Fans of Violent Music: The Role of Passion in Positive and Negative Emotional Experience

Abstract

Extreme metal and rap music with violent themes are sometimes blamed for eliciting antisocial behaviours, but growing evidence suggests that music with violent themes can have positive emotional, cognitive, and social consequences for fans. We addressed this apparent paradox by comparing how fans of violent and non-violent music respond emotionally to music. We also characterised the psychosocial functions of music for fans of violent and non-violent music, and their passion for music. Fans of violent extreme metal ( n=46), violent rap ( n=49), and non-violent classical music ( n=50) responded to questionnaires evaluating the cognitive (self-reflection, self-regulation) and social (social bonding) functions of their preferred music and the nature of their passion for it. They then listened to four one-minute excerpts of music and rated ten emotional descriptors for each excerpt. The top five emotions reported by the three groups of fans were positive, with empowerment and joy the emotions rated highest. However, compared with classical music fans, fans of violent music assigned significantly lower ratings to positive emotions and higher ratings to negative emotions. Fans of violent music also utilised their preferred music for positive psychosocial functions to a similar or sometimes greater extent than classical fans. Harmonious passion for music predicted positive emotional outcomes for all three groups of fans, whereas obsessive passion predicted negative emotional outcomes. Those high in harmonious passion also tended to use music for cognitive and social functions. We propose that fans of violent music use their preferred music to induce an equal balance of positive and negative emotions.

Does music help regulate depressive symptoms for fans of violently themed music?

“…Therefore, across all participants there was a positive association between depressive symptoms and fear responses to music, and perhaps not surprisingly, a tendency to use music as a means of distracting oneself from negative emotions somewhat decreased the strength of this relationship-an effect that requires investigation in future research. Olsen et al (2020) report that fans of violently themed music experience a significantly greater magnitude of negative emotions in response to their favorite music when compared to the experience of fans of classical music. The results of the present study show that this phenomenon is not due to fans of violently themed music exhibiting greater depressive symptoms than fans of nonviolently themed music.…”

“…The classical music was selected from Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras spanning from 1600 to 1820. Extreme metal stimuli were excerpts from songs used in Thompson et al (2019) and Olsen et al (2020). Excerpts of violent rap music and classical music were excerpts from songs used by Olsen et al (2020).…”

“…Extreme metal stimuli were excerpts from songs used in Thompson et al (2019) and Olsen et al (2020). Excerpts of violent rap music and classical music were excerpts from songs used by Olsen et al (2020). Fans of extreme metal only heard extreme metal stimuli, and so on for the other two fan groups.…”

“…The 24 music excerpts are listed in the Appendix. More information on the steps involved in stimulus selection is reported in Thompson et al (2019) and Olsen et al (2020).…”

The Psychology of Metal Music, Culture, and Dis/Ability

“…A lot of heavy metal music is perceived as violent and aggressive, and is consistent with auditory threat signals (Ollivier et al 2019), so there has been a continual association between heavy metal and immoral or violent behavior, but that connection is largely unfounded. Rather, it has been found that heavy metal, including with violent themes, consistently has positive emotional, cognitive, and social consequences for fans (Messick 2020;Olsen et al 2020;Sharman and Dingle 2015;Leisuk 2010;McFerran et al 2015). It has also been shown that heavy metal music is used by people with some dis/abilities and mental health disorders to help manage their mood and symptoms (Messick, Aranda, and Day 2020;Gebhardt, Kunkel, and Goergi 2016;Gebhardt and von Georgi 2007).…”