Ambivalent Emotions in Music : We Like Sad Music When It Makes Us Happy

2013

We often react ambivalently to a piece of music, simultaneously experiencing both sadness and happiness, and attributing both emotions to the musical content. Two experiments were conducted (1) to empirically test for ambivalent emotions and (2) to investigate the amount of musical information necessary to elicit such emotions. In experiment 1, synthesized musical excerpts were manipulated in tempo (fast/slow) and mode (major/minor). By using unipolar scales, listeners could independently rate how (1) happy and (2) sad the music made them feel, as well as the (3) happiness and (4) sadness perceived in the music. Regarding perceived emotion, happiness was higher in major-fast excerpts, sadne…