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Is music ubiquitous in part because it is causally linked to emotion? In this article, a comprehensive theoretical and methodological reevaluation is presented of a classical problem: The direct induction of emotion by music (M3 E). The author's Prototypical Emotion-Episode Model (PEEM) is used in the conceptual critique. A close scrutiny of the major published studies, and the author's new data regarding some substantive and methodological issues in several of these, reveal weak support for the M3 E model. The conclusion seems justified that music may induce low-grade basic emotions through mediators, such as dance and cognitive associations to real-world events. However, it is suggested-on the basis of the recently developed Aesthetic Trinity Theory (ATT; Konečni, 2005) and its further development in the present article-that being moved and aesthetic awe, often accompanied by thrills, may be the most genuine and profound music-related emotional states.

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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.

Two studies were conducted to determine how real felony court judges decide the amount of bail to set. In the first, the judges were presented with fictitious case histories containing the relevant information in a factorial design. In the second, multiple regression techniques were used to examine the impact of different kinds of information on decisions made by judges in actual bail hearings. In the simulated cases, the judges seemed to be influenced most by the degree to which the accused was tied to the area and whether or not he had a prior criminal record. However, the judges' actual bail decisions were not at all affected by these variables. Instead, their decisions were almost exclusively determined by the district attorneys' recommendations. Both the district attorneys' and the defense attorneys' actual recommendations were found to be primarily based upon the severity of the crime. These results were discussed in terms of the utility of simulation and observational research for drawing applied and theoretical conclusions.