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The paradox of music-evoked sadness: an online survey

PloS one, 2014-10, Vol.9 (10), p.e110490-e110490 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

COPYRIGHT 2014 Public Library of Science ;COPYRIGHT 2014 Public Library of Science ;2014 Taruffi, Koelsch. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License. ;2014 Taruffi, Koelsch 2014 Taruffi, Koelsch ;ISSN: 1932-6203 ;EISSN: 1932-6203 ;DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0110490 ;PMID: 25330315

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  • Title:
    The paradox of music-evoked sadness: an online survey
  • Author: Taruffi, Liila ; Koelsch, Stefan
  • Nusbaum, Howard
  • Subjects: Aesthetics ; Affect - physiology ; Biology and Life Sciences ; Data Collection ; Emotions ; Female ; Humans ; Internet ; Male ; Memory - physiology ; Mood ; Music ; Music therapy ; Personality - physiology ; Psychology ; Reinforcement ; Theory ; Trends
  • Is Part Of: PloS one, 2014-10, Vol.9 (10), p.e110490-e110490
  • Description: This study explores listeners' experience of music-evoked sadness. Sadness is typically assumed to be undesirable and is therefore usually avoided in everyday life. Yet the question remains: Why do people seek and appreciate sadness in music? We present findings from an online survey with both Western and Eastern participants (N = 772). The survey investigates the rewarding aspects of music-evoked sadness, as well as the relative contribution of listener characteristics and situational factors to the appreciation of sad music. The survey also examines the different principles through which sadness is evoked by music, and their interaction with personality traits. Results show 4 different rewards of music-evoked sadness: reward of imagination, emotion regulation, empathy, and no "real-life" implications. Moreover, appreciation of sad music follows a mood-congruent fashion and is greater among individuals with high empathy and low emotional stability. Surprisingly, nostalgia rather than sadness is the most frequent emotion evoked by sad music. Correspondingly, memory was rated as the most important principle through which sadness is evoked. Finally, the trait empathy contributes to the evocation of sadness via contagion, appraisal, and by engaging social functions. The present findings indicate that emotional responses to sad music are multifaceted, are modulated by empathy, and are linked with a multidimensional experience of pleasure. These results were corroborated by a follow-up survey on happy music, which indicated differences between the emotional experiences resulting from listening to sad versus happy music. This is the first comprehensive survey of music-evoked sadness, revealing that listening to sad music can lead to beneficial emotional effects such as regulation of negative emotion and mood as well as consolation. Such beneficial emotional effects constitute the prime motivations for engaging with sad music in everyday life.
  • Publisher: United States: Public Library of Science
  • Language: English
  • Identifier: ISSN: 1932-6203
    EISSN: 1932-6203
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0110490
    PMID: 25330315
  • Source: Open Access: PubMed Central
    PLoS (Open access)
    DOAJ Directory of Open Access Journals
    Geneva Foundation Free Medical Journals at publisher websites
    AUTh Library subscriptions: ProQuest Central
    MEDLINE
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