"Take a Sad Song and Make It Better": Exploring Rewards Related to Liking Unfamiliar Sad Music

Abstract

This thesis tested some of Levinson's (1997) ideas on why people like music that makes them sad. A path model of this effect was interpreted from Levinson's theory, and 5 of the paths were tested. These paths were that music would directly create a communion with the song, that happiness and sadness would mediate this effect, that absorption would moderate the direct path, that absorption would moderate the songs' ability to evoke the emotions, and that satisfaction would moderate the emotions' influence on liking the songs. A pilot study was conducted to determine if the songs evoked their intended emotions. The pilot study included 6 songs: two fast, major songs to induce happiness; two repetitive songs intended to be neutral; and two slow, minor songs to evoke sadness. One song for each condition was retained for the primary study. All participants listened to all three songs in a counterbalanced order and completed a measure of absorption in a counterbalanced order. The music did not directly cause a change in communication scores, but happiness mediated it. Sadness did not. Absorption did not moderate the direct path, either. It also did not moderate the songs' ability to evoke emotions. Satisfaction did not ! ! ! "! ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without the overwhelming, encouraging support from my committee, Drs. Jef Kahn, Andrea Crimmins, and Scott Jordan. Their guidance, support, and commitment to this project have been incredible. Humbly and gratefully, I thank them for their efforts in helping me complete this project.

"Sing me a sad song and make me feel better": Exploring rewards related to liking familiar sad music

“…Levinson (1997) proposed that listening to music that induces sadness could be a rewarding experience, and he described eight rewards. Hogue (2013) tested four of these rewards, but he used instrumental excerpts that were unfamiliar to the participants.…”

“…Because Levinson (1997) stated that familiarity is a precursor to achieving the rewards, Hogue's (2013) work alone is not sufficient to test Levinson's (1997) ideas. In fact, the more people are familiar with a song, the more likely they are to like it (North & Hargreaves, 1995).…”

“…In fact, the more people are familiar with a song, the more likely they are to like it (North & Hargreaves, 1995). Therefore, the purpose of this thesis was to replicate Hogue's (2013) study with songs that are familiar to the participants.…”

“…Even though Hogue empirically tested Levinson's (1997) theory, Hogue (2013) failed to consider one of Levinson's (1997) precursors. Levinson's first precursor argued that before a song could evoke a strong emotion in the listener, the listener must be familiar enough with the work for the procession of the song to be internal but not so familiar that the listener would be bored with it.…”

“…Levinson (1997) states that the reward of communion could occur in either songs that induce happiness or songs that induce sadness, but this statement was not supported in Hogue (2013). Because of the difference between self-selected songs and experimenter-given songs, however, Levinson's (1997) statement was still hypothesized,…”