The significance of music-induced thrills or chills was explored in 3 experiments (N = 223). Specifically, the ability of antecedent (priming) stimuli in different modalities and aesthetic domains (national anthems, stories, architectural objects, paintings) to increase the participants’ thrills responsiveness to music by Rachmaninoff and Haydn was examined. In addition, the differential effects of having or not having experienced thrills on the participants’ subsequent willingness to donate blood, and on their mood and self-concept, were tested. It was found that while the antecedent stimuli in different modalities could themselves induce thrills in a predictable manner, these priming stimuli, and the thrills they elicited, had relatively weak effects on the thrills subsequently induced by the Rachmaninoff and Haydn pieces. The measures of altruism, self-concept, and mood were not affected by either the antecedent variables or the thrills experience. Thrills may often accompany profound aesthetic experiences and provide their physiological underpinning, yet themselves be of limited psychological significance.

The present paper addresses the consistent finding that men derive more benefit from marriage in terms of both morbidity and mortality compared to women in U. S. society. Based on the evidence that spousal conflict adversely influences physiology and health, with greater negative impact on wives compared to husbands, we propose that the stronger impact of relationship negativity contributes to the decreased marriage benefit for women. Evidence bearing on two explanations for this differential impact of conflict is reviewed. The relationalinterdependence view, proposed by Kiecolt-Glaser and Newton (2001), holds that women are more affected by marital conflict because of their more relationally interdependent self-representations. An alternative view, which we call the subordination-reactivity hypothesis, suggests that women experience greater physiological and psychological reactivity to marital discord because they typically occupy subordinate (lower status and less powerful) positions relative to their husbands. A review of the evidence on the physiological effects of social status is combined with that of the relationship between gender and status, both within society at large and interpersonal relationships specifically, to support the subordination-reactivity hypothesis. Specifically, there is evidence that low social status negatively impacts health and that women generally occupy subordinate status. The relational-interdependence view is re-evaluated and its intersection with the subordination-reactivity hypothesis is explored. Finally, implications and future directions are discussed.

Several classical issues in the area of music and emotion were investigated in a 3 × 3 × 2 × 2 × 4 experiment ( N =144). Participants recalled happy, neutral, or sad life-events, and they listened to happy, neutral, or sad music, in one of two orders of recall and listening. Four dependent measures were obtained: Own emotional state at the time that the recalled event originally occurred (ETHEN) and immediately after recall (ENOW); own emotional state after listening to music (IEM) and a rating of the emotional expressiveness of the music (EDEM), with the order of IEM and EDEM counterbalanced. All measures were on a 13-point happy—sad scale. The main, statistically highly significant, findings were: (a) the ETHEN ratings were more extreme on both the happy and sad tasks than the ENOW and IEM ratings; (b) the ENOW scores were more extreme than the IEM ones, but only on the sad task; (c) the EDEM ratings were more extreme than the IEM ones; (d) the IEM ratings were nevertheless different from the scale midpoint, especially when the participants listened to music before recalling events. The pattern of results and complex methodological issues cast considerable doubt on the idea of a direct causal link between music and emotion. It was also proposed that the notion of `musical emotions' be replaced by the concepts of `being moved' and `aesthetic awe'.

Incidental comparisons with fit versus unfit peers can affect women's body satisfaction and fitness-related behavior in a naturalistic setting.

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