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Who enjoys listening to violent music and why?
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Negative emotions are usually avoided in daily life, yet often appreciated in artistic endeavours. The present study investigated emotional experiences induced by Death Metal music with extremely violent themes, and examined whether enjoyment of this genre of music is associated with personality traits. Fans (N=48) and non-fans (N=97) listened to 60-second excerpts of Death Metal music and rated their emotional experiences. Compared with non-fans, fans experienced a wide range of positive emotions including power, joy, peace, and wonder. In contrast, non-fans reported uniformly negative experiences, including tension, anger and fear. Fans and non-fans were also distinguished by personality traits, with fans lower in conscientiousness and agreeableness, and in their motivations for listening to music. Results suggest that individuals with certain personality and music-listening motivations are drawn towards aggressive music with violent themes, and their enthusiasm for this genre promotes a range of positive emotional responses to this music.
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... While sad music has received considerable empirical attention, an emerging body of research on negatively valenced music has focused on the psychosocial risks and benefits of music with violent themes [9]. Themes of violence in music are primarily found within extreme metal and rap subgenres and are characterised by lyrics that explicitly depict horrific actions of violence that include murder, rape, and body mutilation, often perpetrated by men against women [10][11][12]. levels of depression than fans of non-violently themed music [10,28]. Rather, fans who report positive psychosocial outcomes in response to music containing violent themes may instead experience a 'spiral up' of well-being, where frequent engagement with a favourite activity or hobby results in consistent positive emotions and broadened perceptual and attentional capacity, which creates a positive 'spiral' that facilitates increased psychological well-being [22,29,30]. ...
... Such findings reflect the notion of 'spiral up' well-being, where frequently experienced positive affective responses to music can create consistent positive experiences that can contribute to one's psychological well-being [30]. This supports previous findings that fans experience overwhelmingly positive emotional and affective responses to violently themed music [2,12] and extends these findings to show that such experiences contribute to overall psychological well-being. Further, these findings reflect those in the study on a broad sample of passionate music fans [3]. ...
... The other three measures are proposed to be measures of eudaimonic well-being, or the pursuit and experience of meaning and purpose in life [45]. It may be the case that passion for violently themed music is not as strongly associated with hedonic well-being, as part of the fan experience involves being engaged with experiences that reflect pain or difficult emotions [12]. Regarding vitality, it is possible that harmonious passion does not facilitate experiences of energy and alertness specifically but still leads to experiences of meaning, purpose, and value in life as observed by relationships with the other two eudaimonic measures. ...
While the benefits to mood and well-being from passionate engagement with music are well-established, far less is known about the relationship between passion for explicitly violently themed music and psychological well-being. The present study employed the Dualistic Model of Passion to investigate whether harmonious passion (i.e., passionate engagement that is healthily balanced with other life activities) predicts positive music listening experiences and/or psychological well-being in fans of violently themed music. We also investigated whether obsessive passion (i.e., uncontrollable passionate engagement with an activity) predicts negative music listening experiences and/or psychological ill-being. Fans of violently themed music (N = 177) completed the passion scale, scale of positive and negative affective experiences, and various psychological well- and ill-being measures. As hypothesised, harmonious passion for violently themed music significantly predicted positive affective experiences which, in turn, predicted psychological well-being. Obsessive passion for violently themed music significantly predicted negative affective experiences which, in turn, predicted ill-being. Findings support the Dualistic Model of Passion, and suggest that even when music engagement includes violent content, adaptive outcomes are often experienced. We propose that the nature of one’s passion for music is more influential in predicting well-being than the content or valence of the lyrical themes.
... These findings suggest that not only do fans of violently themed music engage with such music for non-hedonic purposes such as reflection and meaning making, but they do so to a greater extent than fans of non-violently themed music. This complements previous qualitative reports from fans of violently themed music, who report using such music to highlight, explore, and work through difficult feelings and experiences [26,55]. Although these qualitative reports provided the rationale for hypotheses in Study 3, the ability for people to experience meaning making through overtly violent content has nevertheless been challenged in other media research. ...
... Previous lines of research have largely neglected to understand the specific motivations that fans may have for wanting to continually engage with violently themed music, instead largely focusing on assessing preferences for these genres and potential correlations with problem behaviours (for reviews, see [60,61]). Qualitative reports suggest that fans listen to extreme metal music such as death metal to elucidate their current feelings and stresses, work through difficult emotions, and understand more about the difficult aspects of life, as well as for sonic motivations such as the virtuosic talents of the musical performers [26,55]. The present study provides a validated tool for systematically assessing fan motivations and shows that, while pleasure remains a key motivator of the listening experience, the overtly violent context that the music provides can facilitate self-reflection and provide an opportunity for fans to gain insights about themselves and the world. ...
Many people listen to music that conveys challenging emotions such as sadness and anger, despite the commonly assumed purpose of media being to elicit pleasure. We propose that eudaimonic motivation, the desire to engage with aesthetic experiences to be challenged and facilitate meaningful experiences, can explain why people listen to music containing such emotions. However, it is unknown whether music containing violent themes can facilitate such meaningful experiences. In this investigation, three studies were conducted to determine the implications of eudaimonic and hedonic (pleasure-seeking) motivations for fans of music with violent themes. In Study 1, we developed and tested a new scale and showed that fans exhibit high levels of both types of motivation. Study 2 further validated the new scale and provided evidence that the two types of motivations are associated with different affective outcomes. Study 3 revealed that fans of violently themed music exhibited higher levels of eudaimonic motivation and lower levels of hedonic motivation than fans of non-violently themed music. Taken together, the findings support the notion that fans of music with violent themes are driven to engage with this music to be challenged and to pursue meaning, as well as to experience pleasure. Implications for fans’ well-being and future applications of the new measure are discussed.
... further influence his or her psychological wellbeing, particularly during the quarantine period. In contrast, a few researchers have investigated the emotional experiences, cognitive processes, and social aspects of music engagement among fans of violent rap, extreme metal music, and nonviolent Western classical music (Thompson et al., 2019;Olsen et al., 2022). Second, this study posits that the individuals' attitudes regarding music listening and music preferences were greatly influenced by their social media friend circles during quarantine period. ...
Based on social cognitive theory (SCT), the purpose of this study is to examine the role of music attitude and its essential precursors in stimulating the psychological wellbeing of immigrants in isolation (quarantine) during the COVID pandemic. This study employed quantitative methodology; an online survey was administered to collect sufficient data from 300 immigrants who traveled to China during the pandemic. Data were collected from five centralized quarantine centers situated in different cities in China. Additionally, the valid data set was analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) via AMOS 24 and SPSS 24. The results indicate that potential predictors such as cognitive - music experience (MEX), environmental - social media peer influence (SPI), and cultural factors such as native music (NM) have a direct, significant, and positive effect on music attitude (MA), which further influences immigrants’ psychological wellbeing (PW) during their quarantine period. Moreover, in the presence of the mediator (MA), the mediating relationships between MEX and PW, and NM and PW, are positive, significant, and regarded as partial mediation. However, the moderated mediation effects of music type (MT) on MEX-MA-PW and NM-MA-PW were found to be statistically not significant and unsupported. This study contributes to the literature on the effectiveness of individuals’ music attitude and its associated outcomes, focusing on mental health care in lonely situations such as quarantine during the COVID pandemic. More importantly, this study has raised awareness about music, music attitude, and their beneficial outcomes, such as mental calmness and peacefulness for the general public, particularly during social distancing, isolation, and quarantine in the COVID pandemic situation.
... Metal music genres, including extreme subgenres like death metal that incorporate violent lyrics and imagery, have been shown to stimulate positive emotions for members of the metal music community (Sun et al., 2019;Thompson et al., 2019). Contrary to claims that metal music makes people angry (Selfhout et al., 2008), it has been shown to help individuals process anger and regulate emotions (Sharman & Dingle, 2015). ...
The psychological functions of the nontheistic sacred in a secular context (metal music culture) were examined for their consistency with previous studies of the sacred in religious contexts using two studies. The first experiment examined music as a form of nontheistic sacred through a comparison of death metal fans (n = 89) listening to death metal or hard rock. The second experiment examined how some metal cultural artifacts were perceived as sacred by metal fans (n = 52), and how their loss or defilement was experienced when compared to non-sacred artifacts. The first experiment found that the death metal music was perceived as more sacred than hard rock music to the metal community, it promoted higher levels of positive affect, and it was associated with significantly higher levels of prosocial behavioral intentions, social relatedness, mood maintenance, and self-awareness, with no differences in empathy and negative affect. The second experiment found that acts of desecration of sacred items, when compared to non-sacred items, led to a higher state of anger and the loss of the items led to significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms and anxiety. The two experiments present evidence that the nontheistic sacred is experienced within the secular context of metal music in terms of functions and effects consistent with previous literature exploring the sacred in religious contexts.
... The GEMS items selected were calmness, sadness, joy, tension, and energy, as well as additional items of fear and anger (cf. Thompson et al., 2019). In a two-dimensional space comprising valence (positive, negative) and energy arousal (low, high), sadness, tension and fear are often considered as negative affect/low energy, calmness as positive affect/low energy and joy as positive affect/high energy (see, Eerola & Vuoskoski, 2011). ...
Two experiments investigated perceptual and emotional consequences of note articulation in music by examining the degree to which participants perceived notes to be separated from each other in a musical phrase. Seven-note piano melodies were synthesized with staccato notes (short decay) or legato notes (gradual/sustained decay). Experiment 1 (n = 64) addressed the impact of articulation on perceived melodic cohesion and perceived emotion expressed through melodies. Participants rated melodic cohesion and perceived emotions conveyed by 32 legato and 32 staccato melodies. Legato melodies were rated more cohesive than staccato melodies and perceived as emotionally calmer and sadder than staccato melodies. Staccato melodies were perceived as having greater tension and energy. Experiment 2 (n = 60) addressed whether articulation is associated with humor and fear in music, and whether the impact of articulation depends on major vs. minor mode. For both modes, legato melodies were scarier than staccato melodies, whereas staccato melodies were more amusing and surprising. The effect of articulation on perceived happiness and sadness was dependent on mode: staccato enhanced perceived happiness for minor melodies; legato enhanced perceived sadness for minor melodies. Findings are discussed in relation to theories of music processing, with implications for music composition, performance, and pedagogy.
... For example, classical and soothing music are assumed to positively affect relaxation and stress reduction than hard or heavy music [47,48]. At the same time, extreme metal fans experience positive emotions when listening to death metal [49] and extreme music [50]. Also, people experiencing pain tend to choose music that is higher in energy and danceability [51]. ...
The imposition of strict lockdown by the government of India during the first outbreak of COVID-19 had a remarkable impact on the well-being/wellness of the citizens. Studies around the globe demonstrated music as one of the effective strategies to enhance well-being during the lockdown. However, response to stressful events is modulated by individual characteristics like coping styles and locus of control (internal/external dependence) which have received little attention. The present chapter examined the use of music to cope with COVID-19 lockdown by these individual traits and their musical preferences during this period. A factor analysis yielded four music dimensions preferred by the participants during the lockdown: intense and electronic; cultural, emotional, and melodious; Indian contemporary and popular; and devotional music. Among the music genres, new and old Bollywood music were the most preferred genres. Participants with a higher internal locus of control, emotion, and problem-focused coping style demonstrated greater use of music in coping with stress. Problem-focused coping showed significant positive correlations with all the music dimensions, and emotion-focused coping style correlated with intense and electronic music; cultural, emotional, and melodious music; and devotional music. Internals showed no correlation with the different music genres. Externals showed a preference for intense and electronic and Indian contemporary and popular music. Listening to music had a significant positive effect on people high in emotion-focused and problem-focused coping styles and internal locus of control. However, it was not necessarily effective for people endorsing high external locus of control and avoidant coping. It implies that it can be used as a self-administered tool and therapeutically for people who engage in these coping styles and locus of control.
... Metal music genres, including extreme subgenres like death metal that incorporate violent lyrics and imagery, have been shown to stimulate positive emotions for members of the metal music community (Sun et al., 2019;Thompson et al., 2019). Contrary to claims that metal music makes people angry (Selfhout et al., 2008), it has been shown to help individuals process anger and regulate emotions (Sharman & Dingle, 2015). ...
Objective: To examine if the functions of the nontheistic sacred in a secular context are consistent with previous studies of the sacred in religious contexts. Methods: Two experiments examined the psychological functions of the nontheistic sacred within a secular context – metal music culture. The first experiment examined music as a form of nontheistic sacred through a comparison of death metal fans (n=89) listening to death metal or hard rock. The second experiment examined how some metal cultural artefacts were perceived as sacred by metal fans (n=52), and how their loss or defilement was experienced when compared to non-sacred artefacts.Results: The first experiment found that the death metal music was perceived as more sacred than hard rock music to the metal community, it promoted higher levels of positive affect, and it was associated with significantly higher levels of prosocial behavioural intentions, social relatedness, mood maintenance, and self-awareness, with no differences in empathy and negative affect. The second experiment found that acts of desecration of sacred items, when compared to non-sacred items, led to a higher state of anger and the loss of the items led to significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms and anxiety. Conclusions: The two experiments present evidence that the nontheistic sacred is experienced within the secular context of metal music in terms of functions and effects consistent with previous literature exploring the sacred in religious contexts.
This book presents advances in speech and music in the domain of audio signal processing. The book begins with introductory chapters on the basics of speech and music, and then proceeds to computational aspects of speech and music, including music information retrieval and spoken language processing. The authors discuss the intersection in the field of computer science, musicology and speech analysis, and how the multifaceted nature of speech and music information processing requires unique algorithms, systems using sophisticated signal processing, and machine learning techniques that better extract useful information. The authors discuss how a deep understanding of both speech and music in terms of perception, emotion, mood, gesture and cognition is essential for successful application. Also discussed is the overwhelming amount of data that has been generated across the world that requires efficient processing for better maintenance, retrieval, indexing and querying and how machine learning and artificial intelligence are most suited for these computational tasks. The book provides both technological knowledge and a comprehensive treatment of essential topics in speech and music processing.
Music is not just a complex sound encompassing multiple tones but an amalgamation between the harmonicity of the spectral components and its temporal relationships. Music perception involves complex auditory processing, starting at cochlea wherein fundamental pitch, duration, and loudness are encoded in the tiny hair cells of the inner ear. Derailing of the hair cells causes hearing loss, which in turn affects the spectrotemporal resolution. The offshoot of the hearing loss at the cochlear level translates physiologically into deficits in the extraction and coding of the pitch at the brainstem level, which in turn impairs pitch and temporal perception at the cortical level. Thus, hearing loss adversely affects perception of pitch, temporal, and loudness, all of which compound as difficulty appreciating the normal aspects of music perception. The contemporary solution FOR improving audibility and perception of speech sounds in the hearing-impaired population are the use of hearing aids and cochlear implants. Although these devices are primarily meant to amplify speech sounds, their utility is also advocated for music perception. Digital hearing aids employ sophisticated signal processing techniques to improve the perception of speech sounds. However these techniques do not, in music processing, and are not an alternative to human cochlea. The multichannel amplitude compression, used in hearing aids to improve audible range of loudness levels, can cause distortions in the temporal envelope of sounds resulting in poor quality for music perception. Additionally, fast-acting compression circuitry used in the modern digital hearing aids causes more temporal smearing (compared to slow-acting compression), adversely affecting music perception. The limited input dynamic range and higher crest ratio in AD converters of hearing aids fall short of processing live music. Unlike hearing aids, cochlear implants work on the principle of electrical stimulation. This auditory prosthesis processes the incoming sound and delivers its electrical output directly into the auditory nerve bypassing the cochlea. Though it is more sophisticated and advanced than hearing aids, it was developed to improve speech perception rather than music perception. A cochlear implant uses “N” number of electrode channels situated along the human cochlea to deliver its output. Since the partition along the human cochlea codes various frequencies in sounds (place coding) which cannot be matched by a surgically implanted electrode array, the cochlear implant users experience difficulties with pitch perception. The rate of stimulation used by the cochlear implant may not be higher enough to deliver the higher harmonics of musical sounds. The above discussed physiological limitations of hearing loss and technological limitations of hearing amplification devices on music perception are elaborated in this chapter. The book chapter also features comprehensive discussion on the advancements in signal processing techniques available in hearing amplification devices (hearing aids and cochlear implants) that can address these shortcomings.
Many studies have examined the effects of different types of background music on cognitive abilities. However, the results of these studies range from finding music to be a significant distraction to finding it to be beneficial. This study examined the effects of different music genres and silence on a memory test. One hundred participants were randomly assigned to four different groups: silence (no music), classical music, rock, and the final group could choose any genre they liked. The California Verbal Learning Test – Second Edition (CVLT-II) was administered to assess participant’s memory. Anxiety was also assessed before and after the memory test to see whether the music had any effect. Generally, results suggested that music presence or genre had little tangible effect on memory or anxiety.
Most previous studies investigating music-induced emotions have applied emotion models developed in other fields to the domain of music. The aim of this study was to compare the applicability of music-specific and general emotion models – namely the Geneva Emotional Music Scale (GEMS), and the discrete and dimensional emotion models – in the assessment of music-induced emotions. A related aim was to explore the role of individual difference variables (such as personality and mood) in music-induced emotions, and to discover whether some emotion models reflect these individual differences more strongly than others. One hundred and forty-eight participants listened to 16 film music excerpts and rated the emotional responses evoked by the music excerpts. Intraclass correlations and Cronbach alphas revealed that the overall consistency of ratings was the highest in the case of the dimensional model. The dimensional model also outperformed the other two models in the discrimination of music excerpts, and principal component analysis revealed that 89.9% of the variance in the mean ratings of all the scales (in all three models) was accounted for by two principal components that could be labelled as valence and arousal. Personality-related differences were the most pronounced in the case of the discrete emotion model. Personality, mood, and the emotion model used were also associated with the intensity of experienced emotions. Implications for future music and emotion studies are raised concerning the selection of an appropriate emotion model when measuring music-induced emotions. © 2011, European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music. All rights reserved.
Death Metal music with violent themes is characterised by vocalisations with unnaturally low fundamental frequencies and high levels of distortion and roughness. These attributes decrease the signal to noise ratio, rendering linguistic content difficult to understand and leaving the impression of growling, screaming, or other non-linguistic vocalisations associated with aggression and fear. Here, we compared the ability of fans and non-fans of Death Metal to accurately perceive sung words extracted from Death Metal music. We also examined whether music training confers an additional benefit to intelligibility. In a 2×2 between-subjects factorial design (fans/non-fans, musicians/non-musicians), four groups of participants (n=16 per group) were presented with 24 sung words (one per trial), extracted from the popular American Death Metal band Cannibal Corpse. On each trial, participants completed a four-alternative forced-choice word recognition task. Intelligibility (word recognition accuracy) was above chance for all groups and was significantly enhanced for fans (65.88%) relative to non-fans (51.04%). In the fan group, intelligibility between musicians and non-musicians was statistically similar. In the non-fan group, intelligibility was significantly greater for musicians relative to non-musicians. Results are discussed in the context of perceptual learning and the benefits of expertise for decoding linguistic information in sub-optimum acoustic conditions.
The recent surge of interest towards the paradoxical pleasure produced by sad music has generated a handful of theories and an array of empirical explorations on the topic. However, none of these have attempted to weigh the existing evidence in a systematic fashion. The present work puts forward an integrative framework laid out over three levels of explanation - biological, psycho-social, and cultural - to compare and integrate the existing findings in a meaningful way. First, we review the evidence pertinent to experiences of pleasure associated with sad music from the fields of neuroscience, psychophysiology, and endocrinology. Then, the psychological and interpersonal mechanisms underlying the recognition and induction of sadness in the context of music are combined with putative explanations ranging from social surrogacy and nostalgia to feelings of being moved. Finally, we address the cultural aspects of the paradox - the extent to which it is embedded in the Western notion of music as an aesthetic, contemplative object - by synthesising findings from history, ethnography, and empirical studies. Furthermore, we complement these explanations by considering the particularly significant meanings that sadness portrayed in art can evoke in some perceivers. Our central claim is that one cannot attribute the enjoyment of sadness fully to any one of these levels, but to a chain of functionalities afforded by each level. Each explanatory level has several putative explanations and its own shift towards positive valence, but none of them deliver the full transformation from a highly negative experience to a fully enjoyable experience alone. The current evidence within this framework ranges from weak to non-existent at the biological level, moderate at the psychological level, and suggestive at the cultural level. We propose a series of focussed topics for future investigation that would allow to deconstruct the drivers and constraints of the processes leading to pleasurable music-related sadness.
Why are negative emotions so central in art reception far beyond tragedy? Revisiting classical aesthetics in light of recent psychological research, we present a novel model to explain this much-discussed (apparent) paradox. We argue that negative emotions are an important resource for the arts in general rather than a special license for exceptional art forms only. The underlying rationale is that negative emotions have been shown to be particularly powerful in securing attention, intense emotional involvement, and high memorability—and hence precisely in what artworks strive for. Two groups of processing mechanisms are identified that conjointly adopt the particular powers of negative emotions for art's purposes. The first group consists of psychological distancing mechanisms that are activated along with the cognitive schemata of art, representation, and fiction. These schemata imply personal safety and control over continuing or discontinuing exposure to artworks, thereby preventing negative emotions from becoming outright incompatible with expectations of enjoyment. This distancing sets the stage for a second group of processing components that allow art recipients to positively embrace the experiencing of negative emotions, thereby rendering art reception more intense, more interesting, more emotionally moving, more profound, and occasionally even more beautiful. These components include compositional interplays of positive and negative emotions, the effects of aesthetic virtues of using the media of (re)presentation (musical sound, words/language, color, shapes) on emotion perception, and meaning-making efforts. Moreover, our D istancing –E mbracing model proposes that concomitant mixed emotions often help to integrate negative emotions into altogether pleasurable trajectories.
A hedonic theory of music and sadness is proposed. Some listeners report that nominally sad music genuinely makes them feel sad. It is suggested that, for these listeners, sad affect is evoked through a combination of empathetic responses to sad acoustic features, learned associations, and cognitive rumination. Among those listeners who report sad feelings, some report an accompanying positive affect, whereas others report the experience to be solely negative. Levels of the hormone prolactin increase when sad – producing a consoling psychological effect suggestive of a homeostatic function. It is proposed that variations in prolactin levels might account for the variability in individual hedonic responses. Specifically, it is conjectured that high prolactin concentrations are associated with pleasurable music-induced sadness, whereas low prolactin concentrations are associated with unpleasant music-induced sadness. © 2011, European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music. All rights reserved.
To facilitate a multidimensional approach to empathy the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) includes 4 subscales: Perspective-Taking (PT) Fantasy (FS) Empathic Concern (EC) and Personal Distress (PD). The aim of the present study was to establish the convergent and discriminant validity of these 4 subscales. Hypothesized relationships among the IRI subscales between the subscales and measures of other psychological constructs (social functioning self-esteem emotionality and sensitivity to others) and between the subscales and extant empathy measures were examined. Study subjects included 677 male and 667 female students enrolled in undergraduate psychology classes at the University of Texas. The IRI scales not only exhibited the predicted relationships among themselves but also were related in the expected manner to other measures. Higher PT scores were consistently associated with better social functioning and higher self-esteem; in contrast Fantasy scores were unrelated to these 2 characteristics. High EC scores were positively associated with shyness and anxiety but negatively linked to egotism. The most substantial relationships in the study involved the PD scale. PD scores were strongly linked with low self-esteem and poor interpersonal functioning as well as a constellation of vulnerability uncertainty and fearfulness. These findings support a multidimensional approach to empathy by providing evidence that the 4 qualities tapped by the IRI are indeed separate constructs each related in specific ways to other psychological measures.