People Experience Different Emotions from Melancholic and Grieving Music

Abstract

Two behavioral studies are reported that ask whether listeners experience different emotions in response to melancholic and grieving musical passages. In the first study, listeners were asked to rate the extent that musical passages made them feel positive and negative, as well as to identify which emotion(s) they felt from a list of 24 emotions. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that listeners experience different emotions when listening to melancholic and grieving music. The second study asked listeners to spontaneously describe their emotional states while listening to music. Content analysis was conducted in order to find any underlying dimensions of the identified responses. The analysis replicated the finding that melancholic and grieving music led to different feelings states, with melancholic music leading to feelings of Sad/Melancholy/Depressed, Reflective/Nostalgic, Rain/Dreary Weather, and Relaxed/Calm, while grieving music led to feelings of Anticipation/Uneasy, Tension/Intensity, Crying/Distraught/Turmoil, Death/Loss, and Epic/Dramatic/Cinematic.

Viral tunes: changes in musical behaviours and interest in coronamusic predict socio-emotional coping during COVID-19 lockdown

“…Additionally, there are situation-specific factors that might affect the degree to which people use music to cope, including access to music (versus other potential coping resources during lockdown) and the perceived severity of the pandemic and its consequences. Individual variables influencing musical engagement more generally, such as musical attitudes and behaviours (Schäfer, 2016), psychological traits (Garrido et al, 2015;Ladinig et al, 2019;Howlin and Rooney, 2021;Warrenburg, 2020), and demographics, may also be relevant. The relative importance of these factors in predicting how helpful music is for coping under such unprecedented circumstances remains to be determined.…”

Visual Mental Imagery Evoked in Indian Classical Music: A Listener-Oriented Study

“…Moreover, studies have demonstrated subtypes of sadness that can be induced by such contexts as the loss of a loved one or failure to achieve a goal (Shirai & Suzuki, 2016). Sadness in music is also considered a synthesis of two affective states, melancholia, and grief (Huron, 2015a;Warrenburg, 2020b). Despite sadness's multifaceted and paradoxical nature, most studies have demonstrated that it is a negative emotion.…”

“…Theme 6: Pain and Agony.. The subtheme of "grief" is also a subtype of the emotion of sadness, and can be categorized as a type of loss-evoked sadness (Shirai & Suzuki, 2017;Warrenburg, 2020b). It is an emotional response to a distressing experience after the death of a loved one or after a loss of trust, safety, autonomy, or identity (Archer & Freeman, 1999;Epstein, 2019).…”

“…It is an emotional response to a distressing experience after the death of a loved one or after a loss of trust, safety, autonomy, or identity (Archer & Freeman, 1999;Epstein, 2019). Grief is accompanied by sadness, negative valence, and a higher intensity or physiological arousal (Huron, 2018;Jefferies et al, 2008;Warrenburg, 2020b). Experiences of grief involve a great deal of personal loss that manifests in crying, weeping, or wailing (Huron, 2015b;Vingerhoets & Cornelius, 2012).…”

Section 3: Emotion Abstracts

“…The implications of this research include the idea that meta-analyses and reviews can be interpreted in new ways using an emotionally granular framework. A series of five experiments consistent with this idea is reviewed, where participants were able to use emotionally granular terms to identify subgroups of music previously unrecognized in the music and emotion literature (Warrenburg, 2020b;2020c). In considering the "future directions" of music and emotion research, it will be important to utilize methodology consistent with emotional granularity in order to discover (potentially) many more than 10 emotions that can be expressed and elicited by music.…”