The Role of Music in Everyday Life During the First Wave of the Coronavirus Pandemic : A Mixed-Methods Exploratory Study

Although music is known to be a part of everyday life and a resource for mood and emotion management, everyday life has changed significantly for many due to the global coronavirus pandemic, making the role of music in everyday life less certain. An online survey in which participants responded to Likert scale questions as well as providing free text responses was used to explore how participants were engaging with music during the first wave of the pandemic, whether and how they were using music for mood regulation, and how their engagement with music related to their experiences of worry and anxiety resulting from the pandemic. Results indicated that, for the majority of participants, whi…

Success in reaching affect self-regulation goals through everyday music listening

While music listening on mobile phones can serve many affect-regulatory goals, success in reaching these goals is yet to be empirically assessed. This study aimed to determine how frequently listeners successfully reach their affect-regulatory goals, and the predictors of this success. Data were collected using the experience sampling app MuPsych, from 293 Finnish participants. Goals were successfully reached in less than half of cases, with adults more successful than adolescents. Success was determined largely within contexts, and strongly predicted by an initial low-valenced emotional state of the listener, suggesting that music listening is particularly useful for those in negative stat…

Enhancing the efficacy of integrative improvisational music therapy in the treatment of depression : study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Abstract Background Depression is among the leading causes of disability worldwide. Not all people with depression respond adequately to standard treatments. An innovative therapy that has shown promising results in controlled trials is music therapy. Based on a previous trial that suggested beneficial effects of integrative improvisational music therapy (IIMT) on short and medium-term depression symptoms as well as anxiety and functioning, this trial aims to determine potential mechanisms of and improvements in its effects by examining specific variations of IIMT. Methods/design A 2 × 2 factorial randomised controlled trial will be carried out at a single centre in Finland involving 68 adu…

Re-thinking the paradox as catalyzed processing : Enjoyment of sadness in music as facilitated emotional processing : Comment on “An integrative review of the enjoyment of sadness associated with music” by Tuomas Eerola et al.

Musical interaction in music therapy for depression treatment

Music therapy is efficacious for the treatment of depression. Compared to other psychotherapeutic forms, it allows for the emergence of various modes of mutual interaction, thus enabling multiple channels for emotional expression and fostering therapeutic alliance. Although musical interaction patterns between client and therapist have been regarded as predictors of therapeutic outcome in depression, this has not yet been systematically investigated. We aim to address this gap by analyzing the possible linkage between musical interaction features and changes in depression score. In a clinical trial, digital piano improvisations from 58 Finnish clients and their therapists were recorded ove…

Is it me or the music? : Stress reduction and the role of regulation strategies and music

Music is a common resource for the regulation of emotions, moods, and stress. This study aimed at determining the individual and relative impact on stress reduction of two of the main factors involved in musical affect regulation: regulation strategies and music itself. The current study took place in an experimental setting and followed a factorial within-subjects design. First, the participants ( n = 34) filled in an online survey where they identified their self-perceived “adequate”/“inadequate” music examples for the purpose of reducing stress and self-perceived “adequate”/“inadequate” strategies for the same purpose. In the lab they went through a stress induction procedure and then w…

Music Therapy for Depression Enhanced With Listening Homework and Slow Paced Breathing: A Randomised Controlled Trial

Introduction: There is evidence from earlier trials for the efficacy of music therapy in the treatment of depression among working-age people. Starting therapy sessions with relaxation and revisiting therapeutic themes outside therapy have been deemed promising for outcome enhancement. However, previous music therapy trials have not investigated this issue.Objective: To investigate the efficacy of two enhancers, resonance frequency breathing (RFB) and listening homework (LH), when combined with an established music therapy model (trial registration number ISRCTN11618310).Methods: In a 2 × 2 factorial randomised controlled trial, working-age individuals with depression were allocated into gr…

Toward a better understanding and conceptualization of affect self-regulation through music : A critical, integrative literature review

Research on the affective phenomena involved in music has grown exponentially over the last 20 years. One particular topic is the use of music for affect self-regulation (i.e., the process of creating, changing, or maintaining affective states). Being a recent field of research, knowledge remains scattered and heterogeneous. An integrative literature review was conducted to present the results from recent research and critically analyse its overall conceptual state. A systematic search of online databases focusing on publications from January 1994 to June 2014 was completed. An extensive screening resulted in the selection of 34 publications, which were analysed with regard to their focus,…

sj-docx-1-pom-10.1177_03057356221084368 – Supplemental material for Musical interaction in music therapy for depression treatment

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-pom-10.1177_03057356221084368 for Musical interaction in music therapy for depression treatment by Martin Hartmann, Anastasios Mavrolampados, Petri Toiviainen, Suvi Saarikallio, Katrien Foubert, Olivier Brabant, Nerdinga Snape, Esa Ala-Ruona, Christian Gold and Jaakko Erkkilä in Psychology of Music

The role of music in adolescents' mood regulation

The aim of this study was the exploration and theoretical clarification of the role of music in adolescents' mood regulation. The phenomenon was approached through an inductive theory construction. The data were gathered from eight adolescents by means of group interviews and follow-up forms, and were then analysed using constructive grounded theory methods. The analysis resulted in a theoretical model, which describes mood regulation by music as a process of satisfying personal mood-related goals through various musical activities. The general nature of the mood regulation is described, the goals and strategies of mood regulation are examined, and finally the specific role of music in moo…

Relaxed and connected: Insights into the emotional–motivational constituents of musical pleasure

Music is a source of daily pleasure, and positive emotional experiences and rewarding functions of music have been actively studied. Yet, knowledge about the interrelatedness of emotional and motivational constituents of musical pleasure is sparse. This study explored the characteristic emotional contents of music-induced pleasure, their relation to motivations for music and whether the underlying dimensionality of these aspects was specific to music (in comparison to the visual domain). Data were collected through an online questionnaire ( N = 464), measuring evoked emotions and motivational pleasure types that the respondents related to a musical piece or a visual object inducing pleasur…

Perception of emotional content in musical performances by 3–7-year- old children

The emotional content expressed through musical performance has become a widely-discussed topic in music psychology during the past two decades. However, empirical evidence regarding children’s abilities in interpreting the emotional content of a musical performance is sparse. We investigated 3–7-year-old children’s abilities to interpret the emotional content expressed through performance features in music. Short musical pieces previously rated as inexpressive of emotion were recorded by three musicians with five emotional expressions (happy, sad, fearful, angry and neutral) and played to 3–7-year-old children ( N = 94), adult non-musicians ( N = 83), and adult musicians ( N = 118) who ma…

Emotions in motion: Short-term group form Dance/Movement Therapy in the treatment of depression: A pilot study

Abstract Depression is a highly prevalent mood disorder that impairs a person's social skills and quality of life. Depressed patients have been shown to have difficulty in identifying, expressing, and regulating emotions, especially negative emotions, such as anger. Here, we present a study that investigates using body- and movement-based therapy intervention in the treatment of depression. Central to this study is the use of a short-term group form of Dance/Movement Therapy (DMT) intervention. The main research question was whether a short-term group form of DMT intervention could decrease the symptoms of depression and anxiety. Depressed participants ( N  = 21, aged 18–60 years) received …

Affective reactions to musical stimuli reflect emotional use of music in everyday life

Music is a common means for regulating affective states in everyday life, but little is known about the individual differences in this behaviour. We investigated affective reactions to musical stimuli as an explanatory factor. Forty-four young adults rated self-selected music regarding perceived and felt emotions, preference, pleasantness and beauty. The ratings were reduced into five factors representing affective response tendencies. The participants also filled in the Music in Mood Regulation (MMR) questionnaire assessing seven music-related mood regulation strategies in everyday life. High beauty and pleasantness ratings for liked music correlated with the use of music for inducing str…

Strategies and mechanisms in musical affect self-regulation: A new model

This study aimed at investigating the associations between regulation strategies and musical mechanisms involved in musical affect self-regulation. A sample of 571 participants was collected and the data regarding the reported strategies and mechanisms were analysed using correspondence analysis (CA). Three bipolar dimensions – cognition, feelings, and body – were retained for interpretation, thus revealing six contrasting strategic uses of music: cognitive work, entertainment, affective work, distraction, revival, and focus on situation. Clear associations between strategies and mechanisms emerged from the CA, connecting cognitive, feelings-focused, and situational processing with individ…

Music : a meaningful resource at turning points and in times of crisis

Why does music prompt such a powerful emotional response? How does music reach our emotions and play on them? Music psychology researcher Suvi Saarikallio discussess the meaning of music for individuals and communities at turning points. nonPeerReviewed

Maladaptive music listening strategies are modulated by individual traits

Music listening is a great resource for mental well-being, pleasure, and self-regulation, but it may also be maladaptive. Depression, for instance, has been shown to relate to music use that is characterized by rumination, avoidance, and mood worsening. However, we know little of the role of individual differences in such maladaptive music use. Hence, this study focused on examining the role of personality, empathic traits, emotional contagion, and the types of musical reward as predictors of maladaptive music listening. Participants ( N = 318) answered an online survey comprising measures for the abovementioned traits in addition to the Healthy-Unhealthy Music Scale (HUMS) as a measure of…

Hunting for the beat in the body: on period and phase locking in music-induced movement.

Music has the capacity to induce movement in humans. Such responses during music listening are usually spontaneous and range from tapping to full-body dancing. However, it is still unclear how humans embody musical structures to facilitate entrainment. This paper describes two experiments, one dealing with period locking to different metrical levels in full-body movement and its relationships to beat- and rhythm-related musical characteristics, and the other dealing with phase locking in the more constrained condition of sideways swaying motions. Expected in Experiment 1 was that music with clear and strong beat structures would facilitate more period-locked movement. Experiment 2 was assum…

Intelligence and Music: Lower Intelligent Quotient Is Associated With Higher Use of Music for Experiencing Strong Sensations

Intelligence is a key psychological feature associated to emotion and perception. Listening to music is often linked to emotional experience and sensation seeking (SS), traits that have been shown overall negatively correlated with intelligence. In a sample of 53 musicians and 54 non-musicians, we assessed the use of music for experiencing strong emotions through the Music in Mood Regulation (MMR) and the intelligence quotient (IQ) by using the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III (WAIS-III). We found a negative correlation between the full IQ score and the use of music for SS in both musician and non-musician groups. Furthermore, the use of music for SS was negatively correlated with Ver…

Access-Awareness-Agency (AAA) Model of Music-Based Social-Emotional Competence (MuSEC)

Social–emotional competence (SEC) is a set of psychological resources, highly relevant for adaptive growth and wellbeing. Music has been argued to support social–emotional skills, yet there is little theoretical consensus about the underlying impact mechanisms and the special nature of music as a medium for SEC. This article presents a theoretical model of music-based SEC that combines research from general SEC models with music-specific literature from music psychology, music education, music therapy, and music for health and wellbeing. The proposed access-awareness-agency (AAA) model defines music-based social–emotional competence (MuSEC) as interplay of embodied access, reflective awaren…

sj-pdf-1-pom-10.1177_03057356211065061 ��� Supplemental material for Maladaptive music listening strategies are modulated by individual traits

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-pom-10.1177_03057356211065061 for Maladaptive music listening strategies are modulated by individual traits by Vinoo Alluri, Anant Mittal, Azhagammal SC, Jonna K. Vuoskoski and Suvi Saarikallio in Psychology of Music

Exploring Music Video Experiences and Their Influence on Music Perception

Streaming music videos on the internet is an increasingly popular music listening activity that has remained virtually unexplored within music psychology. Studies of the role of music in film, as well as empirical research investigating the influence of audio-visual media and memory, have shown that visual information can have a profound effect on how music is perceived and remembered. The current study aimed to create a framework for understanding music video (MV) experiences by finding out when and why individuals choose to engage with this form of media, how these experiences contribute to the perception of musical meaning and influence affective outcomes, and whether these effects carr…

Promoting emotional skills in early adolescents with mental health conditions in music therapy : a content analysis of focus group interviews

Introduction: Music therapy is actively used with early adolescents in relation to their emotional skill development. Yet, the conceptualization of emotional skills is typically not systematically addressed in therapeutic practice. This study examined music therapists’ views on the progress of emotional skills when working with early adoles-cents with mental health conditions. The study also explored what kind of methods the therapists use with the target group, and the applicability of a previously pub-lished conceptual model. Method: We conducted a deductive-inductive content analysis of transcripts from four focus group interviews among 13 professional music therapists. Results: The ther…

Music therapeutic emotional processing (MEP): Expression, awareness, and pain predict therapeutic outcome

Successful emotional processing is pivotal for the therapeutic change, and music can support emotional processing. However, we know little on how music-based emotional processing actually predicts clinical outcomes. This study investigated music therapeutic emotional processing (MEP) as a predictor of therapeutic outcome in treatment for depression. Data consisted of self-reports of 64 clients (age range 19–57, 74% female) from a clinical trial (12 sessions) of integrative improvisational music therapy (IIMT). A 19-item MEP questionnaire was developed for assessing clients’ experiences after sessions. Emergent MEP factors were correlated with clients’ perceptions of the therapeutic value o…

Music and health: Physical, mental, and emotional

Music can heal, recover, and empower. This chapter elaborates on the mechanisms that explain how music serves as a means for promoting physical, mental, and emotional health, across different individuals and the multitude of everyday life situations. Music holds major potential for impacting healthrelevant aspects of human behavior such as the reward system activation, emotion regulation, stress reduction, activation of cognitive-motor behavior, and social interaction. Yet, effective utilization of the health-promoting affordances of music is also strongly dependent on the individual and contextual factors, and the chapter stresses the relevance of understanding the health-impact of music a…

Development and validation of the Healthy-Unhealthy Music Scale.

Background Music is an integral part of life in youth, and although it has been acknowledged that musical behavior reflects broader psychosocial aspects of adolescent behavior, no measurement instruments have been specifically designed for assessing musical engagement as an indicator of adolescent wellbeing and/or symptomatology. This study was conducted in order to develop and validate a scale for assessing musical engagement as an indicator of proneness for depression in youth. Method Items were developed based on the literature and a prior grounded theory analysis and three surveys (N = 54, N = 187, N = 211) were conducted to select, refine, test, and validate the items. Scale structure …

Emotion-driven encoding of music preference and personality in dance

Thirty rhythmic music excerpts were presented to 60 individuals. Dance movements to each excerpt were recorded using an optical motion-capture system, preference for each excerpt recorded on a 5-point Likert scale, and personality assessed using the 44-item version of the Big Five Inventory. From the movement data, a large number of postural, kinematic and kinetic features were extracted, a subset of which were chosen for further analysis using sequential backward elimination with variance inflation factor (VIF) selection. Multivariate analyses revealed significant effects on these 11 features of both preference and personality, as well as a number of interactions between the two. As regar…

Depending on music to feel better: Being conscious of responsibility when appropriating the power of music

Abstract This study explores the beliefs held by young people about the power of music to help them feel better during challenging times. Participants included 40 young Australians, aged 13–20, who described their relationship with music and were progressively asked to recall times where music had not been helpful as well as when the consequences of engaging in music had been beneficial. Grounded theory analysis generated a theoretical explanation of why young people's beliefs about the positive consequences of music are so strong, even though the experience of young people with mental health problems sometimes contradicts these views. Implications for professionals are offered; with a part…

Mining Mental States using Music Associations

Music Listening for Supporting Adolescents’ Sense of Agency in Daily Life

Sense of agency refers to the ability to influence one’s functioning and environment, relating to self-efficacy and wellbeing. In youth, agency may be challenged by external demands or redefinition of self-image. Music, having heightened relevance for the young, has been argued to provide feelings of self-agency for them. Yet, there is little empirical research on how music impacts adolescents’ daily sense of agency. The current study investigated whether music listening influences adolescents’ perceived agency in everyday life and which individual and contextual determinants would explain such an influence. Participants were 44 adolescents (48% female, 36% with training in music, mean age …

Music in Mood Regulation: Initial Scale Development

Music is recognized as an effective means of regulating mood. However, there has not been a scale for assessing the use of different regulatory strategies related to musical activities, and the purpose of the current study was to construct such a scale. A survey study (N = 1515) was conducted with 10–20-year old adolescents. The measurement model of the scale for assessing the use of music for mood regulation was based on a previous theoretical model about the use of music for mood regulation in adolescence. A series of confirmatory factor analyses in the survey data supported the measurement model, and a 40-item scale for Music in Mood Regulation (MMR) was established. In addition, the re…

sj-pdf-1-pom-10.1177_03057356211065061 ��� Supplemental material for Maladaptive music listening strategies are modulated by individual traits

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-pom-10.1177_03057356211065061 for Maladaptive music listening strategies are modulated by individual traits by Vinoo Alluri, Anant Mittal, Azhagammal SC, Jonna K. Vuoskoski and Suvi Saarikallio in Psychology of Music

Ambivalent emotional experiences of everyday visual and musical objects.

Art brings rich, pleasurable experiences to our daily lives. However, many theories of art and aesthetics focus on specific strong experiences—in the contexts of museums, galleries, and concert halls and the aesthetic perception of canonized arts—disregarding the impact of daily experiences. Furthermore, pleasure is often treated as a simplistic concept of merely positive affective character, yet recent psychological research has revealed the experience of pleasure is far more complicated. This study explored the nature of pleasure evoked by everyday aesthetic objects. A mixture of statistical and qualitative methods was applied in the analysis of the data collected through a semi-structure…

Supplemental Material, Appendices_(1) - Is it me or the music? Stress reduction and the role of regulation strategies and music

Supplemental Material, Appendices_(1) for Is it me or the music? Stress reduction and the role of regulation strategies and music by Margarida Baltazar, Daniel Västfjäll, Erkin Asutay, Lina Koppel and Suvi Saarikallio in Music & Science

Adolescents’ expression and perception of emotion in music reflects their broader abilities of emotional communication

Background: Musical behavior has been shown to reflect broader individual differences. However, despite the prevalence of music in the lives of young people little is known about the mechanisms through which adolescents’ musical behavior connects to their general socio-emotional behavior and adjustment. The current study focused on abilities of emotional communication and investigated whether adolescents’ abilities in both perceiving and expressing emotions through music would be reflective of their general abilities of socio-emotional communication and interaction, measured through empathy and conduct problems. Due to the lack of previous research the study was mainly exploratory, but we e…

Exploring agency and entrainment in joint music-making through the reported experiences of students and teachers

This qualitative interview-based study draws on the reported experiences of students and teachers to explore how agency and entrainment resource and constrain each other in joint music-making. The participants were 23 students of Grades 6 and 11 music teachers from different primary schools. The qualitative content analysis of the 11 student pair interviews and 11 one-to-one teacher interviews indicated that experiences of music-related interpersonal entrainment intertwine with different dimensions of agency. In the analysis, four themes were identified as follows: presence, belonging, safety, and continuity. These findings provide insights into the relationship between agency and entrainme…

Relationships between perceived emotions in music and music-induced movement

Listening to music makes us move in various ways. Several factors can affect the characteristics of these movements, including individual factors and musical features. Additionally, music-induced movement may also be shaped by the emotional content of the music, since emotions are an important element of musical expression. This study investigates possible relationships between emotional characteristics of music and music-induced, quasi-spontaneous movement. We recorded music-induced movement of 60 individuals, and computationally extracted features from the movement data. Additionally, the emotional content of the stimuli was assessed in a perceptual experiment. A subsequent correlational …

Emotions in Motion

Depression is a disabling medical illness characterized by persistent and all-encompassing feelings of sadness, loss of interest, or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities, as well as problems in emotion regulation. Medication, sometimes in combination with verbal psychotherapy or counselling, is the predominant method of treatment for depression. This article argues that body movement, being fundamental to the perception and production of emotion, should also be considered in approaches and methods utilized in the treatment of depression. This chapter introduces motion capture technology as a method for studying dance movement, and provides a short overview of related studies. Recent fi…

Spontaneous Music-Evoked Autobiographical Memories in Individuals Experiencing Depression

Listening to music often triggers strong memories of events from our past, which influence how we affectively experience music listening and can therefore contribute to music’s therapeutic capacity. The aim of this study was to examine the valence and content of spontaneous music-evoked autobiographical memories (MEAMs) in listeners with self-reported depression, who typically demonstrate negatively biased autobiographical memory. Eighteen depressed and 21 controls participated in a music-listening experiment where they listened to a personalized music stimulus, described their memories, and thereafter rated the valence of these memories and of their induced affect. Participants’ ratings w…

Development and Validation of the Brief Music in Mood Regulation Scale (B-MMR)

mood regulation has been shown to be among of the most important reasons for musical engagement, but there has been a lack of a concise measurement instrument for this behavior. The current study focused on developing and testing the Brief Music in Mood Regulation scale (B-MMR), a 21-item self-report instrument for assessing the use of seven different music-related mood-regulation strategies. Two survey studies (N = 1515 and N = 526) were conducted to first develop and then test and validate the instrument. The newly constructed scale showed adequate internal consistency reliabilities and correlated expectedly with measures of general emotion regulation and musical engagement. As a concise …

Effects of the Big Five and musical genre on music-induced movement

Nine-hundred-and-fifty-two individuals completed the Big Five Inventory, and 60 extreme scorers were presented with 30 music excerpts from six popular genres. Music-induced movement was recorded by an optical motion-capture system, the data from which 55 postural, kinematic, and kinetic movement features were computed. These features were subsequently reduced to five principal components of movement representing Local Movement, Global Movement, Hand Flux, Head Speed, and Hand Distance. Multivariate Analyses revealed significant effects on these components of both personality and genre, as well as several interactions between the two. Each personality dimension was associated with a differen…

Influences of rhythm- and timbre-related musical features on characteristics of music-induced movement

Music makes us move. Several factors can affect the characteristics of such movements, including individual factors or musical features. For this study, we investigated the effect of rhythm- and timbre-related musical features as well as tempo on movement characteristics. Sixty participants were presented with 30 musical stimuli representing different styles of popular music, and instructed to move along with the music. Optical motion capture was used to record participants’ movements. Subsequently, eight movement features and four rhythm- and timbre-related musical features were computationally extracted from the data, while the tempo was assessed in a perceptual experiment. A subsequent c…

Group Music Therapy as a Preventive Intervention for Young People at Risk : Cluster-Randomized Trial

Background Music forms an important part of the lives and identities of adolescents and may have positive or negative mental health implications. Music therapy can be effective for mental disorders such as depression, but its preventive potential is unknown. Objective The aim of this study was to examine whether group music therapy (GMT) is an effective intervention for young people who may be at risk of developing mental health problems, as indicated via unhealthy music use. The main question was whether GMT can reduce unhealthy uses of music and increase potentials for healthy uses of music, compared to self-directed music listening (SDML). We were also interested in effects of GMT on dep…

Development and validation of the Healthy-Unhealthy Music Scale

Background: Music is an integral part of life in youth, and although it has been acknowledged that musical behavior reflects broader psychosocial aspects of adolescent behavior, no measurement instruments have been specifically designed for assessing musical engagement as an indicator of adolescent wellbeing and/or symptomatology. This study was conducted in order to develop and validate a scale for assessing musical engagement as an indicator of proneness for depression in youth. Method: Items were developed based on the literature and a prior grounded theory analysis and three surveys (N = 54, N = 187, N = 211) were conducted to select, refine, test, and validate the items. Scale structur…

Constituents of Music and Visual-Art Related Pleasure - A Critical Integrative Literature Review.

The present literature review investigated how pleasure induced by music and visualart has been conceptually understood in empirical research over the past 20 years. After an initial selection of abstracts from seven databases (keywords: pleasure, reward, enjoyment, and hedonic), twenty music and eleven visual-art papers were systematically compared. The following questions were addressed: (1) What is the role of the keyword in the research question? (2) Is pleasure considered a result of variation in the perceiver’s internal or external attributes? (3) What are the most commonly employed methods and main variables in empirical settings? Based on these questions, our critical integrative an…

Students’ experiences of their agency in whole-class playing

The agency of primary school students has been studied increasingly in recent years; yet, we know relatively little about student agency in music educational settings or how students experience their participation in joint musical action. This study explores sixth-grade students’ experiences of their agency in whole-class playing. Qualitative content analysis of 11 pair interviews identified vulnerability as an essential element of participating in whole-class playing, highlighting the intrinsically emotional nature of the process, the immediacy of the musically shared moment and the safe place of entrainment. This study elucidates the enactment of agency and the resources facilitating and …

Music May Reduce Loneliness and Act as Social Surrogate for a Friend: Evidence from an Experimental Listening Study

After losing a close other, individuals usually confide in an empathic friend to receive comfort and they seem to have a heightened desire for mood-congruent, consoling music. Hence, it has been proposed that affect-congruent music acts as a social surrogate for an empathic friend. Thus, we hypothesized that listening to comforting music, as a response to a social loss experience, provides a sense of empathic company as indicated by reduced loneliness and heightened empathy. We further predicted that distracting music would have a stronger impact on the listeners’ mood in comparison to comforting pieces. To test these assumptions, an experiment with two factors was designed: (1) Sadness wa…

Re-thinking the paradox as catalyzed processing: Enjoyment of sadness in music as facilitated emotional processing

Teacher beliefs about student agency in whole-class playing

This study explores music teachers’ beliefs of student agency in whole-class playing and investigates what characterises student agency through teachers’ values, actions and observations within this unique multimodal and -dimensional learning environment. Our abductive analysis of 11 interviews reveals that the role of teacher support is significant in enacting students’ agency. This study provides insights into student agency through the eyes and actions of teachers within the context of whole-class playing and suggests that the enactment of different aspects of student agency is an essential feature necessary for whole-class playing to succeed. peerReviewed

I know what i like when i see it:Likability is distinct from pleasantness since early stages of multimodal emotion evaluation

Liking and pleasantness are common concepts in psychological emotion theories and in everyday language related to emotions. Despite obvious similarities between the terms, several empirical and theoretical notions support the idea that pleasantness and liking are cognitively different phenomena, becoming most evident in the context of emotion regulation and art enjoyment. In this study it was investigated whether liking and pleasantness indicate behaviourally measurable differences, not only in the long timespan of emotion regulation, but already within the initial affective responses to visual and auditory stimuli. A cross-modal affective priming protocol was used to assess whether there i…

A Critical Interpretive Synthesis of the Literature Linking Music and Adolescent Mental Health

There is a diverse literature that explores the relationship between youth, music, and mental health, with few attempts at systematic synthesis. This critical interpretive review included 33 studies published between 2000 and 2012 investigating the relationship between music and the mental health of young people, particularly targeting depression. An iterative methodology was used involving several layers of inductive analysis with the intention of generating an organizing framework that critically synthesized the available literature. The organizing framework highlights that decisions related to research design, assessment of health, and the nature of musical engagement have predictably i…

Music as emotional self-regulation throughout adulthood

Emotional self-regulation is acknowledged as one of the most important reasons for musical engagement at all ages. Yet there is little knowledge on how this self-regulatory use of music develops across the life span. A qualitative study was conducted to initially explore central processes and strategies of the emotional self-regulation during adulthood. The data were collected through group interviews and analyzed through qualitative content analysis. Participants were 21 interviewees with an age range of 21—70 years. The results clarified conceptual features of music-related emotional self-regulation in adulthood and revealed two main trends. First, the basic nature of regulation, includi…

Dance moves reflect current affective state illustrative of approach–avoidance motivation.

Adolescents’ musical relaxation: understanding related affective processing

Music listening promotes adolescents’ well-being and relaxation in daily life. Relaxation is linked to affective self-regulation, but little is known about the specific affective processes of musical relaxation. The current study aimed to elaborate the affective dimension of adolescents’ musical relaxation, through detailed exploration of the related affect regulation goals, strategies, and induction mechanisms. A qualitative study with 55 adolescents (42 girls, 13 boys), aged 15, was conducted. Participants listened to self-selected relaxation music for 20 min, once in a laboratory and once at home, and provided written descriptions of their experience. A total of 110 episode descriptions …

Emotions of music listening in Finland and in India : Comparison of an individualistic and a collectivistic culture

Music is appreciated for emotional reasons across cultures, but knowledge on the cross-cultural similarities and differences of music-evoked emotions is still sparse. The current study compared music-evoked emotions in Finland and in India, contextualizing them within the perceived psychological functionality of music in an individualistic versus collectivistic culture. Participants ( N = 230) answered an online survey on music-evoked emotions and related personal meanings. A mixed-method approach using factor analysis and qualitative content analysis was used to identify the concepts for cross-cultural comparison. Results show that both cultures value music for positive emotional experien…

Expression of emotion through musical parameters in 3- and 5-year-olds

While the use of musical parameters for emotional expression has been extensively studied, little is known about which specific musical parameters children at different ages are able to use for expressing specific emotions. We used a novel interface called Music Box that allows modification of musical parameters while music is being played in real time. Children (N = 37, 18 girls) at the age of 3 and 5 were asked to modify three parameters – tempo, loudness, and pitch – in expressing three emotions – happiness, sadness, and anger. We hypothesised that both 5-year-olds and 3-year-olds could use each of the parameters in differentiating between the emotions. Results showed that 3-year-olds we…

Cross-Cultural Approaches to Music and Health

Musical identities in action:Embodied, situated, and dynamic

This article provides a critical overview of musical identities as a research topic. A broad distinction between identities in music (IIM) and music in identities (MII) highlights how musical engagement is central to identity construction. These concepts are integrated with recent advances in psychological theory derived from enactive cognition (4E cognition) to propose a new framework for understanding musical identities, Musical Identities in Action (MIIA). This framework foregrounds musical identities as dynamic (constantly evolving, dialogical, and actively performed), embodied (shaped by how music is physically expressed and experienced), and situated (emergent from interaction with s…

Musical Identity in Fostering Emotional Health

This chapter introduces promotion of emotional health as a relevant constituent of musical identity. The chapter contains discussion about the importance of emotions as a key constituent of health and wellbeing referring to the abilities of emotion recognition and emotion regulation and the significance of inducing positive emotions. Music is introduced as a behaviour that has the capacity to effectively promote these core aspects of emotional health and wellbeing and it is argued that these emotion-related capabilities serve as essential routes through which music relates to health. It is proposed that a musical identity that fosters emotional health contains self-reflective awareness of t…

The Effect of Memory in Inducing Pleasant Emotions with Musical and Pictorial Stimuli

Music is known to evoke emotions through a range of mechanisms, but empirical investigation into the mechanisms underlying different emotions is sparse. This study investigated how affective experiences to music and pictures vary when induced by personal memories or mere stimulus features. Prior to the experiment, participants were asked to select eight types of stimuli according to distinct criteria concerning the emotion induction mechanism and valence. In the experiment, participants (N = 30) evaluated their affective experiences with the self-chosen material. EEG was recorded throughout the session. The results showed certain interaction effects of mechanism (memory vs. stimulus feature…

Music as mood regulation in adolescence

Suvi Saarikallio selvitti tutkimuksessaan musiikin psykologisia merkityksiä ja musiikin käyttöä tunteiden säätelynä nuorten arkielämässä. Musiikki on nykypäivänä olennainen osa nuoruutta. Saarikallio halusi lisätä ymmärrystä musiikin roolista osana nuorten kehitystä, psyykkistä itsesäätelyä ja tunteiden hallintaa.Musiikki on nuorille monipuolinen tunteiden säätelyn keino. Saarikallio määritteli seitsemän musiikin avulla tehtävän tunteiden säätelyn strategiaa: viihdyke, elpyminen, elämykset, irtautuminen, purkaminen, mielikuvatyöskentely ja lohtu.Tunteiden säätelyn näkökulmasta merkittävimmäksi musiikilliseksi toiminnaksi osoittautui musiikin kuuntelu. Musiikin käyttö tunteiden säätelyssä ol…

Music as a Forum for Social-Emotional Health

This chapter discusses social-emotional competence (SEC) as a psychological resource that can be supported by music engagement and that can explain music’s positive impact on mental health. Social-emotional competence is a set of psychological resources including social and emotional awareness, adaptive emotion regulation and coping, self-determination, resilience, and prosocial communication and interaction. This set of skills is fundamental for the healthy adaptation of an individual to the environment and highly impacts well-being. Thanks to its deep connections to emotion and social bonding, music can be seen as a forum for training, learning, and fostering such skills. In this chapter,…

Music as a resource for psychological health for music professionals : A Nordic survey

Purpose: Interest in the health relevance of music has been growing rapidly, yet few studies have addressed the protective role of music for music professionals themselves. In the current study, we investigated music professionals’ (music teachers, music therapists, musicians and academics) health, particularly their uses of music as a resource for their psychological health. Design: An online survey (N = 504) for music professionals was conducted across four Nordic countries. Participants responded to questions on music as a resource for psychological health and assessed their general levels of health and health behaviors. Their self-reported health was compared to similar prior data from …

sj-docx-1-pom-10.1177_03057356221084368 – Supplemental material for Musical interaction in music therapy for depression treatment

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-pom-10.1177_03057356221084368 for Musical interaction in music therapy for depression treatment by Martin Hartmann, Anastasios Mavrolampados, Petri Toiviainen, Suvi Saarikallio, Katrien Foubert, Olivier Brabant, Nerdinga Snape, Esa Ala-Ruona, Christian Gold and Jaakko Erkkilä in Psychology of Music

Hot or Not? Personality and attraction on the dance floor

Previous research has shown that personality plays a significant role in interpersonal attraction. We took this issue to the dance floor, and investigated how personality characteristics of both observers and dancers affect the former’s attractiveness ratings of the latter. Sixty-two heterosexual adult participants watched 48 short audio-visual point-light animations of eight male and eight female adults dancing to Techno, Pop, and Latin music. Participants rated perceived skill of each dancer, and the likelihood with which they would go on a date with them. Both dancers’ and observers’ personality characteristics were assessed using the Big Five Inventory. Multivariate analyses of variance…

Emotional self-regulation through music in 3-8-year-old children

The current study explored the role of music in children’s emotional self-regulation. Music is shown to be a common and effective way of self-regulating emotions in adolescence and adulthood. It is also widely known that parents use music to regulate the emotions of their babies, for instance in calming them down by lullabies. However, very little is known about how children themselves use music for emotional needs, and how the self-regulatory emotional engagement develops. A survey study was conducted with parents of 63 children including 37 boys and 26 girls, aged between 2.9 to 8.1 years. The parents answered questions about their child’s musical activities, preferences, and emotion-regu…

On Happy Dance : Emotion Recognition in Dance Movements

Movements are capable of conveying emotions, as shown for instance in studies on both non-verbal gestures and music-specific movements performed by instrumentalists or professional dancers. Since dancing/moving to music is a common human activity, this study aims at investigating whether quasi-spontaneous music-induced movements of non-professional dancers can convey emotional qualities as well. From a movement data pool of 60 individuals dancing to 30 musical stimuli, the performances of four dancers that moved most notably, and four stimuli representing happiness, anger, sadness, and tenderness were chosen to create a set of stimuli containing the four audio excerpts, 16 video excerpts (w…

Emotions in motion - Tunteet Liikkeessä (TuLi)

Depression is a highly prevalent mood disorder which impairs a person’s social skills and quality of life, and affects their ability to recognise and express emotions. Here, we describe the first study to investigate how depression affects expression of emotions perceived in music through spontaneous, expressive body movement. Central to this study is the use of a Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) intervention. Specifically, we investigate how depression and possible co-morbid anxiety affect a person’s ability to express emotions perceived in music through spontaneous movement, regulate their emotions through music and music related movement, and whether DMT can improve these skills in depressed…