Enjoying Sad Music: Paradox or Parallel Processes?

Abstract

Enjoyment of negative emotions in music is seen by many as a paradox. This article argues that the paradox exists because it is difficult to view the process that generates enjoyment as being part of the same system that also generates the subjective negative feeling. Compensation theories explain the paradox as the compensation of a negative emotion by the concomitant presence of one or more positive emotions. But compensation brings us no closer to explaining the paradox because it does not explain how experiencing sadness itself is enjoyed. The solution proposed is that an emotion is determined by three critical processes—labeled motivational action tendency (MAT), subjective feeling (SF) and Appraisal. For many emotions the MAT and SF processes are coupled in valence. For example, happiness has positive MAT and positive SF, annoyance has negative MAT and negative SF. However, it is argued that in an aesthetic context, such as listening to music, emotion processes can become decoupled. The decoupling is controlled by the Appraisal process, which can assess if the context of the sadness is real-life (where coupling occurs) or aesthetic (where decoupling can occur). In an aesthetic context sadness retains its negative SF but the aversive, negative MAT is inhibited, leaving sadness to still be experienced as a negative valanced emotion, while contributing to the overall positive MAT. Individual differences, mood and previous experiences mediate the degree to which the aversive aspects of MAT are inhibited according to this Parallel Processing Hypothesis (PPH). The reason for hesitancy in considering or testing PPH, as well as the preponderance of research on sadness at the exclusion of other negative emotions, are discussed.

The Role of Trait and State Absorption in the Enjoyment of Music

“…First, we examined whether negative emotion evoked by music could be enjoyed, and under what circumstances. In line with a growing body of evidence for the ‘paradoxical’ effect of enjoyment of negative emotions in music [20], a subset of our sample reported high enjoyment of self-selected music that was strongly evocative of negative emotions. Crucially, we found that this subgroup of individuals tended to be those with a (trait) propensity to be highly absorbed.…”

“…This scepticism stems from the idea that negative emotions, such as sadness and grief, are associated with withdrawal and aversion under normal circumstances. Thus, there must be some extenuating circumstance to explain the concomitant pleasure response, and as such, ‘real’ negative emotion is not experienced [19, 20]. …”

What color do you feel? Color choices are driven by mood

“…Listening to music affects people's emotional states, but can be considered ambiguous in terms of its emotional content and not communicate discrete emotions . For example, “sad” music can be experienced as sad as well as pleasurable . When music is contextualized (e.g., with lyrics, mental imagery), the emotional ambiguity is reduced, and it becomes one of the most powerful and widely used techniques for mood induction .…”

Aesthetic Experience Explained by the Affect-Space Framework

“…But some philosophers and psychologists are also interested in explaining what the various components might be, and how they fit together. In the psychological literature Scherer's (1984) component processes model of emotion has motivation-change as one of its components, which aligns with the concept of affect-valence (Schubert, 2016). Schubert (2013b) applied these ideas to explain how it was that people could enjoy music that evoked negative emotion.…”

“…But some philosophers and psychologists are also interested in explaining what the various components might be, and how they fit together. In the psychological literature Scherer's (1984) component processes model of emotion has motivation-change as one of its components, which aligns with the concept of affect-valence (Schubert, 2016).Schubert (2013b) applied these ideas to explain how it was that people could enjoy music that evoked negative emotion. In that study he argued that to better understand emotional and preference relationships with music, one must not only vary the kind of emotions evoked (as was typical in music psychology research on emotion), but also vary the preference level.…”