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Interpersonal Relationships and Preferences for Mood-Congruency in Aesthetic Experiences
Abstract and Figures
Prior research examining how negative feelings influence aesthetic preferences
(e.g., liking of different kinds of music, movies, or stories) has reported inconsistent
findings. This article proposes a theoretical argument to explain when people are
more likely to prefer mood-congruent to mood-incongruent aesthetic stimuli. It is
suggested that mood-congruent aesthetic experiences, for example, listening to
sad songs when feeling sad, (a) serve as a surrogate for the mood-sharing often
observed in empathic relationships and hence (b) are preferred when emotional
distress comes from failing interpersonal relationships (vs. noninterpersonal
events). Consistent with this proposition, people’s preferences for mood-congruent
music strongly correlate with their preferences for an empathic friend (experiment
1). Further, mood-congruent preferences significantly increase when people experience
interpersonal (vs. noninterpersonal) distress, independent of emotional
intensity, emotion type (sadness and frustration/anger), and normative issues (experiments
1–3). Further theoretical developments and future research are discussed.
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... Empirical findings of previous research have shown that mood can positively induce consumers' impulse buying, shorten purchase decision-making, and influence future purchase intentions (Miao and Mattila, 2013;Schwarz et al., 1991). Studies on mood maintenance have examined self-gifting (Ozer and Gultekin, 2015), interpersonal stress situations (Lee et al., 2013), and drinking behavior (Di Muro and Murray, 2012). However, previous research focused on physical situations, such as restaurant food (Miao and Mattila, 2013) and shopping for music products (Lee et al., 2013), rather than AR mirror service experiences. ...
... Studies on mood maintenance have examined self-gifting (Ozer and Gultekin, 2015), interpersonal stress situations (Lee et al., 2013), and drinking behavior (Di Muro and Murray, 2012). However, previous research focused on physical situations, such as restaurant food (Miao and Mattila, 2013) and shopping for music products (Lee et al., 2013), rather than AR mirror service experiences. Therefore, studying the role of AR mirror in mood maintenance is needed to understand how this increasingly used virtual context influences service experiences and consumer intentions. ...
... First, we bridged mood maintenance theory with AR research streams to illustrate its application in this digital context and elucidate its role in service consumption experiences. Previous literature on mood maintenance was confined to physical contexts or goods (Di Muro and Murray, 2012;Lee et al., 2013). This study extends previous research to AR-mediated experiences and services to shed light on the pivotal role of mood maintenance in virtual service consumption. ...
Consumers in a good mood seek positive experiences to maintain a good mood. In contactless digital service journeys, such as augmented reality (AR) mirror, maintaining consumers' positive mood throughout the purchase decision process is a highly desired outcome. Despite its importance, our understanding of the phenomenon in AR service experiences is limited. To close the void in the literature, we draw from mood maintenance theory to develop a research model including the antecedents and consequences of mood maintenance in an AR service context (tourism). Using a scenario-based survey, we collected data from 320 consumers via a quasi-experiment to validate the research model using AMOS 20. The study results reveal the pivotal role of AR body representation and AR selfie-sharing activities of mood maintenance in inducing consumer virtual purchase behavior and future purchase intentions (e.g., visit intentions to a tourism destination). The findings of our study unlock the psychological mechanisms of mood maintenance in an AR-mediated service context, enriching the extant literature on the topic. Furthermore, our findings can benefit managers in designing contactless service journeys using AR mirror applications to maintain a positive mood and influence consumers' current and future behavioral intentions.
... These six movies comprised of three sad movies (Tears in My Heart, Crying, and Gloomy Sunday) and three happy movies (Laugh and Smile, Be Happy, and Happy Days), and were asked to report the extent to which they preferred to watch each of the six movies (1 = very unwilling to watch, 7 = very willing to watch). Fake movie titles were used to avoid any potential biases resulting from having previously watched the selected movies by the participants (Lee et al., 2013). The presentation order of the six movie titles was randomized across subjects. ...
... Research has shown that people may exhibit a greater preference for negative (vs. positive) esthetic stimuli when they are under interpersonal (vs. noninterpersonal) distress (Lee et al., 2013). In view of the fact that the scenario adopted in Experiment 2 involved a noninterpersonal failure (i.e., either self or a situation is responsible for the failure), we decided to replicate the findings of Experiment 2 using another scenario that involved an interpersonal failure (i.e., others are responsible for the failure). ...
... This research also extends the finding of Lee et al. (2013, cases, the consumption of esthetic experiences, such as listening to music or watching movies, represents a common approach that consumers adopt to repair their negative feelings. One major implication that can be drawn from our findings is that marketers of esthetic experiences (such as movie and online entertainment) ...
Drawing on the coping and emotion regulation literature, we argue that when consumers feel sad after a failure, their relative preference for sad (vs. happy) esthetic stimuli is a function of controllability or the extent to which the responsible party have control over the cause of the failure. Specially, when feeling sad, consumers' preference for sad (vs. happy) esthetic stimuli will increase (decrease) with controllability because sad esthetic stimuli facilitate approach‐oriented coping by maintaining consumers' attention toward the failure that elicits their sadness while happy esthetic stimuli facilitate avoidance‐oriented coping by diverting their attention away from the failure. The findings of four experiments provide evidence supporting the hypothesized effect of controllability on consumers' preference for sad (vs. happy) esthetic stimuli, and the predicted mediating role of attention deployment (toward the failure vs. away from the failure) in explaining the effect.
... Associated with extremely sad events, grief is a music-induced sad state resulting from memory triggers from sad events and is implicated in negative outcomes for listeners. Individuals experiencing interpersonal loss prefer mood-congruent music, indicating that when in grief, individuals seek music that is congruent with this feeling (DeMarco et al., 2015;Lee et al., 2013). Additionally, grief is associated with increases in epinephrine, cortisol, and prolactin (Warrenburg, 2020). ...
... DeMarco et al. (2015) 174 + 68 Music preference ratings, in response to interpersonal loss vs non-interpersonal loss. Lee et al. (2013) 233 ...
The enjoyment and pleasure derived from sad music has sparked fascination among researchers due to its seemingly paradoxical nature in producing positive affect. Research is yet to develop a comprehensive understanding of this “paradox.” Contradictory findings have resulted in a great variability within the literature, meaning results and interpretations can be difficult to derive. Consequently, this review collated the current literature, seeking to utilize the variability in the findings to propose a model of differential sad states, providing a means for past and future findings to be interpreted. The proposed model is based on theoretical understanding, as such it requires full empirical support. Comparisons to alternative models, theoretical, clinical, and cognitive implications, as well as future directions are discussed.
... (Baird, Walker, Biggs, & Robinson, 2014), genre(Apaolaza-Ibantildeez et al., 2010;Fiegel, Meullenet, Harrington, Humble, & Seo, 2014;Istók, Brattico, Jacobsen, Ritter, & Tervaniemi, 2013;Siles et al., 2019;Strobin, Hunt, Spencer, & Hunt, 2015), tempo(Ding & Lin, 2012;Stewart & Koh, 2017) or tone(Centanni, Halpern, Seisler, & Wenger, 2020) are some of the music element isolated studied. Being of great significance in the development of congruency studies(Ausín, Bigne, Marín, Guixeres, & Alcañiz, 2021;Garaus, 2017;Helmefalk & Hultén, 2017;Lee, Andrade, & Palmer, 2013) caused of the use of multisensory tool management.The methodological innovations implemented during this period include the use of psychophysiological measures through face-reader(Invitto et al., 2017), piloerection(Benedek & Kaernbach, 2011), eye tracking(Skulmowski et al., 2014), cardiovascular measures (Fairclough, van der Zwaag, Spiridon, & Westerink, 2014), electrophysiological responses(Kantono et al., 2019) or electroencephalogram (EEG)(Revuelta, Ortiz, Lucía, Ruiz, & Sánchez-Pena, 2020); and brain responses through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRi) (Berthold-Losleben et al., 2018), neuron activity(Hill et al., 2013) or amygdala and cortex responses(Liégeois-Chauvel et al., 2014). ...
... More generally, the existing literature on music and cognition may have underestimated the advantages of sad music, and will need to further investigate why, how, and in what circumstances sad emotions result in stronger dopaminergic reward. While in-dividuals tend to prefer listening to mood-congruent music [65], the current results do not appear to support this. Instead of mood congruence or baseline preference for sad versus happy music, we may need to look deeper into the complexity of mood regulation. ...
The present study examined music-induced dopamine release, as measured by a proxy measure of spontaneous eye blinks. Specifically, we explored the effects of uplifting and sombre tones in different sections of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons to investigate the affective content of musical pieces within one composition. Seventeen participants listened to four concertos (Major modes: “Spring” and “Autumn”, Minor modes: “Summer” and “Winter”) and a silence condition while completing a three-stimulus odd-ball attention task. Electrooculograms were recorded from electrodes placed above and under the left eye. Self-reported arousal and music preference measures were also gathered during the testing session. In addition, the P3a Event-Related Potential (ERP) component was analysed as another potential index of dopamine function. Results revealed significant differences in the blink rates during music listening and silence, with the largest effect observed for the sad, melancholic “Winter” concerto. However, no significant correlation was found between blink rate and music preference or arousal. Furthermore, no reliable association was found between blink rate and the P3a ERP component, suggesting that these measures tap into different aspects of dopamine function. These findings contribute to understanding the link between dopamine and blink rate, particularly in response to classical music. Crucially, the study’s discovery that the “Winter” concerto, with its sorrowful tone, significantly increased the blink rate highlights the significance of sad music and perhaps the programmatic qualities of this concerto to induce a strong emotional response.
... More generally, existing literature on music and cognition may have underestimated the advantages of sad music, and will need to further investigate why, how and in what circumstances sad emotions result in stronger dopaminergic reward. While individuals tend to prefer listening to mood-congruent music (Lee et al., 2013), the current results do not appear to support this. Instead of mood congruence or baseline preference for sad versus happy music, we may need to look deeper into the complexity of mood regulation. ...
The present study examined music-induced dopamine release, as measured by a proxy measure of spontaneous eye blinks. Specifically, we explored the effects of uplifting and sombre tones in different sections of Vivaldi's Four Seasons to investigate the affective content of musical pieces within one composition. Seventeen participants listened to four concertos (Major modes: Spring, Autumn, Minor modes: Summer and Winter) and a silence condition while completing the 3-Stimulus Odd-ball attention task. Electrooculograms were recorded from electrodes placed above and under the left eye. Self-reported arousal and music preference measures were also gathered during the testing session. In addition, the P3a Event-Related Potential (ERP) component was analysed as another potential index of dopamine function. Results revealed significant differences in the blink rates during music listening and silence, with the largest effect observed for the sad, melancholic Winter concerto. However, no significant correlation was found between blink rate and music preference or arousal. Furthermore, no reliable association was found between blink rate and the P3a ERP component, suggesting that these measures tap into different aspects of dopamine function. These findings contribute to understanding the link between dopamine and blink rate, particularly in response to classical music. Crucially, the study's discovery that the Winter concerto, with its sorrowful tone, significantly increased the blink rate highlights the significance of sad music and perhaps the programmatic qualities of this concerto to induce a strong emotional response.
... Supporting this argument, a study by Lee et al. (2013) demonstrates that consumers experiencing interpersonal loss are more likely to prefer listening to sad music because music is T A B L E 1 Past studies on relationship reminders. perceived as a friend providing social support. ...
This research investigates the effect of using relationship (breakup) reminders in advertising on click‐through rates. While previous research has found that relationship reminders may backfire when consumers lack or no longer have certain social relationships (e.g., close friends, family, or a romantic partner), the authors propose that ad messages encouraging consumers after a relationship breakup, as compared with simply reminding them of a current relationship, will increase consumer perceptions of social support from a brand. This is because consumers may find readily available social support from a brand when coping with a relationship breakup. This, in turn, will pique their interest in the brand and prompt them to seek more information. Across two experimental studies, the results show that consumers who are exposed to ad messages encouraging them after a relationship breakup (vs. reminding them of a current relationship) feel greater social support, leading to higher click‐through rates. Furthermore, this effect is moderated by destiny beliefs. These findings contribute to the implicit theories of relationships and the consumer–brand relationship literature by demonstrating how destiny beliefs are important to understanding consumer responses to advertisements utilizing relationship (breakup) messages. Furthermore, the findings can benefit marketers when designing relationship reminders in online advertising.
Live concerts normally involve gathering at the same time and place. In livestreamed concerts, participants may gather in time but not in space, providing a natural comparison for studying live concert experiences. Previous research suggests that livestreamed concerts promote more social connectedness than pre-recorded concerts and that live concerts promote more movement than listening to recorded music in a group. However, to the best of our knowledge, a comparison between live and livestreamed concerts has not been conducted. The Danish String Quartet is a critically acclaimed music group who performed a live concert that was also livestreamed. The live and livestreaming audiences’ emotions were measured with surveys that collected data on connectedness, feeling moved, and awe after each piece. In addition, audience motion was measured with an application that recorded from the participants' own smartphones’ accelerometers. Survey responses were collected from 91 live and 32 livestreaming participants. Motion data was collected from 82 live and 25 livestreaming participants. While the live audience felt more connected to other audience members than the livestreaming audience, both live and livestreaming audiences felt similarly connected to the performers. Feeling moved and awe were influenced by the piece of music, but not by the audience condition (i.e., live or livestreaming audience). During the classical Beethoven and Schnittke pieces, the live audience moved less, while during the folk tunes, the live audience moved more. The differences between pieces were smaller in the livestreaming audience. The live audience reported more connectedness to the audience when their neighbors moved more during the folk and less during the Beethoven and Schnittke. Connectedness with other audience members was also related to the amount that an individual stilled in response to key musical moments in the pieces. Together, these findings show that the classical concert audience actively engages with the music and the associated socioemotional experience based on genre-specific norms and expectations.
Although there have been many AI chatbots in industry service, social media, and e‐commerce platforms, research on AI chatbots such as Replika, neglected the effects of human‐like traits on users' continuance using intention. This article aims to explore the main effects of human‐like traits (perceived warmth vs. perceived competence) of friendship AI chatbots (FAIC) on continuance using intention and customer engagement, and the moderating effects of the need to belong and information sensitivity. Three studies are conducted to collect data ( N total = 1420 ). Our findings of Study 1 demonstrate that perceived warmth and perceived competence can increase the continuance using intention to FAIC and customer engagement, and perceived usefulness plays a mediating role in our conceptual model. Additionally, consumers' need to belong (high vs. low) (Study 2) and information sensitivity (high vs. low) (Study 3) related to chat contents moderate the main effects significantly. This article contributes to the literature on the relationship between FAIC and consumers by presenting the influence of perceived warmth and perceived competence and establishing the underlying process. Analogously, the findings can be beneficial for marketers and firms in designing and developing the coding program of FAIC to promote consumers' continuance using intention and customer engagement.
Black and White male and female high-school students reported their enjoyment of various love-lamenting and love-celebrating videos of popular romantic music. The student groups were subdivided into high versus low loneliness in terms of romantic deprivation. Loneliness proved inconsequential for the enjoyment of love-lamenting songs. Love-celebrating songs, however, were markedly less enjoyed by highly lonely males than by less lonely males; in contrast, these love-celebrating songs were more enjoyed by highly lonely females than by less lonely females. Reports of music choices in hypothetical situations of romantic success and failure yielded strikingly differed results. Most students indicated that they would make mood-congruent choices; that is, that they would match the music's mood to their own.
Hypotheses were derived from downward comparison and attachment theory to address the tragedy paradox: more sadness produces greater tragedy enjoyment. Participants (n = 361) watched a tragedy and reported affect, enjoyment, life happiness, and spontaneous thoughts (categorized into self- vs. socio-focused). Greater sadness led to greater enjoyment, mediated by life reflection; specifically, both self- and socio-focused thoughts mediated this sadness impact on tragedy enjoyment. Furthermore, more sadness led to greater life happiness increase during exposure, mediated by socio-focused thoughts only. No parallel effects emerged for positive affect. The present findings suggest that tragedy-induced sadness instigates (a) life reflection that increases tragedy enjoyment as well as (b) specifically thoughts about close relationships that, in turn, raise life happiness, which (c) subsequently increases tragedy enjoyment further.
This study took popular music from the Top 30 charts and, in a pretest, evaluated its energy and joyfulness as musical qualities. The findings were used to create sets of musical selections that were either low or high in these qualities. In the experiment proper, respondents were placed in states of bad, neutral, or good moods and then, in an ostensibly independent study, provided the opportunity to freely choose from the sets of musical selections. The selections were offered by computer software that recorded individual exposure times by selection. To ensure selectivity, exposure time was limited to about one third of the total running time of all available selections. Consistent with predictions from mood-management theory, respondents in bad moods elected to listen to highly energetic-joyful music for longer periods than did respondents in good moods. Respondents in bad moods, moreover, were more decisive in exercising their musical preferences. Following the listening period, respondents' moods did not appreciably differ across the experimental mood conditions.
According to popular interpretations of both the mood repair and affect-as-information theories, affective states of the same valence should have equivalent influences on behavior. We propose, instead, the Different Affect–Different Effect (DADE) model. Building on cognitive and psychoevolutionary theories of affect, we predict that while sadness leads to seeking pleasurable stimuli (consistent with mood repair predictions), anxiety leads to becoming more attentive (consistent with affect-as-information predictions). These predictions are tested using consumption stimuli and, across two experiments, results were consistent with our hypotheses. This research helps resolve apparent discrepancies among our findings and those found in previous mood repair and affect-as-information literatures. Specifically, we suggest that in previous demonstrations of mood repair through seeking pleasurable stimuli, the mood-state in question was most closely related to that of sadness. Likewise, we argue that in previous demonstrations of sadness leading to greater attentiveness, the procedure used to evoke sadness is also likely to have evoked anxiety.
This study examines the effect of the mood induced by television program content on subjects' evaluations of commercials. Specifically, happy or sad commercials are viewed in the context of a television program designed to induce these respective moods. The competing predictions of Mood Congruence Theory versus the Consistency Effect are examined to interpret the results. For all dependent measures considered, findings were in accordance with a Consistency Effect interpretation of the results. For two such measures (i.e., liking for the commercial and purchase intention) the Consistency Effect was statistically supported. Hence for these measures, it was found that a happy commercial viewed in the context of a happy program was evaluated more favorably than the same commercial viewed after exposure to a sad program. For the sad commercial, the reverse effects for these measures were evident as this commercial performed more favorably in the context of a sad program relative to a happy one. The dominance of a Consistency Effect interpretation of the results over that of Mood Congruence are interpreted in the context of advertising strategy.
This study examined the effects of differently valenced portrayals of old age on the emotional responses of elderly viewers. Lonely and nonlonely elderly people (as determined in a pretest) were given a series of descriptions of television offerings and indicated the degree to which they desired to see each program. In a separate session, they were randomly assigned to view a negative portrayal (involving an unhappy, isolated old man) or a positive portrayal (involving a happy, socially integrated old man). The results indicated that lonely subjects showed greater interest in viewing negative than positive portrayals, whereas nonlonely subjects exhibited the opposite preference. In addition, lonely subjects felt better after viewing the negative portrayal than after the positive portrayal, whereas nonlonely subjects felt better after the positive than after the negative portrayal. The findings therefore indicated that elderly viewers may benefit from varied portrayals of old age more than from uniformly positive or negative depictions.