Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Social Sciences 151 Affective responses to music in depressed individuals Aesthetic judgments, emotions, and the impact of music-evoked autobiographical memories LAURA STAVROULA SAKKA ACTA UNIVERSITATIS UPSALIENSIS ISSN 1652-9030 ISBN 978-91-513-0221-8 UPPSALA urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-339560 2018 Dissertation presented at Uppsala University to be publicly examined in Sal IV, Universitetshuset, Biskopsgatan 3, Uppsala, Thursday, 22 March 2018 at 10:15 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The examination will be conducted in English. Faculty examiner: Professor Dr. Urs Nater (University of Vienna, Fakultät fur Psychologie). Abstract Sakka, L. S. 2018. Affective responses to music in depressed individuals. Aesthetic judgments, emotions, and the impact of music-evoked autobiographical memories. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Social Sciences 151. 115 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-513-0221-8. Music’s powerful influence on our affective states is often utilized in everyday life for emotion regulation and in music-therapeutic interventions against depression. Given this ability of music to influence emotions and symptoms in depressed people, it appears imperative to understand how these individuals affectively respond to music. The primary aim of this thesis is to explore whether depressed individuals have distinct affective responses to music, in terms of aesthetic judgments, emotional reactions, and emotion regulation. Furthermore, the thesis aims to provide possible explanations for such differences, in terms of underlying psychological processes (e.g., emotion-induction mechanisms) and depressive attributes (e.g., cognitive biases). Study I involves a music listening experiment exploring the relationship between depression and aesthetic judgments in music. Findings indicate that depression is associated with higher ratings of aesthetic judgment, accompanied by an enhanced reliance on the expressivity criterion. However, this relationship is not accompanied by an association between depression and the Openness to Experience personality factor. Study II investigates emotion regulation with music in depressed individuals, by means of a survey. The study features a novel conceptual framework for studying emotion regulation with music, grounded on the established process model of emotion regulation (Gross, 2008) in combination with the music-specific multi-level GSTM approach (van Goethem & Sloboda, 2011). Results indicate that depressed individuals do not differ from controls in their “active” emotional responding (i.e., emotion regulation) to music. Study III features an experiment comparing depressed to controls’ “passive” emotional responses (i.e., emotional reactions) to musical stimuli designed to activate specific mechanisms (i.e., Brain stem reflex, Contagion, and Episodic memory). Findings suggest that differences in emotional reactions occur with respect to episodic memory, potentially due to cognitive biases. Finally, Study IV follows up on these results and investigates the valence and specificity of music-evoked memories in depressed individuals. The study finds that depressed participants’ memories are negatively biased, but do not differ from controls’ in level of specificity. Together, the findings of this thesis suggest that music listening may have a dual potential for depressed individuals, functioning both as a beneficial resource for alleviating depressive symptoms (due to, e.g., elevated aesthetic appreciation of music) and as a contributing factor to depressive mood (due to, e.g., negatively biased memories). Keywords: depression, music listening, emotional reactions, emotion regulation, aesthetic judgment, cognitive bias, music-evoked autobiographical memories Laura Stavroula Sakka, Department of Psychology, Box 1225, Uppsala University, SE-75142 Uppsala, Sweden. © Laura Stavroula Sakka 2018 ISSN 1652-9030 ISBN 978-91-513-0221-8 urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-339560 (http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-339560) To my father, Nikos Sakkas List of Papers This thesis is based on the following papers, which are referred to in the text by their Roman numerals. I Juslin, P. N., Sakka, L. S., Barradas, G. T., & Liljeström, S. (2016). No accounting for taste? Idiographic models of aesthet- ic judgment in music. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 10, 157-170. II Sakka, L. S. & Juslin P. N. (in press). Emotion regulation with music in depressed and non-depressed individuals: goals, strat- egies, and mechanisms. Music & Science. III Sakka, L. S. & Juslin, P. N. (2017). Emotional reactions to mu- sic in depressed individuals. Psychology of Music. Advance online publication. doi.org/10.1177/0305735617730425. IV Sakka, L. S. (2018). Music-evoked episodic autobiographical memories in depressed individuals: Evidence of a negative cog- nitive bias. Manuscript. Reprints were made with permission from the respective publishers. Contributions The contribution of Laura Sakka to the papers included in this thesis was as follows: Paper I: Responsible for stimuli preparation and data collection in collabora- tion with co-authors; Secondary responsibility for data analysis and writ- ing/revising of the manuscript, in collaboration with supervisor and co- authors. Paper II: Main responsibility for study conception and questionnaire devel- opment, in collaboration with supervisor; Main responsibility for data collec- tion; Main responsibility for data analysis, writing, and revising of manu- script, in collaboration with supervisor. Paper III: Main responsibility for study conception; Designed the experiment in collaboration with supervisor; Main responsibility for data collection; Main responsibility for data analysis, writing, and revising of manuscript, in collaboration with supervisor. Paper IV: Main responsibility for study conception and design; Main respon- sibility for participant recruitment, stimuli preparation, and data collection; Main responsibility for data analysis and writing of manuscript. Contents Introduction ................................................................................................... 11 Affective responses to music .................................................................... 12 Emotional responses ............................................................................ 15 Aesthetic judgments............................................................................. 29 Conclusions ......................................................................................... 33 Depression ................................................................................................ 34 Vulnerability for depression: the cognitive perspective ...................... 34 Emotional responses in depression ...................................................... 41 Personality ........................................................................................... 44 Affective responses to music in depression ............................................. 45 Emotional responses ............................................................................ 45 Aesthetic judgments............................................................................. 48 Conclusions ......................................................................................... 50 Aims .............................................................................................................. 51 Study I ........................................................................................................... 54 Background and aims ............................................................................... 54 Method ..................................................................................................... 55 Results ...................................................................................................... 56 Conclusions .............................................................................................. 57 Study II ......................................................................................................... 59 Background and aims ............................................................................... 59 Method ..................................................................................................... 60 Results ...................................................................................................... 61 Conclusions .............................................................................................. 63 Study III ........................................................................................................ 65 Background and aims ............................................................................... 65 Method ..................................................................................................... 67 Results ...................................................................................................... 68 Conclusions .............................................................................................. 70 Study IV ........................................................................................................ 72 Background and aims ............................................................................... 72 Method ....................................................................................................