychological benefit.

Anger & Fear

Anger and fear were again not examined extensively in this thesis. As discussed in Chapter

2, these emotions are in fact, difficult to distinguish in the context of music likely because of the similarity between their physiological states.

However, participants in Study 2 were specifically questioned about their reaction to music evoking negative emotions other than sadness or grief. In general, the participants reported avoiding music that made them angry because of the content or level to which they found the music aesthetically displeasing. CS2 however, actually reported at times using music to make him angry if he wanted to “have some payback” or feel more motivated to achieve his goals.

256 In addition, he reported an attraction to hip-hop, a genre which has often been associated with aggressive behaviour in the literature (North & Hargreaves, 2006). However, the results of such studies are conflicting with some authors reporting the positive effects of self-expression and self-identity, or the opportunity to vent negative emotions being associated with such listening choices (Arnett, 1991; Baker & Homan, 2007; Iwamoto et al., 2007). CS2, similarly, reported mostly ignoring the violent lyrics. It may be that what

CS2 actually enjoys about this music, in harmony with the findings of this thesis, is the higher state of emotional arousal which it triggers in him. Thus similar personality differences may also be involved in the conflicting results relating to music evoking anger, with high capabilities for absorption making it possible to enjoy the cathartic effects or other psychological benefits of listening to such music. Alternatively, those with habitually negative thinking patterns or behaviour may find that music evoking anger actually exacerbates the negative emotions they are experiencing.

The same arguments could be applied to music evoking fear. Once again, fear is not always an emotion that stimulates avoidance behaviours, a fact which is attested to by the popularity of ‘thrillers’ in both film and literature, and of extreme sports. It may be that many of those who enjoy the adrenalin ‘’ of experiencing fear in aesthetic contexts, are able to enjoy it because of higher capacities for absorption than others in which the displeasure usually associated with fear is dissociated.

10.10 Mixed Emotions

Several of the participants in Study 2 (see Chapter 6) mentioned experiencing ‘mixed emotions’ when listening to sad music. CS3, for example, mentioned feeling happy and sad at the same time, while CS4 discussed a piece of music that made her feel simultaneously

‘safe but sad’. Study 4 (see Chapter 9) also involved some findings regarding mixed

257 emotions. A correlation was found between high scores in Rumination and the description of listening to a self-chosen piece of sad music as a ‘bittersweet, nostalgic’ experience. In fact, the literature on nostalgia often refers to the mixed emotions that appears to be connected with many nostalgic episodes (Barrett et al., 2010; Wildschut et al., 2006).

This is similar to findings in other studies. Evans & Schubert (2008), for example, report that one of their participants described experiencing mixed emotions in response to

‘Pachelbel’s Canon’. Hunter, Schellenberg and Schimmack (2010) found that listeners in their study experienced feeling happy and sad at the same time in response to music presenting mixed emotional cues.

However, the findings from Hunter et al.’s study involved presenting music that deliberately mixed emotional cues. When presented with slow music in minor keys, they found that sadness ratings alone were high. Therefore, experiencing mixed emotions in response to mixed emotional cues may be quite different to feeling mixed emotions in response to sad cues. Eerola & Vuoskoski (2011) similarly found a difference between emotion ratings when participants were presented with sad music and when presented with mixed emotional cues.

It is not clear from the results of the studies presented in this thesis whether the music that apparently involved mixed emotional responses contained mixed emotional cues, or whether the participants were experiencing a mixed emotional response from listening to music containing only sad cues. In fact, such a distinction could be quite difficult to make in a research setting involving self-selected music, given the subjective nature of individual musical experience.

258 In addition, the findings from this thesis do not make clear whether or not the mixed

emotions described by participants are the simultaneous experience of two distinct

emotions, or the experience of a negative emotion which is pleasurable as Schubert’s

Dissociation Theory of Emotion in Aesthetic Contexts proposes (1996). This is the type of

issue which has been also been puzzling emotion theorists for some time. Greenspan

(1988) for example, argues that emotions defy easy categorisation into positive and

negative. Larson, McGraw and Cacioppo (2001) similarly argue that we should not limit

our understanding of sadness and happiness as being at extreme ends of a single dimension.

Alternatively, Charland (2005) argues that there may be two distinct types of valence being

experienced, ‘emotion valence’ and ‘affect valence’, with the latter referring to how good

or bad the emotion feels as distinct from the actual character of the emotion being

experienced. Or as Watson & Tellegen (1985) propose, positive and negative affect may be

two separate unipolar dimensions which can thus potentially co-exist. Alternatively, it

could be that rather than experiencing two separate emotions at the same time, listeners are

actually experiencing a ‘pleasurable sadness’. Schubert’s Dissociation Theory of Emotion

in Aesthetic Contexts explains mechanistically how this could be possible.

Interestingly, Juslin & Vastfjall (2008) suggest that music might induce mixed emotions

because different mechanisms are activated simultaneously (eg., emotional contagion at the

same time as episodic memory). Similarly, it could be argued that emotional contagion or

episodic memory, or other possible mechanisms, may trigger feelings of sadness while

displeasure is simultaneously deactivated by the dissociation mechanism experienced by

listeners with high scores in absorption. The end result may be a ‘bittersweet’ experience if

the music involves sad memories for the listener, or some other mechanism of emotional

response is also triggered.

259 This is an intriguing idea, raising some interesting questions for further examination in future research. Future research could further examine the relationship between nostalgia or rumination and the experience of mixed emotions in response to music. In addition, future research may address the question of whether two distinct emotions are being experienced, triggered by two mechanisms simultaneously, or whether it is a case of a seemingly contradictory experience, namely that of a negative emotion which is ‘pleasant’.

10.11 The Like Sad Music Scale (LSMS)

An attempt was also made within this thesis to create an instrument for measuring ‘liking’ for sad music (see Chapter 8). The instrument created, the LSMS, consisted of 10 items in the final version (see Appendix 3). Seven of those items were based upon Oliver’s (1993)

Sad Film Scale (SFS), with an additional 2 items considering the experience of grief in relation to sad music listening and a further item (reverse-scored) considering whether the sad music had to resolve happily in order to be enjoyed. The resulting scale was expected to measure liking of sad music regardless of whether the motive for listening was hedonic pleasure, catharsis or other psychological benefits.

The internal consistency of the proposed ‘Like Sad Music Scale’ (LSMS) was examined

and returned a Chronbach’s alpha of .803. Face validity of the LSMS was further

confirmed by the finding of a positive correlation was between LSMS scores and the

frequency with which participants reported listening to sad music. Furthermore it was

found that Absorption was a good predictor of the LSMS as had been expected, although

gender differences were apparent. Rumination and Reflectiveness were best predictors of

the LSMS for females, whereas Absorption was the best predictor for males.

260 In addition, it was found that certain items of the LSMS tended to have stronger correlations with various personality traits. Absorption, for example, was particularly correlated with the enjoyment of strong emotions in connection with sad music.

Rumination correlated with LSMS items ‘Helps release sadness’ and ‘Can relate to sadness’ while Reflectiveness correlated with the item ‘I often find myself grieving as a result of listening to sad music’. This suggests that while the overall scale measures a liking for sad music, several dimensions were emerging. In particular, there appeared to be a distinction between maladaptive and adaptive uses of sad music.

Furthermore, the questionnaire used in Study 4 (see Chapter 9 and Appendix 4) identified some additional aspects of listening to sad music that appear to be involved in the case of some listeners, such as the experience of ‘bittersweet nostalgia’. Therefore, while the

LSMS proved to be an effective instrument for measuring an overall liking of sad music, the scale could be further expanded in future research allowing clearer measurement of its dimensions.

261 SUMMARY

 The approach taken in this thesis was to consider the influence of individual

differences in examining the question of why some people are attracted to music

evoking negative emotions. In addition, the theory of aesthetic dissociation in music

was considered as a possible mechanistic explanation which also helped to identify

some of the personality traits that may be implicated in individual differences.

Finally, a consideration of the influence of mood and the learned mood regulation

strategies of individual listeners, both adaptive and maladaptive, was also included.

 A synthesis of the findings from the four studies reported in this thesis supports the

idea that there is no single answer to the question of why some people are attracted

to music evoking negative emotions. Rather, several differing listening behaviours

were revealed.

 Listeners with high scores in Absorption listen to music evoking negative emotions

primarily for the pleasure of the emotional experience (particularly in males).

Listeners with high scores in Reflectiveness may postpone the enjoyment of such

hedonistic pleasure in favour of obtaining some other psychological benefits such as

the opportunity to vent or process negative emotions arising from real life

experiences (particularly in females). In addition, listeners with high scores in

Rumination may find themselves engaging in maladaptive mood regulation

strategies including their listening choices, which may result in their being attracted

to music evoking negative emotions despite the fact that they derive little benefit

from the experience. Alternatively, they may be seeking the higher level of arousal

which the music produces, despite the fact that the valence of the emotions they

experience does not improve.

262  The concept of arousal, in particular the seeking of an optimal state of arousal,

appears to be involved in several of these motivations for seeking out music

evoking negative emotions.

 The findings in this thesis, in particular the argument regarding individual

differences and the theory of aesthetic dissociation, add plausibility to many of the

arguments in the philosophical literature regarding why people listen to sad music.

 No firm conclusions can be reached on the basis of the findings in this thesis with

regards to the involvement of empathy, imagination or fantasy-proneness in an

attraction to negative emotions in music. It may be that aspects of these personality

traits not considered in this thesis may be involved. Alternatively it may be that

these personality traits relate more to the triggering of emotional response rather

than the enjoyment of or attraction to the music.

 While other negative emotions such as grief, anger and fear were not considered in

any detail in this thesis, some interesting points relating to music evoking these

emotions were revealed. In addition, some interesting findings in relation to mixed

emotions emerged, which will also require clarification in future research.

 The Like Sad Music Scale which was developed as part of the investigations in this

thesis, proved to be an effective measure of an overall liking for sad music. The

scale could be further developed in the future in order to expand upon and clarify

some of the sub-dimensions which it also appears to measure.

263

CHAPTER 11 – CONCLUSIONS

264 CHAPTER 11 – CONCLUSIONS

A synthesis of the findings from the studies reported in this thesis thus creates a clear picture of the way individual differences interact so as to create a variety of experiences and responses to music evoking sadness:

(i) Individuals with high scores in Absorption possess the capacity to enjoy the strong

emotions experienced when listening to sad music, without the displeasure that would

normally accompany an experience of sadness. They are thus able to seek out sad music

which will optimise their level of arousal depending on prior mood and situational arousal

levels. The primary motivation here is one of classic mood management: the seeking of

pleasure so as to maintain or improve a good mood.

(ii) Individuals with high scores in Reflectiveness, seek out sad music in order to enjoy

the other psychological benefits that listening to it may confer. Although this is also a

motivation of pleasure seeking or mood management, the pleasure experienced is delayed

until the psychological benefits are obtained. Such benefits may include catharsis of

negative emotions, opportunities for cognitive re-framing or reappraisal of life events, or a

sense of not being alone in the experience of negative emotions. Listeners seeking such

benefits may or may not enjoy the experience depending on their individual capacities for

dissociation and absorption.

(iii) Individuals with high scores in Rumination may evidence a strong attraction to sad

music as part of a pattern of maladaptive behaviour related to depression. Such listeners

may, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, find themselves listening to such music despite

the fact that it does not result in an improved mood, does not give them pleasure, and does

not confer other psychological benefits. They may in fact derive greater benefit than other

listeners, from listening to happy music.

(iv) Although not directly investigated in this thesis, it could be hypothesised that

individuals who do not have high scores in Absorption, Reflectiveness (or a need to engage

265 in such behaviour due to life experiences), or Rumination, would find little reason to listen to music evoking negative emotions. They would likely, therefore, avoid it.

The research undertaken as part of this thesis has thus clarified many of the issues that have been under philosophical discussion for centuries. Empirical testing has revealed that no single answer can be given as to why people listen to music evoking negative emotions.

Rather a ‘family of answers’ exists based on individual differences in measurable personality traits, as well as differences in learned mood regulation strategies, and the psychological needs dictated by personal circumstances.

A further unique finding of the research conducted in this thesis is that not all listening habits can be assumed to rationally motivated or healthy. Further investigation is thus required in order to look at the use of music by those with clinical depression and other mental health problems. The relationship between arousal and uses of music by people with depression is another interesting facet uncovered in this thesis that warrants further investigation.

This research has not considered in detail negative emotions other than sadness. Further research is required in order to clarify whether similar mechanisms and personality traits are associated with listening to music that evokes fear and anger. The issue of music and grief is also an interesting one for future exploration. Future research could examine more closely the distinction between sadness and grief and the use of music in the grieving process. It may be that individual personality differences such as the ones discussed in this thesis could help to identify people who may particularly benefit from using music as a tool within the grieving process, as well as the different kinds of music that may be most useful to each person. In addition, a further issue of interest is the extent to which music enables

266 the experience of grief to contain an element of celebration and the psychological function of such an experience.

The research reported in this thesis thus provides an interesting extension to the philosophical debate to date. In addition, it has application to music therapy, music education and the use of music in general clinical therapy situations, in that it helps to identify the different ways people respond to sad music and the individuals for whom sad music may provide a therapeutic outlet and those for whom it may not. This is important information if therapists and educators are to be able to tailor their programs to suit the individual needs of their clients or students. It also has important implications for understanding the functions of music in everyday life and how individuals can better use it so as to maximise their own mental health and pleasure in their daily existence. The findings contained in this thesis, while directly concerning music only, may also serve to enhance understanding of how sad films, literature and other art forms have an important function in individual emotional regulation.

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299 Appendix 1 - List of items used in Study 1

See Chapter 5 for details and sources of subscales.

Sub-scale Item code Item text M01 I think that I can easily sense how performers feel while playing music M02 Music is important to me mainly because it expresses something personal and touching M03 When listening to music I feel I can understand the emotions the writer/performer is trying to express I often experience physical sensations such as tears, shivers etc when listening to certain pieces of M04 music. M05 I do not feel I am able to identify with the singers/writers of my favourite music. M06 When listening to music I have thoughts about the emotional state of the writer/composer at the time. M07 I never guess the emotions of the performer(s). Music Empathy Music M08 I never find the lyrics of a song to be meaningful to me. M09 I do not care about the lives of my favourite artists at the times they produced a certain song/. E01 I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me. E02 Other people's misfortunes do not usually disturb me a great deal. E03 I am often quite touched by things that I see happen. E04 Sometimes I don't feel very sorry for other people when they are having problems. Concern

Empathic E05 When I see someone being taken advantage of, I feel kind of protective towards them. E06 When I see someone being treated unfairly, I sometimes don't feel very much pity for them. It is sometimes possible for me to be completely immersed in nature or in art and to feel as if my A01 whole state of consciousness has somehow been temporarily altered. A02 Sometimes when I am reading poetry or looking at a work of art, I feel a chill or wave of excitement. A03 Certain kinds of music have an endless fascination for me. I enjoy concentrating on a fantasy or daydream and exploring all its possibilities, letting it grow and

A04 develop. A05 Some music reminds me of pictures or changing colour patterns. A06 Different colours have distinctive and special meanings for me. When listening to organ music or other powerful music I sometimes feel as if I am being lifted into A07 the air. Absorption I often take delight in small things (like the five-pointed star shape that appears when you cut an A08 apple across the core or the colours in soap bubbles). A09 The sound of a voice can be so fascinating to me that I can just go on listening to it. A10 Sometimes thoughts and images come to me without the slightest effort on my part. A11 I can be greatly moved by eloquent or poetic language. A12 The crackle and flames of a wood fire stimulate my imagination. F01 I daydream and fantasize, with some regularity, about things that might happen to me. F02 I really get involved with the feelings of the characters in a novel. F03 I am usually objective when I watch a movie or play, and I don't often get completely caught up in it. F04 Becoming extremely involved in a good book or movie is somewhat rare for me. F05 After seeing a play or movie, I have felt as though I were one of the characters. Fantasy Fantasy

Proneness When I am reading an interesting story or novel, I imagine how I would feel if the events in the story F06 were happening to me. R01 Often I'm playing back in my mind how I acted in a past situation. R02 I don't waste time rethinking things that are over and done with. R03 It is easy for me to put unwanted thoughts out of my mind.

Long after an argument or disagreement is over with, my thoughts keep going back to what R04 happened. R05 I often find myself re-evaluating something I've done. R06 I always seem to be rehashing in my mind recent things I've said or done. R07 I often reflect on episodes in my life that I should no longer concern myself with. Rumination R08 I spend a great deal of time thinking back over my embarrassing or disappointing moments. R09 I never ruminate or dwell on myself for very long. R10 Sometimes it is hard for me to shut off thoughts about myself. R11 My attention is often focused on aspects of myself I wish I'd stop thinking about.

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D01 I often feel as if things were not real (T/F) D02 Occasionally, I feel like someone else. D03 Sometimes my mind blocks, goes totally empty. D04 I often wonder who I really am. D05 At one or more times, I have found myself staring intently at myself in the mirror as though looking at a stranger. D06 I often feel that I am removed from my thoughts and actions D07 I rarely feel confused, like in a daze. D08 I have had periods where I could not remember where I had been the day (or days) before. D09 When I try to speak words, they don't come out right. D10 I have never come to without knowing where I was or how I got there.

D11 As I was growing up, people often said that I seemed to be off in a world of my own. D12 Sometimes I feel like my body is undergoing a transformation. D13 Sometimes I feel as if there is someone inside of me directing my actions. D14 Sometimes my limbs move on their own. D15 When I was a child, I rarely sat and daydreamed in school.

Dissociation D16 Sometimes I have problems understanding other's speech. D17 I am rarely bothered by forgetting where I put things. D18 My mind has never gone blank on me. D19 I have a rich and exciting fantasy life. D20 I never find myself staring off into space without thinking of anything. D21 I daydream very little. D22 My soul sometimes leaves my body. D23 I do not think I would be able to hypnotize myself. D24 When I was a child I never had imaginary companions D25 I have never gone into a trance, like hypnosis. D26 I have never had periods of déjà vu, that is, found myself in a new position with a distinct sense that I had or experienced it before. (T/F)

Q01 I like to listen to music which makes me feel sadness or grief. Q02 I am mostly attracted to music which is cheerful and uplifting Q03 I only like sad music if it resolves happily Q04 I like all music that I consider to be  'good music' no matter whether it is happy or sad. Questions

Exploratory Exploratory Q05 Whether or not music is 'happy or sad' has no influence on whether I like it or not.

301 Appendix 2 - Interview Guide for Study 2 [Read ethics statement and obtain agreement. Clarify that the participant can withdraw at any time without affecting their relationship with the University.]

Part 1 - General Introductory ‘Warm-Up’ Questions:  You have been invited to take part in this interview because you say that you have a strong emotional response to music. Is that right?  Why do you think that is?  How important would you say that music is to you in your life?  How often do you listen to music?  In what kind of situations do you like to listen to music?  Do you have any formal training in music?  What factors do you think have the most influence on whether or not you like a piece of music?

Part 2 – The Listening Experience After listening to the recording, the following questions will be asked:

 You chose this piece of music because you say you have a strong emotional response to it. Could you describe how this music makes you feel?  What were you thinking about while listening to it?  Is it an enjoyable experience for you to listen to this music?  What particular aspect of your personality do you think makes you enjoy/not enjoy this music?  Do you like this music?  What do you like/dislike about it?  What effect do you think that listening to this music has on your mood?  Do you think there is any difference between what the music is trying to express and what you feel when listening to it?  How would you compare the emotions you experience when listening to this music and similar emotions you might experience in real life?

Part 3 – Negative emotions in music  Do you ever listen to music that makes you feel sad? 302  Can you call to mind a piece of music that you would describe as ‘sad’?  Do you like that music?  What do you like/dislike about it?  How do you feel when listening to that music?  Does listening to that music bring any particular thoughts to your mind?  What particular aspect of your personality do you think makes you enjoy/not enjoy this music?  Do you ever listen to music that makes you feel grief? (repeat above questions in relation to this).  Do you ever listen to music that makes you feel other negative emotions, such as anger or fear? (repeat above questions in relation to this).

Part 4 – Personality Traits  Would you describe yourself as an empathetic person? (To what extent? Can you give me an example?)  Are you an imaginative person? (To what extent? Can you give me an example?)  Do you ever find yourself daydreaming? (How often? Can you give me an example?)  Do you ever get really absorbed in something that you are doing, so that you become almost unaware of time passing? (How often? Can you give me an example? How does this experience feel?)  Do you ever find yourself thinking over past unhappy events? (How often?)

Part 5 – Demographic Questions  Age  Gender  Occupation

303 Appendix 3 – List of Items Used in Study 3

Item Code Subscale / Item Text M SD Pre-Screener (1 No, 2 Yes) PS01 Do you feel sad, empty, or depressed more often than not? PS02 How long have you been feeling that way? PS03 In the last month, did you have a period of one week or more when nearly every day you felt sad, empty or depressed for most of the day? PS04 In the last month, did you have a period of one week or more when you lost interest in most things like work, hobbies, and other things you usually enjoy?

Musical Experience (1 No, 2 Yes) Ex01 Have you ever played a musical instrument or sung? Ex02 Years of playing a musical instrument or singing? Ex03 Please list the instruments played Ex04 Types of music education – e.g. private, self-taught, conservatory examinations. List up to 2 major music education experiences you have had (e.g. private lessons on piano for 5 years; studied trumpet as undergraduate for 2 years). If none, type ‘none’.

Proposed Like Sad Music Scale (1 Strongly Disagree, 5 Strongly Agree) LSMS01 I enjoy feeling strong emotions in response to sad music. 3.82 0.9 LSMS02(n) I don’t like sad music because I would rather feel happy than sad when 3.74 0.968 listening to sad music. LSMS03 One reason I like sad music is because it helps me to release my own sadness. 3.37 1.155 LSMS04(n) Sad music is too depressing for me to enjoy. 4.08 0.873 LSMS05 I like listening to sad music because I can relate to the feelings and emotions 3.63 0.962 being expressed. LSMS06(n) I don’t enjoy sad music because I like to be entertained or uplifted when I listen 3.58 1.033 to music. LSMS07 It feels good to cry when listening to sad music. 2.84 1.128 LSMS08 I often find myself grieving as a result of listening to sad music, 2.45 1.085 LSMS09(n) I only like to listen to sad music if it resolves happily. 3.9 0.836 LSMS10 Whether music is happy or sad has no influence on whether I enjoy listening to it or not. LSMS11 I enjoy feeling sadness or grief when listening to music. 2.78 1.048

Percentage of Sad Music Listening (in hours per week) PS01 On average I spend ______hours a week listening to music. Please estimate 16.15 14.995 this to the best of your ability and give your answers in numbers. PS02 On average I spend ______hours a week listening to music that makes me 2.95 4.649 feel sadness or other negative emotions. Please estimate this to the best of your ability and give your answer in numbers.

Rumination (1 strongly disagree, 5 strongly agree) Ru01 My attention is often focused on aspects of myself I wish I’d stop thinking 2.7 1.06 about. Ru02 I always seem to be rehashing in my mind recent things I’ve said or done. 3.27 1.104 Ru03 Sometimes it is hard for me to shut off thoughts about myself 3.2 1.122 Ru04 Long after an argument or disagreement is over with, my thoughts keep going 3.49 1.055 back to what happened. Ru05 I tend to ‘ruminate’ or dwell on things that happen to me for a really long time 3.12 1.05 afterward. Ru06(n) I don’t waste time rethinking things that are over and done with. 3.33 1.002 Ru07 Often I’m playing back in my mind how I acted in a past situation. 3.45 0.982 Ru08 I often find myself re-evaluating something I’ve done. 3.65 0.893 Ru09(n) I never ruminate or dwell on myself for very long. 3.3 0.99 304 Item Code Subscale / Item Text M SD Ru10(n) It is easy for me to put unwanted thoughts out of my mind. 3.14 1.088 Ru11 I often reflect on episodes in my life that I should no longer concern myself 2.99 1.101 with. Ru12 I spend a great deal of time thinking back over my embarrassing or 2.69 1.063 disappointing moments.

Reflectiveness (1 strongly disagree, 5 strongly agree) Rf01(n) Philosophical or abstract thinking doesn’t appeal to me that much. 3.85 1.095 Rf02(n) I’m not really a meditative type of person. 3.45 1.145 Rf03 I love exploring my ‘inner’ self. 3.4 1.036 Rf04 My attitudes and feelings about things fascinates me. 3.59 0.963 Rf05(n) I don’t really care for introspective or self-reflective thinking. 3.83 0.903 Rf06 I love analysing why I do things. 3.33 1.02 Rf07 People often say I’m a ‘deep’, introspective type of person. 3.07 1.091 Rf08(n) I don’t care much for self-analysis. 3.71 0.871 Rf09 I’m very self-inquisitive by nature. 3.57 0.985 Rf10 I love to meditate on the nature and meaning of things. 3.59 1.018 Rf11 I love to look at my life in philosophical ways. 3.43 1.089 Rf12(n) Contemplating myself is not my idea of fun. 3.19 1.047

Absorption (1 strongly disagree, 5 strongly agree) A01 It is sometimes possible for me to be completely immersed in nature or in art 3.61 1.104 and to feel as if my whole state of consciousness has somehow been temporarily altered. A02 Sometimes when I am reading poetry or looking at a work of art, I feel a chill 3.73 1.046 or wave of excitement. A03 Certain kinds of music have an endless fascination for me. 4.22 0.957 A04 I enjoy concentrating on a fantasy or daydream and exploring all its 3.73 0.97 possibilities, letting it grow and develop. A05 Some music reminds me of pictures or changing colour patterns. 3.67 1.05 A06 Different colours have distinctive and special meanings for me. 3.35 1.099 A07 When listening to organ music or other powerful music I sometimes feel as if I 3.39 1.183 am being lifted into the air. A08 I often take delight in small things (like the five-pointed star shape that appears 3.76 1.092 when you cut an apple across the core or the colours in soap bubbles). A09 The sound of a voice can be so fascinating to me that I can just go on listening 3.67 1.064 to it. A10 Sometimes thoughts and images come to me without the slightest effort on my 3.86 0.951 part. A11 I can be greatly moved by eloquent or poetic language. 3.81 1.012 A12 The crackle and flames of a wood fire stimulate my imagination. 3.6 1.033

Music Empathy (1 strongly disagree, 4 strongly agree) M01 I think that I can easily sense how performers feel while playing music. 1.31 1.43 M02 Music is important to me mainly because it expresses something personal and 1.9 1.569 touching. M03 When listening to music I feel I can understand the emotions the 1.67 1.403 writer/performer is trying to express. M04 I often experience physical sensations such as tears, shivers etc when listening 1.52 1.569 to certain pieces of music. M05(n) I do not feel I am able to identify with the singers/writers of my favourite -1.45 1.564 music. M06 When listening to music I have thoughts about the emotional state of the 0.73 1.631 writer/composer at the time. M07(n) I never guess the emotions of the performer(s). -0.99 1.703 M08(n) I never find the lyrics of a song to be meaningful to me. -1.84 1.634

305 Item Code Subscale / Item Text M SD M09(n) I do not care about the lives of my favourite artists at the times they produced a -1.07 1.845 certain song/album.

Empathic Concern (1 Does not describe me well, 5 Describes me very well) E01 I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me. 2.91 0.963 E02(n) Other people’s misfortunes do not usually disturb me a great deal. 3.11 0.92 E03 I am often quite touched by things that I see happen. 2.94 0.944 E04(n) Sometimes I don’t feel very sorry for other people when they are having 2.82 1.066 problems. E05 When I see someone being taken advantage of, I feel kind of protective towards 3.03 1.044 them. E06(n) When I see someone being treated unfairly, I sometimes don’t feel very much 3.24 0.957 pity for them. E07 I would describe myself as a pretty soft-hearted person. 2.63 0.976

Fantasy Proneness (1 Does not describe me well, 5 Describes me very well) F01 I daydream and fantasize, with some regularity, about things that might happen 2.52 1.337 to me. F02 I really get involved with the feelings of the characters in a novel. 2.67 1.185 F03(n) I am usually objective when I watch a movie or play, and I don’t often get 2.55 1.243 completely caught up in it. F04(n) Becoming extremely involved in a good book or movie is somewhat rare for 2.92 1.166 me. F05 After seeing a play or movie, I have felt as though I were one of the characters. 2.15 1.233 F06 When I am reading an interesting story or novel, I imagine how I would feel if 2.52 1.209 the events in the story were happening to me. F07 When I watch a good movie I can easily put myself in the place of a leading 2.31 1.212 character.

Dissociative Experiences (0 much less, 50 about the same, 100 much more... Than others ) D01 Some people have the experience of driving a car and suddenly realising that 41.97 28.038 they don’t remember what has happened during all or part of the trip. D02 Some people find that sometimes they are listening to someone talk and they 56.13 25.26 suddenly realise that they did not hear part or all of what was just said. D03 Some people have the experience of finding themselves in a place and having 22.82 25.526 no idea how they got there. D04 Some people have the experience of finding themselves dressed in clothes that 12.46 19.025 they don’t remember putting on D05 Some people have the experience of finding new things among their belongings 16.55 21.67 that they do not remember buying. D06 Some people sometimes that they are approached by people that they do not 25.7 27.455 know who call them by anther name or insist that they have met them before. D07 Some people are told that they sometimes do not recognize friends or family 16.34 22.831 members. D08 Some people find that they have no memory for some important events in their 16.41 23.86 lives (for example, a wedding or graduation). D09 Some people have the experience of being accused of lying when they do not 30.07 27.137 think they have lied. D10 Some people have the experience of looking in a mirror and not recognizing 16.67 22.918 themselves. D11 Some people have the experience of feeling that other people, objects and the 22.55 27.785 world around them are not real. D12 Some people sometimes have the experience of feeling that their body does not 18.56 25.975 seem to belong to them. D13 Some people have the experience of sometimes remembering a past event so 36.81 27.809 vividly that they feel as if they were reliving that event.

306 Item Code Subscale / Item Text M SD D14 Some people have the experience of not being sure whether things that they 37.66 26.797 remember happening really did happen or whether they just dreamed them. D15 Some people have the experience of being in a familiar place but finding it 29.21 26.975 strange and unfamiliar. D16 Some people find that when they are watching television or a movie they 43.05 29.687 become so absorbed in the story that they are unaware of other events happening around them. D17 Some people sometimes find that they become so involved in a fantasy or 37.59 29.177 daydream that it feels as though it were really happening to them. D18 Some people find that they sometimes are able to ignore pain. 46.57 24.043 D19 Some people find that they sometimes sit staring off into space, thinking of 50.71 29.69 nothing and are not aware of the passage of time. D20 Some people sometimes find that when they are alone they talk out loud to 44.32 30.266 themselves. D21 Some people find that in one situation they may act so differently compared 42.21 28.59 with another situation that they feel almost as if they were two different people. D22 Some people sometimes find that in certain situations they are able to do things 49.79 26.238 with amazing ease and spontaneity that would usually be difficult for them (for example, sports, work, social situations etc.) D23 Some people sometimes find that they cannot remember whether they have 44.5 25.624 done something or have just thought about doing that thing (for example, not knowing whether they have just mailed a letter or have just thought about mailing it). D24 Some people sometimes find writings, drawings or notes among their 22.62 25.175 belongings that they must have done but cannot remember doing. D25 Some people sometimes find that they hear voices inside their head that tell 18.01 23.489 them to do things or comment on things that they are doing. D26 Some people sometimes feel as if they are looking at the world through a fog so 18.51 25.098 that people and objects appear far away or unclear. D27 Some people sometimes have the experience of feeling as though they are 20.12 24.073 standing next to themselves or watching themselves do something and they actually see themselves as if they were looking at another person. D28 Some people find evidence that they have done things that they do not 22.14 22.765 remember doing.

Nostalgia Proneness (1 Very Rarely, 7 Very Frequently) N01 I experience nostalgia... 4.4 1.66 N02 I am prone to feeling nostalgic... 4.28 1.591 N03 Generally speaking, I bring to mind nostalgic experiences... 4.01 1.605 N04 Specifically, I bring to mind nostalgic experiences... 4.13 1.972 N05 How important is it for you to bring to mind nostalgia experiences? 3.58 1.692

(n) indicates all scale items stated in the negative.

307 Appendix 4 – List of items used in Study 4

See Chapter 9 for details and sources of subscales.

‘n’ denotes a negatively scored item. Sub-scale Item code Item text R01 My attention is often focused on aspects of myself I wish I'd stop thinking about. R02 I always seem to be rehashing in my mind recent things I've said or done. R03 Sometimes it is hard for me to shut off thoughts about myself. Long after an argument or disagreement is over with, my thoughts keep going back to R04 what happened.

I tend to “ruminate” or dwell over things that happen to me for a really long time R05 afterward. R06n I don’t waste time rethinking things that are over and done with. R07 Often I’m playing back over in my mind how I acted in a past situation.

Rumination R08 I often find myself re-evaluating something I’ve done. R09n I never ruminate or dwell on myself for very long. R10n It is easy for me to put unwanted thoughts out of my mind. R11 I often reflect on episodes in my life that I should no longer concern myself with. I spend a great deal of time thinking back over my embarrassing or disappointing R12 moments. Rf01n Philosophical or abstract thinking doesn’t appeal to me that much. Rf02n I’m not really a meditative type of person.

Rf03 I love exploring my “inner” self. Rf04 My attitudes and feelings about things fascinate me. Rf05n I don’t really care for introspective or self-reflective thinking. Rf06 I love analysing why I do things. Rf07 People often say I’m a “deep”, introspective type of person. Rf08n I don’t care much for self-analysis. Rf09 I’m very self-inquisitive by nature. Reflectiveness Rf10 I love to meditate on the nature and meaning of things. Rf11 I often love to look at my life in philosophical ways. Rf12n Contemplating myself isn’t my idea of fun. It is sometimes possible for me to be completely immersed in nature or in art and to feel A01 as if my whole state of consciousness has somehow been temporarily altered. Sometimes when I am reading poetry or looking at a work of art, I feel a chill or wave A02 of excitement. A03 Certain kinds of music have an endless fascination for me. I enjoy concentrating on a fantasy or daydream and exploring all its possibilities, letting A04 it grow and develop. A05 Some music reminds me of pictures or changing colour patterns. A06 Different colours have distinctive and special meanings for me. When listening to organ music or other powerful music I sometimes feel as if I am

Absorption A07 being lifted into the air. I often take delight in small things (like the five-pointed star shape that appears when A08 you cut an apple across the core or the colours in soap bubbles). A09 The sound of a voice can be so fascinating to me that I can just go on listening to it. A10 Sometimes thoughts and images come to me without the slightest effort on my part. A11 I can be greatly moved by eloquent or poetic language. A12 The crackle and flames of a wood fire stimulate my imagination.

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NW01n Seldom feel blue. NW02 Am filled with about things.

NW03n Feel comfortable with myself. NW04 Feel threatened easily. NW05n Rarely feel depressed. NW06 Worry about things. NW07 Am easily discouraged. Withdrawal Neuroticism: Neuroticism: NW08n Am not embarrassed easily. NW09 Become overwhelmed by events. NW10 Am afraid of many things NV01 Get angry easily. NV02n Rarely get irritated. NV03 Get upset easily. NV04 Keep my emotions under control. NV05 Change my mood a lot. NV06 Rarely lose my composure.

Volatility NV07 Am a person whose moods go up and down easily.

Neuroticism: Neuroticism: NV08n Am not easily annoyed. NV09 Get easily agitated. NV10 Can be stirred up easily. OI01 Am quick to understand things OI02n Have difficulty understanding abstract ideas. OI03 Can handle a lot of information. OI04 Like to solve complex problems. OI05n Avoid philosophical discussions. OI06n Avoid difficult reading material.

Intellect Intellect OI07 Have a rich vocabulary. OI08 Think quickly. OI09n Learn things slowly.

Openness to Experience: to Openness Experience: OI10 Formulate ideas clearly. OOp01 Enjoy the beauty of nature. OOp02 Believe in the importance of art. OOp03 Love to reflect on things. OOp04 Get deeply immersed in music. OOp05n Do not like poetry. OOp06 Seldom notice the emotional aspects of paintings and pictures.

Openness Openness OOp07 Need a creative outlet. OOp08n Seldom get lost in thought. OOp09n Seldom daydream.

Openness to Experience: to Openness Experience: OOp10 See beauty in things that others might not notice. T01 Tense T02 Shaky T03 On edge T04 Panicky

POMS: POMS: T05n Relaxed Tension Tension T06 Uneasy T07 Restless An01 Angry An02 Peeved An03 Grouchy An04 Spiteful Anger Anger

POMS; POMS; An05 Deceived An06 Furious An07 Bad-tempered F01 Worn-out F02 Listless F03 Fatigued Fatigue POMS: F04 Weary F05 Bushed 309 D01 Unhappy D02 Sorry for things done D03 Sad D04 Blue D05 Hopeless D06 Unworthy D07 Worthless D08 Terrified POMS: Depression POMS: Depression D09 Guilty V01 Lively V02 Active V03 Energetic V04 Alert Vigour Vigour

POMS: V05 Full of pep V06 Carefree V07 Vigorous C01 Confused C02 Unable to concentrate C03 Bewildered C04n Efficient POMS: POMS:

Confusion C05 Forgetful C06 Uncertain about things Dum01 Friendly Dum02 Clear-headed Dum03 Considerate Dum04 Sympathetic POMS: POMS: Dum05 Helpful

Dummy Items Dummy Items Dum06 Trusting Ar01 Calm/Anxious Ar02 Tired/Energetic Ar03 Sleepy/Alert Arousal Arousal /Valence /Valence Val01 Negative/Positive

LC01 How much of the piece did you actually listen to? Listening

Conditions LC02 Please indicate the listening conditions SM01 It made me cry which made me feel peaceful and relieved afterward. It reminded me of some sad things in my life which made me feel sadder than SM02 before. I felt as if I could relate to the person singing/playing the music as if they were telling me their own story. It felt good to know that other people sometimes feel SM03 like me. SM04 I felt sad, but becoming immersed in those feelings was enjoyable. SM05 I felt sad, but somehow the sad feelings caused me to feel more alive. SM06 I felt sad, and this was not any enjoyable experience for me. SM07 Usually this music makes me feel sad, but today it did not. Usually I enjoy this music even though it makes me feel sad, but today I did not SM08 want to feel sad, so it was uncomfortable listening to it. SM09 The sadness of the music helped me to release bad energy. It made me think of past events in my life, and this nostalgia was a bittersweet Perceived Effects of Sad Music Effects Perceived SM10 experience. SM11 Other Please describe the key moment of this music for you, e.g. the words of the song

KM that echo in your mind, or part of the song that stays in your head.

310