John L. Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Guide To Self, Inc.

Music has an undeniable power to evoke emotion. Music is present at every important social gathering – weddings, funerals, birthdays, inaugurations and more. Every ‘normal’ human being responds to music’s mysterious ability to tap into the boundless ocean that is human emotion.

Why does music evoke emotion?

How does music affect emotion?

Is music a basic human need like shelter, food and meaningful work?

Such questions cut to the very core of human nature. Answers to these questions would help to clarify the unique role of music in our lives.

It has been shown in research that different types of music evoke different emotional reactions (in most people). For example, Lewis, Dember, Schefft and Radenhausen determined the effects of music versus videos on several assessments of mood - the Optimism/Pessimism Questionnaire, the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List, and the Wessman-Ricks Elation and Depression Scale (1). Experts rated a number of songs and videos as either positive or negative. The study found that songs had a major impact on mood, yet the videos did not. Not surprisingly, music that was  rated positively increased participants’ positive moods. It was exactly the oppositve for negative (i.e., sad) music. As you may have guessed, the mood of a piece of music tends to induce the same mood in the listener.

Chastain, Seibert, and Ferraro (2) backed up these findings and found that certain music narrowed particpants’ attention. It was found that participants attended to and recalled words that matched the mood of the music. In and of itself, this is not surprising.

More surprising are the results reported by Stratton and Zalanowski (3) where the mood of the music influenced how participants perceived paintings. The music influenced mood and mood influenced perception. In the study, paintings were paired together with music. Each piece of music was either depressing or positive in the emotion it evoked per the experts. Particpants rated the emotions evoked by the paintings as well as the songs.  Participants categorized the paintings by the type of music to which the listened, but not vice versa. In other words, paintings rated as sad by the experts were perceived as sad by participants when paired with sad music. Yet those same paintings were perceived as positive when paired with happy music; the same findings were reported when positive paintings were paired with happy or sad music, respectively.

Amazingly, the way in which we perceive a seemingly static object is not as objective as first thought. The emotions invoked by music influence not only our ears, but our eyes as well. Emotions likely influence every one of our senses (i.e., smell, touch, taste, mind). 

If emotions and music can influence our senses and how we perceive objects around us, what about other people?  Do music and emotion exert an influence on how we perceive other people?  They do.

The effects of music on emotion influence how we perceive the facial expressions of others. extends to interpersonal interactions. In a fascinating study, Bouhuys, Bloem and Groothuis looked at the extent to which music influences how participants read the facial expression of emotions of others (5).  Music had a considerable effect. After hearing sad music, participants rated neutral faces as showing more rejection and sadness and less openness and happiness, despite the absense of any such emotions in the faces.

Although it is not clear why music has such an influence on our emotions, mood and behaviors, it seems clear that music does alter how we perceive the world around us. Temporary emotions caused by music change what we pay attention to, what we perceive, and how we interact with others. It brings into question the notion that there is one objective reality that can ultimately be accurately perceived.  

References

(1) Lewis, L.M., Dember, W. N., Scheff, B. K. and Radenhausen, R. A. (1995) Can experimentally induced mood affect optimism and pessimism scores? Curr. Psychol.: Devel., Learn., Person., Social., 14, 29-41.

(2) Chastain, G., Seibert, P.S., and Ferraro, F. R. (1995) Mood and lexical access of positive, negative, and neutral words. J. General Psychol., 122, 137-157.