No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Whistle while you work? A review of the effects of music in the workplace
Abstract
The effects of music on human performance have been studied across many disciplines. Music has been shown to impact task performance, organizational citizenship behaviors, and learning (i.e., training), but the implications of the study of music in the workplace have not yet been fully realized. Therefore, we conduct an interdisciplinary review of research on music relevant to the field of management. We also offer a solution to the lack of theoretical grounding in previous work by applying activation theory to understand the effects of music in the workplace. Taken together, the literature shows that music works through the mediator of mood and emotion. Findings also illustrate the consequences of extraversion, task complexity, and listening autonomy in relation to individual affective reactions to music. While the evidence suggests music may potentially have significant value in the workplace, more research is needed to understand how music might be effectively utilized by organizations.
... Since Bitner's (1992) seminal article on the servicescape, there has been considerable research on how servicescapes influence customer responses; however, there is a distinct lack of corresponding interest in how they affect employees. Recently, there has been some attention given to one of these stimuli, music and its effects on employees (Keeler and Cortina, 2020;Kniffin et al., 2017;Landay and Harms, 2019). Despite this resurgence in interest, the servicescape literature is curiously silent on service employees and how they are affected by their physical work environment, with some notable exceptions (Payne et al., 2017). ...
... This paucity of research on employees is a missed opportunity for organizations as extant employee-focused research has demonstrated how creating pleasurable work environments may create higher levels of employee loyalty and commitment to the organization (Budie et al., 2019;Evanschitzky et al., 2012) and also positively impact employee behaviours and attitudes (Bitner, 1992;Kaminakis et al., 2019;McElroy and Morrow, 2010). Increasing satisfaction with the physical work environment enhances employee productivity and overall firm performance (Budie et al., 2019;Keeler and Cortina, 2020;Kniffin et al., 2017;Landay and Harms, 2019), through improved levels of service delivery (Lin and Lin, 2011;Tsai and Huang, 2002). Despite prior efforts we still lack a thorough understanding of how stimuli within the work environment affect employees' emotional responses such as mood (Landay and Harms, 2019) or employee job satisfaction, or indeed behavioural responses such as employee loyalty (Skandrani et al., 2011). ...
... Increasing satisfaction with the physical work environment enhances employee productivity and overall firm performance (Budie et al., 2019;Keeler and Cortina, 2020;Kniffin et al., 2017;Landay and Harms, 2019), through improved levels of service delivery (Lin and Lin, 2011;Tsai and Huang, 2002). Despite prior efforts we still lack a thorough understanding of how stimuli within the work environment affect employees' emotional responses such as mood (Landay and Harms, 2019) or employee job satisfaction, or indeed behavioural responses such as employee loyalty (Skandrani et al., 2011). Our study, therefore, responds to repeated calls for research to explore the effects of the physical work environment on employees (Budie et al., 2019;Kniffin et al., 2017;Payne et al., 2017;Redman et al., 2011). ...
Purpose
Despite repeated calls for research to explore the effects of the physical work environment on employees within the servicescape literature, gaps in knowledge remain. There is a need to understand the nature, influence and impact of environmental stimuli (e.g. music, colour) on employees. Extant research remains ambiguous on whether employees perceive individual stimuli within their work environment or perceive and interact with their physical work environment as a holistic experience. This study aims to explore the influence of environmental stimuli on employees within their physical work environment and the effect on their satisfaction and loyalty.
Design/methodology/approach
A two-stage approach was applied, with expert interviews followed by an employee survey which was analysed using structural equation modelling.
Findings
This research validates a holistic physical work environment construct, consisting of five dimensions: Colour & Design, Cleanliness & Odour, Music, Lighting and Layout. This study provides empirical evidence of the impact of environmental work stimuli on employee satisfaction, a relationship which is mediated by pleasure.
Originality/value
Firstly, this study examines the neglected side of servicescape research: employees. Secondly, the findings support the view that employees do not perceive individual elements of their physical work environment as distinct and separate elements but rather perceive, and interact with, their physical work environment as an integrated whole. Evidence of how environmental stimuli at work increase employee job satisfaction is a key takeaway for retail practitioners focussed on improving service experiences for all actors.
... Since Bitner's (1992) seminal article on the servicescape, there has been considerable research on how servicescapes influence customer responses; however, there is a distinct lack of corresponding interest in how they affect employees. Recently, there has been some attention given to one of these stimuli, music and its effects on employees (Keeler and Cortina, 2020;Kniffin et al., 2017;Landay and Harms, 2019). Despite this resurgence in interest, the servicescape literature is curiously silent on service employees and how they are affected by their physical work environment, with some notable exceptions (Payne et al., 2017). ...
... This paucity of research on employees is a missed opportunity for organizations as extant employee-focused research has demonstrated how creating pleasurable work environments may create higher levels of employee loyalty and commitment to the organization (Budie et al., 2019;Evanschitzky et al., 2012) and also positively impact employee behaviours and attitudes (Bitner, 1992;Kaminakis et al., 2019;McElroy and Morrow, 2010). Increasing satisfaction with the physical work environment enhances employee productivity and overall firm performance (Budie et al., 2019;Keeler and Cortina, 2020;Kniffin et al., 2017;Landay and Harms, 2019), through improved levels of service delivery (Lin and Lin, 2011;Tsai and Huang, 2002). Despite prior efforts we still lack a thorough understanding of how stimuli within the work environment affect employees' emotional responses such as mood (Landay and Harms, 2019) or employee job satisfaction, or indeed behavioural responses such as employee loyalty (Skandrani et al., 2011). ...
... Increasing satisfaction with the physical work environment enhances employee productivity and overall firm performance (Budie et al., 2019;Keeler and Cortina, 2020;Kniffin et al., 2017;Landay and Harms, 2019), through improved levels of service delivery (Lin and Lin, 2011;Tsai and Huang, 2002). Despite prior efforts we still lack a thorough understanding of how stimuli within the work environment affect employees' emotional responses such as mood (Landay and Harms, 2019) or employee job satisfaction, or indeed behavioural responses such as employee loyalty (Skandrani et al., 2011). Our study, therefore, responds to repeated calls for research to explore the effects of the physical work environment on employees (Budie et al., 2019;Kniffin et al., 2017;Payne et al., 2017;Redman et al., 2011). ...
This paper introduces an “ethics of care” lens to the literature on Transformative Services Research (TSR) to understand how service users and providers co-create transformational value and well-being. In considering six food poverty organizations—categorized as market-oriented, faith-oriented, or neighborhood-oriented—the authors argue that the intention behind enacting an ethics of care drives different possibilities for transformative value. The analysis is organized in line with Tronto’s (1993; 2001) phases of caring, and makes connections between values that drive the organization’s work, emerging subjectivities, practices that unfold as a result, and ultimately the value that is co-created. The findings show that caring relations must be considered “in situ,” as an organization’s values and practices are what determine the potential for transformative value.
... Evidence about the disturbing, enhancing, or neutral nature of this influence, however, is mixed (see [3], for a meta-analysis). Important factors that have been identified in this context are task difficulty [4], music complexity [5], and the personal preference for external stimulation, along with extraversion [6,7]. As to emotional factors, arousal and mood conveyed by the music have been shown to differentially influence memory performance [8,9]. ...
... Findings, however, are inconsistent. For instance, music has mostly been found to distract the reader, but it can also promote concentration (see [4,11], for reviews). Several studies demonstrate that text comprehension is impaired by background music or noise when compared to reading in silence [12,13]. ...
Numerous studies indicate that listening to music and reading are processes that interact in multiple ways. However, these interactions have rarely been explored with regard to the role of emotional mood. In this study, we first conducted two pilot experiments to assess the conveyed emotional mood of four classical music pieces and that of four narrative text excerpts. In the main experiment, participants were asked to read the texts while listening to the music and to rate their emotional state in terms of valence, arousal, and dominance. Subsequently, they rated text and music of the multisensory event in terms of the perceived mood, liking, immersion, and music-text fit. We found a mutual carry-over effect of happy and sad moods from music to text and vice versa. Against our expectations, this effect was not mediated by the valence, arousal, or dominance experienced by the subject. Moreover, we revealed a significant interaction between music mood and text mood. Texts were liked better, they were classified as of better quality, and participants felt more immersed in the text if text mood and music mood corresponded. The role of mood congruence when listening to music while reading should not be ignored and deserves further exploration.
... On the other hand, Fox [5] argued that music was a means of maintaining workers' attention in the face of the inevitable lapse in alertness caused by repetitive work; that is, music does not increase productivity per se, but instead maintains baseline levels. It can be argued that such a view of work performance falls short, given that even the earliest studies found that music boosted morale and that workers were generally opposed to removing music once it was introduced [6]. Workers may not have actually worked harder, faster, or better, but they felt better, and as is generally recognized in the literature, subjective well-being is a protective factor against negative workplace outcomes [7]. ...
... However, this relationship is not linear, and it has been found to be moderated not only by other variables but also to depend on the task. If more cognitive resources cannot be allocated to the task, a further increase in resources for cognitive processes will not lead to an increase in performance [6]. On the other hand, music does not usually produce excessive levels of arousal [20]. ...
Although there are several studies in the literature that have examined how different types of music affect performance or other organisational outcomes, knowledge about how music affects individuals in the workplace is still limited, especially in terms of perceived music use. This study aims to examine the effects of three different uses of music—namely, emotional, cognitive, and background music—on individual perceptions of job satisfaction and performance. A sample of 244 workers from different backgrounds was included in the study. We tested a full structural equation model. The results show that (1) emotional use has a positive relationship to performance, both directly and indirectly through mediating job satisfaction; (2) cognitive use has no significant effect on satisfaction and performance (even indirectly); and (3) background use has a negative relationship to job satisfaction and no relationship to performance. This work suggests that listening to music during work activities could be a positive organisational practice. Future studies could further investigate the role of music listening as a resource, taking into account other personal and contextual characteristics.
... Investigating the effects of background noise and music on cognitive test performance in introverts and extraverts: A cross-cultural study Music has become increasingly prevalent and accessible in individuals' daily lives, with the advent of new online streaming services and portable music devices. Many individuals also work in noisy environments, given the rise in popularity of open-plan offices over more traditional closed-plan offices (Landay & Harms, 2019). As such, there has been an increase in the amount of research examining the effects of these background sounds on cognitive performance, which is particularly important given the implications for learning and productivity in both educational and organisational work settings (Gheewalla et al., 2020;Jamshidzad et al., 2018;Lesiuk, 2005;Schwartz et al., 2017). ...
... This hypothesis postulates that music has the ability to increase arousal level and induce a positive mood in listeners, which can then facilitate cognitive abilities and performance (Landay & Harms, 2019). It is well documented that music can influence arousal and mood levels in listeners by altering autonomic and neurochemical arousal indices (see review by Rickard et al., 2005), and electrocortical activity in the brain (Schmidt & Trainor, 2001). ...
Previous research found that introverts performed worse than extraverts on cognitive tasks in the presence of noise or music in a Western sample but not in an Asian sample. This is a cross-cultural part replication of these studies using a Western (British; N = 45) and Asian (Singaporean; N = 45) sample. Participants engaged in three cognitive tests in the presence of pop songs, background noise, and in silence. It was predicted that for British participants, introverts would perform worse than extraverts on all three tasks in the presence of background sounds, and performance would be worse in the presence of background sounds than in silence, but not for the Singaporean participants. The results did not show any performance differences between the background sound conditions for any of the tests across the two samples, nor any performance differences between extraverts and introverts across the background sound conditions, with three exceptions: extraversion for the British was a significant predictor of performance on the Raven’s test in the silence condition, extraversion was a significant predictor of performance for both groups on the mental arithmetic task in the silence condition, and extraversion was a significant predictor of performance for Singaporeans on the mental arithmetic task in the music condition.
... memory vs comprehension); and the personality of the individual (i.e. extraversion vs introverts; Dobbs, Furnham, and McClelland 2011;Landay and Harms 2019). This study examines the effects of two types of noise, on the reading comprehension of introverts and extraverts. ...
... Furnham and Strbac 2002), showing that both have effects on performance. The literature on the effects of music on performance has been recently and comprehensively reviewed by Landay and Harms (2019) who concluded that the effect of music on cognition is mediated through mood and emotion. Gonzalez and Aiello (2019) came to a similar conclusion; 'we found that music generally impaired performance on a complex task, whereas complex music improved performance on a simple task. ...
This study was concerned with the effects of acoustic distraction at work. Using a within-subject study we aimed to investigate the effect of background distraction on cognitive performance. In the presence of silence, white noise, and sirens, 55 fluent English speakers completed three equivalent variations of a reading comprehension task. As predicted, there was a significant main effect of background sound, with poorer performance in the presence of distraction (particularly sirens), but no interaction was found between distraction and extraversion. Thus, the findings partially replicated previous research in terms of distraction but were inconsistent with regard to the Eysenckian theory of arousal differences between introverts and extraverts. Implications of the effect of sirens on those they are not designed to alert are considered. Limitations of this study are also considered.
Practitioner Summary: This study was concerned with whether white noise and the sound of sirens affects reading comprehension. We found that compared to doing a highly involving and demanding cognitive task in silence, siren noise has the most significant negative effect on performance. Compared to working silence, white noise also reduced the efficiency of text comprehension. There were no introvert–extravert effects.
... In the workplace, music has also been widely used to boost performance and motivation (Styhre, 2013;Landay and Harms, 2019). For example, Geethanjali et al. (2016) measured the task performance and associated physiological changes of participants listening to music (Indian classical instrumental or Indo jazz). ...
The effects of musical tempo on cognitive processing speed were investigated, and the mediating effect of arousal was empirically tested. In an experiment, participants were divided into fast tempo, slow tempo, and no-music groups and completed three cognitive processing speed tests measuring motor speed, visuospatial processing speed, and linguistic processing speed. The results indicated a significant effect of musical tempo on processing speed and task performance in all three tasks. The slow-tempo group exhibited slower processing speed and worse performance than the no-music group in all three tasks. The fast tempo group displayed no significant difference in processing speed or performance compared with the no-music group. In the linguistic processing task, those who listened to slow-tempo music had better accuracy than those in the other conditions. Arousal did not mediate the relationship between musical tempo and cognitive processing speed.
... Following the Mozart effect, a series of studies attempted to replicate these findings, examined different types of music, and found mixed results. While some found positive effects of music (e.g., Schellenberg & Hallam, 2006), others found negative ones (for reviews, see Dalton & Behm, 2007;Kämpfe et al., 2011;Landay & Harms, 2019), or found no effect (e.g., Burkhard et al., 2018). It has also been suggested that the effect of music on performance can depend on different task properties, such as task demands (see Beh and & Hirst, 1999). ...
Mind wandering (MW) reflects a situation in which the cognitive system is detached from the main task and involved with inner thoughts. It has been well document that music and other background sounds can have positive effects on number of cognitive functioning. In addition, other body of literature suggests that background sounds might have specifically positive effect on individuals with more attention deficiencies. Hence, the current study examines the effect of background sounds on MW. In two experiments, the effect of background sounds: music (Experiment 1) or an alerting tone (Experiment 2) while performing sustained attention tasks was examined among typical development participants with different severity of attention deficiency. Background sounds were found to reduce MW especially in individuals with more ADHD symptoms. This was further discussed in the context of several theories, and it was suggested that background sound might be used as a tool for MW reduction.
... In addition, some studies have also noticed the influence of external environmental factors and objective conditions (e.g., music, text, images, environmental colors, drawing methods, and individuals/groups) on creativity in design education (Goldschmidt & Sever, 2011;Goldschmidt & Smolkov, 2006;Damle & Smith, 2009;Van Der Lugt, 2005). In these external factors, music can affect task performance in various areas (Landay & Harms, 2019), but its effect on idea generation in practical design tasks has not been fully explored. ...
Creative idea generation plays an important role in design process. Our study aimed to use physiological signals to evaluate the effect of music on idea generation in individual and group conditions. Thirty graduate students with design experience were recruited to generate ideas for specific design topics and sketch these ideas. The experiment included a total of six trials of design tasks under three kinds of music conditions (positive music, negative music, and nonmusic) and individual/group conditions. Electrocardiography (ECG) and electroencephalography (EEG) data were collected for objective evaluation; the quantity and quality of design ideas were recorded and rated for subjective evaluation. The results showed that participants produced more ideas in positive music condition, but the quality of the design ideas was worse; group condition was more likely to evoke pleasant emotions. We also found that heart rate fluctuated in different music and individual/group conditions; alpha2 activity was closely related to creative idea generation, and theta activity was affected by different music conditions. These findings demonstrated that positive music was useful when more ideas were needed in the early stage of design process, and nonmusic was a better choice for a stage requiring deeper thought. Our study reveals the effect of music on idea generation, and helps to explore the influence mechanisms of emotion and brain neural activities of cognitive process in our daily work.
... For instance, since the introduction of the auto radio in the 1950s, researchers, manufacturers, and even insurance companies have been concerned with how music impacts people's psychological state and driving performance (Millet et al., 2019;van der Zwaag et al., 2012). Similarly, the effects of music on daily activities, such as working (Landay & Harms, 2019;Rastipisheh et al., 2019;Shih et al., 2012), shopping Hynes & Manson, 2016;Knöferle et al., 2017;Michel et al., 2017;Yi & Kang, 2019), or exercising (Hutchinson et al., 2018;Moss et al., 2018;Terry et al., 2020) have been the focus of extensive empirical interest (see also Kämpfe et al., 2011). In most developed countries, music is also part of what is, perhaps, one of the most critical and recurring human activities: eating. ...
Music is a ubiquitous stimulus known to influence human affect, cognition, and behavior. In the context of eating behavior, music has been associated with food choice, intake and, more recently, taste perception. In the latter case, the literature has reported consistent patterns of association between auditory and gustatory attributes, suggesting that individuals reliably recognize taste attributes in musical stimuli. This study presents subjective norms for a new set of 100 instrumental music stimuli, including basic taste correspondences (sweetness, bitterness, saltiness, sourness), emotions (joy, anger, sadness, fear, surprise), familiarity, valence, and arousal. This stimulus set was evaluated by 329 individuals (83.3% women; Mage = 28.12, SD = 12.14), online (n = 246) and in the lab (n = 83). Each participant evaluated a random subsample of 25 soundtracks and responded to self-report measures of mood and taste preferences, as well as the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI). Each soundtrack was evaluated by 68 to 97 participants (Mdn = 83), and descriptive results (means, standard deviations, and confidence intervals) are available as supplemental material at osf.io/2cqa5. Significant correlations between taste correspondences and emotional/affective dimensions were observed (e.g., between sweetness ratings and pleasant emotions). Sex, age, musical sophistication, and basic taste preferences presented few, small to medium associations with the evaluations of the stimuli. Overall, these results suggest that the new Taste & Affect Music Database is a relevant resource for research and intervention with musical stimuli in the context of crossmodal taste perception and other affective, cognitive, and behavioral domains.
... On the other hand, there were also some previous studies suggested that distinctive background sound could raise task performance in some cases. For example, it was found that listening to personal stereos at work time brought a host of benefits for office employees [20], such as promoting satisfaction, improving mood, and decreasing the turnover intentions of employees, especially for those engaging on monotonous and repetitive works. Vigilant performance in noise conditions was also significantly better than that in a quiet environment as the presence of noise boosting individual task-engagement [37]. ...
Sound distraction is often seen as an enemy of productivity, especially in the open-plan office. The present study involves a laboratory experiment exploring the effect of six kinds of typical background sound in the office on concentration and verbal reasoning performance. The six different sound were classified into the music group, including running water sound (RW), pure classic music (PM), classic music with lyrics (ML), and noise group, including intelligible speech (IS), mechanical noise of keyboard and printer (MN), and telephone ring (TR). During the experiment, they were presented at three different levels: 40 dBA, 50 dBA, and 60 dBA. Additionally, ambient sound at 30 dBA was designed as the control group. A total of 79 subjects were recruited to conduct a neurobehavioral experiment. Feature match (FM) tests and grammatical reasoning (GR) tests were used respectively to detect subjects' concentration level and verbal reasoning performance, including accuracy and efficiency. After each subtest, subjects were invited to rate their activation and annoyance for the test. Results indicated that sound type and sound intensity both had significant effects on the accuracy and efficiency of concentration and verbal reasoning. 1) the noise group exhibited higher task performance loss than the music group, especially the IS. 2) High intensity generally brought higher accuracy and verbal reasoning loss. 3) Background sound brought higher activation while sound at 60 dBA brought a negative activation rating. 4)Background sound bright high annoyance when the intensity was over 50 dBA. 5) PM was more favorable for the enhancement of concentration and verbal reasoning than ML.
... Music acts as auditory environmental enrichment not only for humans but also for animals, with exposure to classical music reducing abnormal behaviour and endocrine stress responses in humans, non-human primates and rodents (Barcellos et al., 2018). The literature shows that music acts through the mediating factors of mood and emotion (Landay and Harms, 2018). Listening to music has great potential to rehabilitate mood and is believed to be a powerful therapeutic tool for that purpose, with music chosen by the listener being most effective for short-term mood enhancement (Lynar et al., 2017). ...
Music or other background sounds are often played in barns as environmental enrichment for animals on farms or to mask sudden disruptive noises. Previous studies looking at the effects of this practice on non-human animal well-being and productivity have found contradictory results. However, there is still a lack of discussion on whether piglets have the ability to distinguish different types of music. In this study, we exposed piglets to different music conditions to investigate whether the piglets preferred certain music types, in which case those types would have the potential to be used as environmental enrichment. In total, 30 piglets were tested for music type preference to determine whether growing pigs respond differently to different types of music. We used music from two families of instruments (S: string, W: wind) and with two tempos (S: slow, 65 beats/min (bpm); F: fast, 200 bpm), providing four music-type combinations (SS: string-slow; SF: string-fast; WS: wind-slow; WF: wind-fast). The piglets were given a choice between two chambers, one with no music and the other with one of the four types of music, and their behaviour was observed. The results showed that SS and WF music significantly increased residence time (P
... Psychologists have long held an interest in whether music can affect performance on cognitive tasks (henceforth referred to as "task performance"). While researchers have offered explanations for how music affects task performance in certain contexts (e.g., Perham & Sykora, 2012;Rauscher, Shaw, & Ky, 1993;Thompson, Schellenberg, & Husain, 2001), there is nevertheless mixed evidence regarding how music affects task performance more generally (for reviews, see Dalton & Behm, 2007;Kampfe, Sedlmeier, & Renkewitz, 2010;Landay & Harms, 2017;Schellenberg, 2005). Indeed, several research studies offer mixed evidence regarding how music affects task performance, showing that music either facilitated (e.g., Lesiuk, 2005;Rauscher, Shaw, Levine, Ky, & Wright, 1994;Schellenberg & Hallam, 2005;Schellenberg, Na-kata, Hunter, & Tamoto, 2007), hindered (e.g., Cassidy & Mac-Donald, 2007;Furnham & Bradley, 1997;Furnham & Strbac, 2002;Reynolds, McClelland, & Furnham, 2014), or did not affect task performance (e.g., Reynolds et al., 2014;Steele, Brown, & Stoecker, 1999). ...
Researchers have documented various (sometimes conflicting) effects of music on cognitive task performance, and have highlighted several mechanisms through which these effects may occur (e.g., arousal, mood, attention). To further understand these effects, we consider interactions between musicbased, task-based, and performer-based characteristics. Specifically, we drew from the distractionconflict theory of social facilitation and research on boredom proneness to hypothesize that music-along with its complexity and volume-facilitates simple task performance and impairs complex task performance, and that one's preference for external stimulation (a dimension of boredom proneness) moderates these effects. We tested our hypotheses in a laboratory experiment, in which participants completed cognitive tasks either in silence or with music of varying complexity and volume. We found that (a) music generally impaired complex task performance, (b) complex music facilitated simple task performance, and (c) preference for external stimulation moderated these effects. Therefore, the data suggest that music's effects on task performance depend on the music, the task, and the performer.
The importance of music is a key topic that has been studied in many disciplines. We examined the relationship between employees' perception of happy music and their creative performance, and explored the mediating effect of psychological safety in this link. Data were collected from 315 employees working in three large hotels located in Mainland China. We performed structural equation modeling to test the proposed research model. Results show that employees' perception of happy music was positively related to creative performance, and this relationship was mediated by perceived psychological safety. Therefore, employees produced creative outcomes while perceiving the happiness of music in the workplace, in part because they felt psychologically safe. Our findings offer organizations practical insight into how to promote employee creativity by using music as an effective tool for enhancing the quality of the work environment. Implications for future research are discussed.
Background:
Existing studies on the impact of background music in the workplace have reported varying results, from improving production and performance to being known as an annoying factor. Given the lack of evidence of the background music influence on the cognitive factors in the work place in previous studies and the lack of study on the effect of background music on skill performance when gender and personality type is considered, research in this area seems necessary.
Objective:
The purpose of the present study is to investigate the influence of background music on cognitive and skill performance in the work place with regard to gender and personality type.
Methods:
This study was conducted with the participation of 52 students (26 males and 26 females) aged between 18-30 years old. Sustained attention, working memory, fine finger and gross manual dexterity skills and personality type were assessed. Participants were randomly tested once when being exposed to classical instrumental music and once again when faced with complete silenceRESULTS:Playing background music improved students working memory but had no significant effect on sustained attention. Music also improved skill performance.Overall, memory performance and fine finger dexterity were found significantly better in extroverts when compared to introverts during playing background music.
Conclusion:
Background music improves working memory and speeds up performance in skill tasks, however the role of personality type in influencing background music on cognitive and skill performance needs further investigation.
Although the importance of music for individuals has long been recognized, the effect of music on employee behavior in the workplace has not yet been fully realized. We developed a theoretical model emphasizing the mediating role of psychological safety in the relationship between pleasant music and voice behavior. A survey was conducted with 241 hotel employees in China. Structural equation modeling analysis results show that pleasant music was positively related to psychological safety, which was positively related to voice behavior. Further, psychological safety fully mediated the relationship between pleasant music and voice behavior. We discuss the implications of our findings to understand the mechanisms through which pleasant music boosts employees' voice behavior, and suggest future research directions.
This study examined corporate singing, specifically when members sing together in religious organizations. Consistent with the literature, we found that organizations whose members participate in corporate singing, versus merely listening to others sing, had more prosocial behavior (i.e., greater voluntarism). In addition, the study examined whether four different types of singing (chanting, unison, harmony, or a combination of types) aligned in predictable ways with the four organizational cultures associated with the Competing Values Framework (bureaucracy, market, clan, and adhocracy, respectively), and found some support for three of the hypothesized relationships. Implications are discussed.
There is an extensive literature concerned with the impact of music on customers. However, no study has examined its effects on service workers and their interactions with customers. Drawing together literatures on service work and music in everyday life, the article develops a theoretical framework for exploring the role of music in service exchanges. Two central factors are identified – how workers hear, and respond, to the music soundscape, and their relations with customers, given these have the potential to be both alienating and positive to the point of meaningful social interaction. From these, a 2×2 matrix is constructed, comprising four potential scenarios. The authors argue for the likely importance of music’s role as a bridge for sociality between worker and customer. The article considers this theorising by drawing upon interviews with 60 retail and café workers in UK chains and independents, and free text comments collected through a survey of workers in a large service retailer. The findings show broad support for music acting as a bridge for sociality. Service workers appropriate music for their own purposes and many use this to provide texture and substance to social interactions with customers.
Music as an environmental aspect of professional workplaces has been closely studied with respect to consumer behavior while sparse attention has been given to its relevance for employee behavior. In this article, we focus on the influence of music upon cooperative behavior within decision-making groups. Based on results from two extended 20-round public goods experiments, we find that happy music significantly and positively influences cooperative behavior. We also find a significant positive association between mood and cooperative behavior. Consequently, while our studies provide partial support for the relevance of affect in relation to cooperation within groups, we also show an independently important function of happy music that fits with a theory of synchronous and rhythmic activity as a social lubricant. More generally, our findings indicate that music and perhaps other atmospheric variables that are designed to prime consumer behavior might have comparably important effects for employees and consequently warrant closer investigation. Copyright © 2016 The Authors Journal of Organizational Behavior Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
We draw from personality systems interaction (PSI) theory (Kuhl, 2000) and regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997) to examine how dynamic positive and negative affective processes interact to predict both task and contextual performance. Using a twice-daily diary design over the course of a 3-week period, results from multilevel regression analysis revealed that distinct patterns of change in positive and negative affect optimally predicted contextual and task performance among a sample of 71 employees at a medium-sized technology company. Specifically, within persons, increases (upshifts) in positive affect over the course of a workday better predicted the subsequent day's organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) when such increases were coupled with decreases (downshifts) in negative affect. The optimal pattern of change in positive and negative affect differed, however, in predicting task performance. That is, upshifts in positive affect over the course of the workday better predicted the subsequent day's task performance when such upshifts were accompanied by upshifts in negative affect. The contribution of our findings to PSI theory and the broader affective and motivation regulation literatures, along with practical implications, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record
This chapter provides an introductory review of research that has addressed personality correlates of performance through application of cognitive psychological models. Early experimental studies (e.g., Eysenck, 1957, 1967) showed that basic traits such as extraversion (E) and neuroticism (N) relate to performance on a variety of standard laboratory tasks requiring cognitive functions such as perception, attention, memory and speeded response. Eysenck (1967) attempted to explain these findings in terms of traditional arousal theory. However, failings of arousal theory (Matthews & Gilliland, 1999) imply that we must look more closely at the different information-processing components that may be sensitive to personality.
First, I will discuss the background to the field provided by psychobiological models of traits, and the theoretical and methodological issues that cognitive science brings into focus. Second, I will review some of the major cognitive systems, such as those controlling attention and memory, to which personality traits relate. The ultimate goals of this research are to specify in detail how traits may bias specific parameters within a computational model of cognition. I will conclude by revisiting theoretical issues, including the key question of how studies of performance may contribute to an integrated, coherent theory of traits.
The relative utility of the 'pleasantness' and 'liking' dimensions in predicting emotions expressed by music was investigated. The sample of 121 undergraduates (79 female, 42 male) listened to four songs representing each of the four quadrants of the circumplex model of emotion and rated each song on pleasantness, liking, arousal, familiarity, and the expression of eight emotions. The findings indicated that the emotions expressed in these diverse pieces of music were quite reliably predicted by a combination of the arousal, pleasantness, and familiarity variables, although the amount of variance accounted for by these equations was moderate at best. Pleasantness also represented a more useful predictor of emotions expressed than did liking when the circumplex model of emotion was applied to the musical domain. Copyright
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 (M→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 M→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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The present paper identifies and discusses contemporary problems in the self-regulation, expectancy-value, and goal-setting conceptualizations of task-specific motivation. Three issues are examined in detail: (1) the construct validity of performance measures as a criterion of motivation on cognitive tasks; (2) the influence of objective task characteristics on both the measurement of motivation and the motivation process itself; and (3) the measurement, meaning, and function of the perceived effort-performance relation and probabilistic measures of performance expectations. Within each issue, theoretical advances in information processing and decision making are integrated with previous empirical findings pertaining to performance motivation. Examination of these issues suggests that further emphasis be placed on form analyses of three cognitive mechanisms and on validating a conceptual framework concerning the influence of situational and individual-difference factors on specific cognitive components. A heuristic model, extending previous conceptualizations on the basis of new knowledge in the cognitive domain, is presented as a guide for further integrative research on task-specific motivation.
Creativity and innovation in any organization are vital to its successful performance. The authors review the rapidly growing body of research in this area with particular attention to the period 2002 to 2013, inclusive. Conceiving of both creativity and innovation as being integral parts of essentially the same process, we propose a new, integrative definition. We note that research into creativity has typically examined the stage of idea generation, whereas innovation studies have commonly also included the latter phase of idea implementation. The authors discuss several seminal theories of creativity and innovation, then apply a comprehensive levels-of-analysis framework to review extant research into individual, team, organizational, and multi-level innovation. Key measurement characteristics of the reviewed studies are then noted. In conclusion, we propose a guiding framework for future research comprising eleven major themes and sixty specific questions for future studies.
This article reviews research showing that music can alter peoples' moods and emotions. The so called “musical mood induction procedure” (MMIP) relies on music to produce changes in experienced affective processes. The fact that music can have this effect on subjective experience has been utilized to study the effect of mood on cognitive processes and behavior by a large number of researchers in social, clinical, and personality psychology. This extensive body of literature, while little known among music psychologists, is likely to further help music psychologists understand affective responses to music. With this in mind, the present article aims at providing an extensive review of the methodology behind a number of studies using the MMIP. The effectiveness of music as a mood-inducing stimulus is discussed in terms of self-reports, physiological, and behavioral indices. The discussion focuses on how findings from the MMIP literature may extend into current research and debate on the complex interplay of music and emotional responses.
Music may arouse intense emotions in listeners, but little is known about the circumstances that contribute to such reactions. Here we report a listening experiment that investigated the roles of selected musical, situational, and individual factors in emotional reactions to music. In a 2 x 2 factorial design, we manipulated music choice (self-chosen vs. randomly sampled) and social context (alone vs. with a close friend or partner). Fifty university students (20-43 years old) rated their emotional responses to the music in terms of overall emotion intensity and 15 emotions. We also measured personality traits (NEO-PI-R) and psychophysiological responses (skin conductance, heart rate). Consistent with predictions based on previous field studies, listeners reported more intense emotions (1) to self-chosen music than to randomly selected music and (2) when listening with a close friend or partner than when listening alone. Moreover, listeners scoring high on the trait Openness to experience experienced more intense emotions than listeners scoring low. All three factors correlated positively with the experience of positive emotions such as happiness and pleasure.
Utilizing the Experience Sampling Method, this research investigated how individuals encounter music in everyday life. Responding to two text messages sent at random times between 8:00 and 23:00 daily for one week, 177 participants completed self-reports online regarding their experience with any music heard within a two-hour period prior to receipt of the message. Overall, the radio, mobile MP3 players, and computers featured prominently. Detailed analyses revealed significant patterns in device usage based on time of day; ratings of the music in terms of choice, liking, arousal, and attention; mood; and the perceived consequences of the music. While feeling lethargic associated with recorded music broadcasted in public, in contrast personal music collections promoted contentment. Similarly, devices allowing for personal input were met with positive consequences, like motivation. The current findings imply that the greater control that technology affords leads to complex patterns of everyday music usage, and that listeners are active consumers rather than passive listeners.
(Note: published online first in 2013; available for download at: http://pom.sagepub.com/content/43/2/155)
Several studies indicate that mood can influence the likelihood of an individual demonstrating instances of helping behavior, and one previous laboratory study has indicated that music can be used to bring about manipulations of mood to such an end. To investigate this in a naturalistic setting, 646 users of a university gym were played either uplifting or annoying music while theyworked out. Upon completion of theirworkout, they were asked to either sign a petition in support of a fictitious sporting charity (i.e., a low-cost task) or to distribute leaflets on their behalf (i.e., a high-cost task). Responses to the petition-signing measure indicated a ceiling effect with almost all participants offering to help. However, consistent with previous research on mood and helping behavior, uplifting music led to participants offering to help more on the high-cost, leaflet-distributing task than did annoying music.
Organizational research has relied too heavily on methods characterized by passive observation, likely because there is a widespread belief that experimental research has limited generalizability. However, this is often because researchers (and reviewers or editors) misunderstand the nature of generalizability and what it requires. This article reiterates the importance of experimental research for understanding organizational phenomena and separates the legitimate concerns about experimental generalizability from the irrelevant ones. Whereas most criticisms of experiments focus on sample characteristics and mundane realism (i.e., superficial resemblance to the real world), more attention needs to be paid to the degree to which the treatment manipulation is valid, representative, and strong.
A topology of complex tasks is derived from four fundamental task attributes; and implications for both basic and applied research are examined.
I (Waterhouse, 2006) argued that, because multiple intelligences, the Mozart effect, and emo- tional intelligence theories have inadequate empirical support and are not consistent with cog- nitive neuroscience findings, these theories should not be applied in education. Proponents countered that their theories had sufficient empirical support, were consistent with cognitive neuroscience findings, and should be applied in education (Cherniss, Extein, Goleman, & Weissberg, 2006; Gardner & Moran, 2006; Rauscher & Hinton, 2006). However, Gardner and Moran offered no validating evidence for multiple intelligences, Rauscher and Hinton con- cluded that "listening-to-Mozart" studies should be disregarded, and Cherniss, Extein, Goleman, and Weissberg agreed that emotional intelligence lacked a unitary empirically sup- ported construct. My reply addresses theory proponents' specific criticisms of my review and reasserts my original claims. In "Multiple Intelligences, the Mozart Effect, and Emotional Intelligence: A Critical Review" (Waterhouse, 2006), I ar- gued that "MI theory has no validating data … the Mozart ef- fect theory has more negative than positive findings, and EI theory lacks a unitary empirically supported construct." I also argued that these theories' brain system claims were not consistent with relevant cognitive neuroscience findings and concluded that until these theories have garnered reasonable evidentiary support they should not be applied in education. Theory proponents counterargued that their theories were
The study investigated the effects of music with high arousal potential and negative affect (HA), music with low arousal potential and positive affect (LA), and everyday noise, on the cognitive task performance of introverts and extraverts. Forty participants completed five cognitive tasks: immediate recall, free recall, numerical and delayed recall, and Stroop. Ten participants completed each of these tasks in one of four sound conditions: HA, LA, everyday noise and silence. Participants were also assessed for levels of introversion/ extroversion, and reported their music/noise and study preferences. Performance was lessened across all cognitive tasks in the presence of background sound (music or noise) compared to silence. HA and LA music produced differential distraction effects, with performance of all tasks being poorer in the presence of HA compared to LA and silence, in the presence of noise than silence across all tasks, and in the presence of noise than LA in three of the four tasks. Performance was moderated by internal arousal, with introverts performing better overall on each task except the Stroop, and appearing to be more detrimentally affected by the presence of HA music and noise.
There are many ways in which music and the management of work, space, time, bodies, and feelings are linked, and there is a small but rich tradition of academic research that has attempted to explore these connections. This special issue aims to contribute to this work. Our introduction identifies existing work, introduces the three articles that make up the substantive contribution of this special issue, and points to opportunities for researchers to make further contributions.
The “Mozart effect” refers to claims that people perform better on tests of spatial abilities after listening to music composed by Mozart. We examined whether the Mozart effect is a consequence of between-condition differences in arousal and mood. Participants completed a test of spatial abilities after listening to music or sitting in silence. The music was a Mozart sonata (a pleasant and energetic piece) for some participants and an Albinoni adagio (a slow, sad piece) for others. We also measured enjoyment, arousal, and mood. Performance on the spatial task was better following the music than the silence condition, but only for participants who heard Mozart. The two music selections also induced differential responding on the enjoyment, arousal, and mood measures. Moreover, when such differences were held constant by statistical means, the Mozart effect disappeared. These findings provide compelling evidence that the Mozart effect is an artifact of arousal and mood.
In Songs of the Factory, Marek Korczynski examines the role that popular music plays in workers’ culture on the factory floor. Reporting on his ethnographic fieldwork in a British factory that manufactures window blinds, Korczynski shows how workers make often-grueling assembly-line work tolerable by permeating their workday with pop music on the radio. The first ethnographic study of musical culture in an industrial workplace, Songs of the Factory draws on socio-musicology, cultural studies, and sociology of work, combining theoretical development, methodological innovation, and a vitality that brings the musical culture of the factory workers to life. Music, Korczynski argues, allows workers both to fulfill their social roles in a regimented industrial environment and to express a sense of resistance to this social order. The author highlights the extensive forms of informal collective resistance within this factory, and argues that the musically informed culture played a key role in sustaining these collective acts of resistance. As well as providing a rich picture of the musical culture and associated forms of resistance in the factory, Korczynski also puts forward new theoretical concepts that have currency in other workplaces and in other rationalized spheres of society.
The urge to move to music is universal among humans. Unlike visual art, which is manifest across space, music is manifest across time. When listeners get carried away by the music, either through movement (such as dancing) or through reverie (such as trance), it is usually the temporal qualities of the music- its pulse, tempo, and rhythmic patterns-that put them in this state. In this article, we review studies addressing rhythm, meter, movement, synchronization, entrainment, the perception of groove, and other temporal factors that constitute a first step to understanding how and why music literally moves us. The experiments we review span a range of methodological techniques, including neuroimaging, psychophysics, and traditional behavioral experiments, and we also summarize the current studies of animal synchronization, engaging an evolutionary perspective on human rhythmic perception and cognition. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology Volume 69 is January 4, 2018. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
Previous research has shown that background auditory distractors (music and sound/noise) have a more severe impact on introverts’ performances on complex cognitive tasks than extraverts (Dobbs, Furnham, & McClelland, 2011). The present study is a partial replication of Dobbs et al., but involving Chinese rather than English participants. Ninety-two Chinese participants (59 female) carried out three cognitive tasks with the presence of Chinese pop songs, background office noise, and silence. The results did not reveal any differences in performance as a function of the distraction condition, nor was there a difference in performance between extraverts and introverts. The failure to replicate is explained in terms of habituation to noisy environments among Chinese participants.
Beginning in the 1990s and following decades of neglect, what came to be referred to as the Affective Revolution has radically transformed our understanding of the role played by emotion in organizational psychology and organizational behavior (OPOB). In this article, we review the field of emotion in the workplace from different perspectives, corresponding to five discrete levels of analysis: (a) within-person temporal effects, (b) between-person (personality and attitudes) factors, (c) interpersonal behaviors (perception and communication of emotion), (d) group level (leadership and teams), and (e) organizational level (culture and climate). Within these perspectives, we address the importance of affective events theory (AET) and its interaction with emotional intelligence, emotional labor, and emotional contagion, as well as the role of emotion in leadership and organizational culture and climate. We conclude by presenting an integrative model that shows how the five levels are linked, followed by disc...
This study investigates the effect of familiar musical distractors on the cognitive performance of introverts and extraverts. Participants completed a verbal, numerical and logic test in three music conditions: vocal music, instrumental music and silence. It was predicted that introverts would perform worse with vocal music, better with instrumental music and even better in silence across all tests while for extraverts it would be the reverse. Results showed that during the verbal test, overall performance for all participants was significantly better in silence, supporting the idea that lyrics interfere with the processing of verbal information in the task. However, no significant music-personality interactions were found. Possible explanations for, and implications of, these results are discussed.
Music listening in everyday life tends to accompany the completion of other everyday activities in a highly personalised manner. However, music and task performance studies have tended to be experimenter-centred and contextually isolated, largely independent of the listener's music practices and preference. The present study adopted a listener-centred approach to compare the effects of self-selected and experimenter-selected music (high and low arousal), on concurrent activity performance and experience. 125 participants completed three laps of a driving game in either (i) silence (ii) car sounds alone; car sounds with the addition of (iii) self-selected music, (iv) High-Arousal music or (v) Low-Arousal music. Three performance measures (accuracy-collisions, time-ms, and speed-mph) and 5 experience measures (distraction, liking, appropriateness, enjoyment, and tension-anxiety) were taken. Participants exposed to their self-selected music were most efficient, perceived lowest distraction, highest enjoyment, liking and appropriateness, and experienced a reduction in tension-anxiety. In contrast, performance and experience were poorest when exposed to High-Arousal experimenter-selected music. Participants were most inaccurate, perceived highest distraction, lowest liking, enjoyment and appropriateness, and experienced an increase in tension-anxiety. Collectively, the findings highlight the efficacy of self-selected music as a tool to optimise response in the everyday activity context for which it is selected. Accordingly, the results are discussed in relation to potential implications for the performance and experience of concurrent tasks such as video games. Additionally, the discussion highlights theories of attention-distraction, arousal and affect modification, and subjective experiences of music listening.
Actors vocally portrayed happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust with weak and strong emotion intensity while reading brief verbal phrases aloud. The portrayals were recorded and analyzed according to 20 acoustic cues. 15 listeners (7 men and 8 women, aged 19-44 yrs) decoded each portrayal by using forced-choice or quantitative ratings. The results showed that (a) portrayals with strong emotion intensity yielded higher decoding accuracy than portrayals with weak intensity, (b) listeners were able to decode the intensity of portrayals, (c) portrayals of the same emotion with different intensity yielded different patterns of acoustic cues, and (d) certain acoustic cues (e.g., fundamental frequency, high-frequency energy) were highly predictive of listeners' ratings of emotion intensity. It is argued that lack of control for emotion intensity may account for some of the inconsistencies in cue utilization reported in the literature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Music's ability to express and arouse emotions is a mystery that has fascinated both experts and laymen at least since ancient Greece. The predecessor to this book, Motion and Emotion (OUP, 2001) was critically and commercially successful and stimulated much further work in this area. In the years since the publication of that book, empirical research in this area has blossomed, and the successor to Music and Emotion reflects the considerable activity in this area. The Handbook of Music and Emotion offers an 'up-to-date' account of this vibrant domain. It provides comprehensive coverage of the many approaches that may be said to define the field of music and emotion, in all its breadth and depth. The first section offers multi-disciplinary perspectives on musical emotions from philosophy, musicology, psychology, neurobiology, anthropology, and sociology. The second section features methodologically-oriented chapters on the measurement of emotions via different channels (e.g., self report, psychophysiology, neuroimaging). Sections three and four address how emotion enters into different aspects of musical behavior, both the making of music and its consumption. Section five covers developmental, personality, and social factors. Section six describes the most important applications involving the relationship between music and emotion. In a final commentary, the editors comment on the history of the field, summarize the current state of affairs, as well as propose future directions for the field. The only book of its kind, the Handbook of Music and Emotion will fascinate music psychologists, musicologists, music educators, philosophers, and others with an interest in music and emotion (e.g. in marketing, health, engineering, film, and the game industry). It will be a valuable resource for established researchers in the field, a developmental aid for early-career researchers and postgraduate research students, and a compendium to assist students at various levels. In addition, as with its predecessor, it will also interest from practicing musicians and lay readers fascinated by music and emotion.
Increasing access to listening technologies (MP3 players and digital file formats) and the internet has contributed to a new era of listening to music in offices, where many employees listen to music through computers and personal listening devices. While many studies in the past have examined the effects of researcher-selected music on work performance, no studies to date have explored office workers’ music-listening patterns, what they listen to and why. This article reports the findings of a survey that used a holistic approach to examine music-listening practices and experiences in office settings in the UK. Nearly three hundred (295) office employees provided quantitative and qualitative data on listening patterns and experience. Previous research has focused on positive mood and negative effects of distraction on task performance, but this study identified additional significant functions: inspiration, concentration, positive distraction, stress relief and managing personal space. Employees listened to music for a third of their working week, and reported listening to a wide variety of music styles and artists. Music helped them to both engage in and escape from work, and they often used music to seal themselves off from the office environment. Employees managed their listening practices so as not to disturb colleagues or appear unprofessional in front of clients. Managers and employees can benefit from recognizing the importance of employees being able to select their own music, and the multidimensionality of workplace music listening is also of interest to therapists, office designers and music technology developers.
Music is by and large an underexplored social resource in the organization theory framework. There is small but intriguing literature on the uses of music in organizations, stretching back to the days of the engineering revolution, and a body of texts examining the innovation of musical instruments, but music remains primarily a marginal phenomenon in organization theory. Drawing on a variety of literatures, this paper suggests that music plays a key role in creating possibilities for agency. Studies of the use of music in manufacturing settings and in retailing provide empirical evidence of how music is not detached from broader social interests and concerns but rather is a constitutive element in the social fabric. The paper concludes that music and the scholarly field of musicology are two domains to be further explored in organization theory and management studies.
This study examined the effect of background music upon performance of creative and non-creative individuals on a reading comprehension task. In the presence of musical distraction and silence, 54 individuals (27 creative) carried out reading comprehension tasks in a repeated measures design. An interaction was predicted, such that musical distraction would have a greater negative effect on the performance of non-creative individuals compared to creative individuals. Further, it was predicted that creative individuals would be more inclined to study with music playing, and less distracted by it. No significant interactions were found although trends indicated that creative individuals performed better than did non-creative individuals in the music distraction condition. Correlations indicate that creative individuals tend to listen to more music while studying and they reported lower distraction levels. No main effect was found on performance for the mood of the participant and the perceived mood of the music. Methodological problems are discussed along with further suggestions for future research.
It is an ancient, and very pervasive, idea that music expresses emotion. Apart from the copious literature to this effect contributed by composers, musicologists, and philoso- phers, there is also solid empirical evidence from psychological research, reviewed in chapters of this book (e.g. Gabrielsson & Lindström, this volume; Juslin, this volume), that listeners often agree rather strongly about what type of emotion is expressed in a particular piece. It is also a pervasive belief that music can, at times, actually produce emotion in listeners. The distinction between perception and production is related to the distinction between cognitivism and emotivism proposed by philosophers in their analysis of emotion in music (e.g. Kivy 1989). Whereas 'emotivists' hold that music elicits real emotional responses in listeners, 'cognitivists' argue that music simply expresses or represents emotions. Our view is that it would be premature to prejudge the issue and that both positions may be perfectly appropriate depending on a number of factors out- lined below. Our purpose in this chapter is to provide a formalization of the processes whereby music produces emotional effects in the listener that go beyond the cognitive inference of what the music can be said to express. In addition, we review the pertinent evidence to date and suggest ways in which future research might investigate these processes in a systematic fashion. We state at the outset that our discussion and the review of the available evidence are largely based on Western classical music, thereby restricting the generalizability of our claims to other kinds of music and other cultures. Our attempt at a formalization of emotional effects of music will consist in defining the affective changes that music is supposed to produce in the listener and to identify the determinants of the listening situation (features such as the musical structure of the piece listened to, the interpretation by the performer, relevant state and trait character- istics of the listener, and the respective context). An important issue for discussion will be the relative weighting of the different determinants and the type of their interaction in producing the affective outcome. We follow the senior author's attempt to define the emotional meaning of music in analogy to Bühler's Organon model of language, postu- lating composition, expression, perception, and production rules to model the different facets of emotional meaning (Scherer, 2000d). In this context, the term rule is used to denote a certain regularity or lawfulness of the effects discussed that can be expressed in concrete predictions or hypotheses. It is not excluded that these rules can be integrated into attempts at computational modelling of the underlying mechanisms (in fact, we consider this a highly desirable option), but we do not feel that the current state of the
THIS article is from the manuscript of an address delivered by the national chairman of the MENC Committee on Functional Music at the Functional Music Forum, March 21, at the St. Louis Biennial Convention. Dr. Gaston is professor of music education and chairman of the department at the University of Kansas, Lawrence.
A set of 105 commonly used adjectives descriptive of the affective quality of molar physical environments was developed and factor analyzed (based on 323 subjects' ratings, each of a different environment). Two, independent, bipolar factors of affective quality-pleasing and arousing quality-were obtained and shown to correlate highly with subjects' affective reactions of pleasure and arousal to the environments. The pleasing and- arousing quality dimensions were hypothesized to summarize the emotive capacity attributed to environments and to adequately define the numerous affective descriptors commonly used: peaceful, festive, hectic, disgusting, boring, and the like. They were also offered as partial interpretations of the semantic differential factors of evaluation and activity, respectively.
This paper discusses the historical use of music to produce more efficient, more committed, industrial workers. First emerging in academia early in the twentieth century, psychological interest in the industrial application of music had grown into a topic of popular interest and government investigation by the 1940s. Catalysed by the need for vast increases in production and the desire to cultivate ‘citizenship’ amongst industrial workers which the Second World War produced, consideration of how music could be employed as an affective soundtrack in factories—to raise employees' work rates, to increase their efficiency, to combat fatigue and boredom, to improve morale, to access and manipulate their emotions and loyalties—became a prominent area of psychological research. This paper examines that psychological research and its largest scale application in the BBC radio show Music While You Work, broadcast daily to millions of British factory workers from 1940 until 1967. The paper focuses particularly on conceptualizations of music's affective power and its utilization to exert ‘emotional control’ over spaces of work and the working self. This paper is centrally concerned with the practice of Music While You Work as a programme broadcasting specifically for factory spaces, and how this confronted the BBC's music policies for a national and domestic audience, impacting on the radical nature of the affective soundtrack to work which was produced.
Research on the effects of background music has a long history. Early work was not embedded within a theoretical framework, was often poorly conceptualised and produced equivocal findings. This paper reports two studies exploring the effects of music, perceived to be calming and relaxing, on performance in arithmetic and on a memory task in children aged 10-12. The calming music led to better performance on both tasks when compared with a no-music condition. Music perceived as arousing, aggressive and unpleasant disrupted performance on the memory task and led to a lower level of reported altruistic behaviour by the children. This suggests that the effects of music on task performance are mediated by arousal and mood rather than affecting cognition directly. The findings are discussed in relation to possible practical applications in the primary school and the home.
A field study investigated the role of type of helping task in the previously observed relationship between feeling good and helping. Results indicated that procedures designed to induce good mood are likely to facilitate helping only where the helping task is not incompatible with the good feeling state. Implications for the mediation of the relationship between good mood and helping are discussed.
This study measured the effect of music listening on state positive affect, work quality and time-on-task of computer information systems developers. Effects of music on work performance, in this case, software design, may be explained by increases in state positive affect. Data from 56 (male = 41, female = 15) developers were obtained from four different Canadian software companies. Data were collected in the participants' actual work environments over five weeks. Results indicated that state positive affect and quality-of-work were lowest with no music, while time-on-task was longest when music was removed. Narrative responses revealed the value of music listening for positive mood change and enhanced perception on design while working. Evidence is provided of the presence of a learning curve in the use of music for positive mood alteration. Overall, the study contributes to the development of a model that aspires to elucidate music and workplace interactions; as well, it has implications for organizational practice. Copyright
The 'Mozart effect' occurs when performance on spatial cognitive tasks improves following exposure to Mozart. It is hypothesized that the Mozart effect arises because listening to complex music activates similar regions of the right cerebral hemisphere as are involved in spatial cognition. A counter-intuitive prediction of this hypothesis (and one that may explain at least some of the null results reported previously) is that Mozart should only improve spatial cognition in non-musicians, who process melodic information exclusively in the right hemisphere, but not in musicians, who process melodic information in both hemispheres. This hypothesis was tested by comparing performance of musicians and non-musicians on a mental rotation task before and after exposure to either Mozart or silence. It was found that performance on the mental rotation task improved only in non-musicians after listening to Mozart. Performance did not improve for non-musicians after exposure to silence, or for musicians after exposure to either Mozart or silence. These results support the hypothesis that the benefits of listening to Mozart arise because of activation of right hemispheric structures involved in spatial cognition. Copyright
This study examined the effects of complexity in background music on the performance of four cognitive tasks by extroverts and introverts. In the presence of either ‘complex’ or ‘simple’ musical distraction or in silence, 24 introverts and 24 extroverts carried out a reading comprehension test, an observation test, and a memory test (in which recall was measured both immediately and after a six-minute delay). An interaction was predicted such that increasing-complexity musical distraction would result in the increase of extroverts', and the decrease of introverts', cognitive-task performance. A significant interaction was obtained for three of the four tests: the observation test and both memory tests. These findings are discussed with regard to Eysenck's theory of personality. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Performance decrements and dissatisfactions at the work place have long been observed but have not been adequately explained. Activation research and selected studies of work behavior are reviewed to show that decrements in performance may be better understood in the light of recent neuropsychological findings. This review indicates that activation theory and the research upon which it is based anticipates behavior related to variations in task design and suggests new avenues of investigation for those interested in the determinants of work behavior.
The transient enhancement of performance on spatial tasks in standardized tests after exposure to the first movement “allegro con spirito” of the Mozart sonata for two pianos in D major (KV 448) is referred to as the Mozart effect since its first observation by Rauscher, Shaw, and Ky (1993). These findings turned out to be amazingly hard to replicate, thus leading to an abundance of conflicting results. Sixteen years after initial publication we conduct the so far largest, most comprehensive, and up-to-date meta-analysis (nearly 40 studies, over 3000 subjects), including a diversity of unpublished research papers to finally clarify the scientific record about whether or not a specific Mozart effect exists. We could show that the overall estimated effect is small in size (d=0.37, 95% CI [0.23, 0.52]) for samples exposed to the Mozart sonata KV 448 and samples that had been exposed to a non-musical stimulus or no stimulus at all preceding spatial task performance. Additionally, calculation of effect sizes for samples exposed to any other musical stimulus and samples exposed to a non-musical stimulus or no stimulus at all yielded effects similar in strength (d=0.38, 95% CI [0.13, 0.63]), whereas there was a negligible effect between the two music conditions (d=0.15, 95% CI [0.02, 0.28]). Furthermore, formal tests yielded evidence for confounding publication bias, requiring downward correction of effects. The central finding of the present paper however, is certainly the noticeably higher overall effect in studies performed by Rauscher and colleagues than in studies performed by other researchers, indicating systematically moderating effects of lab affiliation. On the whole, there is little evidence left for a specific, performance-enhancing Mozart effect.
Many contemporary organizations are placing a greater emphasis on their performance management systems as a means of generating higher levels of job performance. We suggest that producing performance increments may be best achieved by orienting the performance management system to promote employee engagement. To this end, we describe a new approach to the performance management process that includes employee engagement and the key drivers of employee engagement at each stage. We present a model of engagement management that incorporates the main ideas of the paper and suggests a new perspective for thinking about how to foster and manage employee engagement to achieve high levels of job performance.