| Music and Aggression | |
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Abstract The present study assessed a possible causal relationship between differing types of instrumental music and general aggressive feelings. It was proposed that participants who listened to heavy metal music would exhibit the most general aggressive feelings. Approximately 27 social psychology students participated in this study. Participants listened to different instrumental musical genres, and aggression was assessed through questionnaires. Significance was found between the heavy metal group and the classical music group, and also between the heavy metal group and the rock group. Implications of music having a causal relationship on general aggressive attitudes were discussed. The varying effects different instrumental music styles have on aggressive attitudes of college students It is commonly said that music soothes the savage beast, but can music create a savage beast? Music is an important aspect of the lives of human beings; it is used in religious rituals, for political marches, and most commonly used for entertainment. Music elicits an emotional response from humans, albeit a positive or a negative response, (Stratton & Zalanowski, 1997) which makes it appealing to the human ear. Extensive research has been done on the hypothesized affects of music on the psychological well-being of individuals because of these emotional responses experienced. Most of the research conducted examines possible causal effects between music and the actions of teenagers because of the cathartic affects music has on the idiosyncratic values and attitudes experienced during adolescence (Lester, 1987), but researchers seem to believe the results can be generalized across other populations. The affects of music on its listeners are important factors of social psychology because it is speculated that aggressive music may create negative and antisocial behaviors which could in return lead to destructive social behaviors (Stratton & Zalanowski, 1997). In one study, the effects of hard rock, rap music, country and easy listening were compared in respects to the behaviors of mental health hospital patients (Harris, Bradley & Titus, 1992). They found that more inappropriate behaviors, i.e. being disruptive, assultive, and self-abusive, were more frequent with the exposure to the hard rock and rap music. Other researchers have postulated that aggressive music is correlated to direct antisocial and aggressive behaviors, but do not support the claim that the aggressive music causes these behaviors (Rosenbaum & Prinsky, 1987). Thus, studies have failed to find concrete data implicating a causal effect because the question arises of whether music listeners pay attention to the lyrics and understand the underlying themes of the song or focus their attentions on the instrumental content and beat. Researchers have found that many listeners do not attend to lyrics and cannot describe what certain songs, particularly their favorite songs, are about (Lull, 1982). Wanamaker and Reznikioff (1989) had participants write stories about subjects inspired from cards from the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) while listening to varying types of music: aggressive music and lyrics, non aggressive music and lyrics, and aggressive music with non aggressive lyrics. They did not find a difference in the amount of hostility expressed in the TAT stories with respect to the varying groups because they believed most of the participants did not understand the lyrics. In previous studies, Arnett (1991) and Rosenbaum and Prinsky (1987) all found that most people focused on the music as compared to the lyrics in the songs. However, studies have shown that music by itself can influence emotions (McFarland, 1984). Pignatiello, Camp, and Rasar (1986) concluded that differences in participants as measured by the Depression Adjective Checklist (DACL) was affected by music rated as either very depressing or very elating. For these reasons, this study will examine how the musical beat, not the lyrics, affects aggression for the listener. Therefore, all songs used in this experiment are instrumental versions of music. Heavy metal music, rock and roll, and classical music are all examined in this study. Heavy metal music is defined as rock and roll music with an extremely overpowering beat, amplification of all instruments, and commonly screamed lyrics as compared to sung lyrics (Gowensmith & Bloom, 1997). This musical type is often associated with violent themes of aggression, anger, rebellion, suicide, substance abuse, sex and an array of other antisocial behaviors, as well as through the character portrayals of the musicians themselves, the lyrical content, the instrumental combinations, and through the music videos seen on television (Stack, Gundlach, & Reeves, 1994; Trzcinski, 1992; Wanamaker & Reznikoff, 1989; Wass, Raup, et al., 1989). Because of the concentrated violent themes in the lyrics of heavy metal music and because lyrics are typically screamed rather than sung, studies have focused on the effects lyrical content of heavy metal music has on aggressive emotions. Rock and roll music is typically less aggressive than heavy metal music and can evoke the gamut of emotions, but it is interesting to note that much of the information of rock music is limited to the analysis of lyrical understanding of participants (Lull, 1982). Classical music is looked upon in the present study because classical music can elicit a wide variety of emotions; McFarland (1984) found that the emotional content of such music effected emotion-related responses on TAT stories. The purpose of the present study is to compare the aggressive attitudes of college students that may be elicited by different instrumental music types. This study posits that participants exposed to the heavy metal music will exhibit more aggressive attitudes than participants exposed to the rock and classical music. Aggression in the present study is defined to be those indirect aggressive attitudes that do not necessarily provoke physical actions, but which do elicit an emotional response such as irritability, negativism, suspicion, resentment, and a heightened sense of anger. The hypothesis of the present study is that participants in the heavy metal condition will show more aggressive attitudes as seen on the Creativity-Attribute Scale (CAS) than the two other conditions. Members of the rock condition will exhibit more aggressive attitudes than the classical condition but not as much as the heavy metal condition on the CAS. Participants in the classical condition will reflect less aggressive attitudes on the CAS than the other two conditions. Methods Participants There were 27 (4 male and 23 female) University of Georgia college students participating in this study. All participants were of college age (M =19.8 years). The participants were all psychology students fulfilling a social psychology course requirement. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three musical conditions: heavy metal, rock, and classical. Materials/Apparatus The instrumental songs were recorded on different cassette tapes. The songs used were "Stabbed in the Throat" by Cannibal Corpse for the heavy metal condition, "Bliss" by Phish for the rock condition, and "Etudes-tableaux Op.33 number 8 in G minor" by Rakhmaninov for the classical condition. A cassette tape player was used to play each song. The Creativity-Attribue Scale (CAS) was used to assess aggressive attitudes. The CAS can be found in Appendix A. A sample aggressive question from the CAS is "If someone were to criticize me now, I would become agitated." A sample creative question is "Other have told me I have the ability to think abstractly." The CAS is scored on a Likert scale ranging from 1--uncharacteristic of me to 7--highly characteristic of me. The CAS has an a of .05. The full scale can be seen in Appendix A. Procedure Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions with approximately 9 persons in each condition. The conditions were based on the instrumental music type played in each condition. Once the groups were established in three separate rooms, participants were told that the present study examined music's effect on creativity. Participants were then asked to sign a consent form and guaranteed the confidentiality of the results. In each condition, a blank sheet of paper and a pencil was provided for each of the participants. The assigned tape was played twice for a total of four minutes split in two trials. During the first trial, the song was played in its entirety for a total time of two minutes where the participants were asked to just listen to the music. Halfway through the second trial (1 minute) the participants were asked to draw a picture which illustrates what the song was about with the paper and pencil provided on the desks during the remaining one minute. The song was not stopped during the drawing but continued as background music. After each participant completed the drawing, a sheet of lined paper was administered. The participants were told to write a story about what the picture they drew represented. The participants were allotted three minutes to complete this task. Once the participants completed this task, they were given the CAS questionnaire and asked to complete it. The drawing and writing exercise and creativity questions were used as distracter tests in order to mask the experimenter's true intentions of the study. Upon completion of the CAS, the participants turned in all papers and were then debriefed. The participants were told that the true nature of the experiment was to assess the relationship between different types of music and aggressive attitudes. Results Data was collected from the CAS. Questions pertaining to aggression were numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, and 19. The answers to these questions were used to assess the general aggressive attitudes of each individual participant in the three different conditions. The means and standard deviations for each group can be seen in Table 1 in Appendix B. The statistical analysis used were three independent t-tests between the groups to compare the means. The first independent t-test was performed comparing the mean number of responses on the CAS in the heavy metal group (M= 37.14, SD= 2.54) with that of the rock group (M= 28.33, SD= 9.69). This test was found to be statistically significant, t(11)=2.33, p<0.04. A marginal difference in the means was found between the heavy metal group and the rock group. This difference signifies that those participants in the heavy metal group had more aggressive attitudes than the participants in the rock group according to the CAS. The second independent samples t-test was performed comparing the mean number of responses of the CAS in the rock condition (M= 28.33, SD= 9.69) with those of the classical condition (M= 26.38, SD= 6.68). This test was not found to be statistically significant, t(12)= 0.45, p< 0.66. No difference in mean aggressive attitudes between the rock group and the classical group was found. The third independent samples t-test was performed comparing the mean number responses from the CAS in the heavy metal condition (M= 37.14, SD= 2.54) and those of the classical condition (M= 26.36, SD= 6.68). This test was found to be significant, t(13)= 4.01, p<0.001. A large difference in mean aggressive attitudes was found between the heavy metal group and the classical group. Participants in the heavy metal group had substantially more aggressive attitudes than participants in the classical group according to the CAS. Discussion In this study, it was predicted that participants exposed to heavy metal instrumental music would have greater general aggressive attitudes than participants who listen to rock instrumental music and classical instrumental music; participants who listened to the rock music would have greater general aggressive attitudes than those who listen to classical music, but not as much as the heavy metal; and those who listen to classical instrumental music would have the least general aggressive attitudes than the heavy metal and rock music. The results partly supported our original hypothesis that participants exposed to heavy metal music would reflect greater aggressive attitudes than those who listen to rock music and classical music. However, there was no difference between the rock group and the classical group with regards to greater aggressive attitudes. These results do suggest that instrumental music has a relationship to aggressive attitudes. Previous studies that have correlated music to aggression have found similar results, but these studies involved musical lyrics. When the lyrical content is considered, there was no significant difference between groups because most individuals do not attend to lyrics, and the lyrics do not affect aggression (Wanamaker & Reznikoff, 1989). Robinson and Hirsch (1969) gave a survey to high school students and concluded that adolescents were more interested in the sound of the lyrics than the words, which corresponds to other findings that lyrical content does not affect emotional responses. The instrumental music has more of an affect on emotional responses; the findings of the present study is supported by this notion that instrumental music affected aggressive attitudes. In the study by Wanamaker and Reznikoff (1989), they concluded that differing music types apart from lyrics would have no influence on aggression, which do not support the findings in the present study. Gowensmith and Bloom (1997) found that heavy metal music did correlate to heightened arousal levels but were not significantly related to anger levels. However, the Gowensmith and Bloom study also looked at the affect lyrical content has on arousal levels, especially anger. Therefore, the problem of whether music affects aggression and anger is still not resolved. Researchers have found relationships between the two variables, but no specific causal relationship. The findings in the present study suggest that heavy metal music, with its intense beat and loud instruments, does relate to aggressive attitudes, but the results cannot specify if the heavy metal music causes such attitudes. Gowensmith and Bloom (1997) concluded that heavy metal music does not affect its listeners in the same manner. Lester (1987) suggested that different personality types are more susceptible to the influence of violent songs. He therefore assumed that an aggressive individual would be drawn to aggressive and loud music which expresses their emotions. The question of whether aggressive or violent music leads to more aggressive feelings remains because attraction to such music is hard to assess. Angry and aggressive individuals do tend to associate with similar music types, but whether the attitudes where influenced by the music or whether the music was influenced by the attitudes is still inquired. The results do not necessarily match to those of previous findings, but one of the variables in the present study was instrumental music without lyrics. A further study should examine personality types with instrumental music to see if any affects occur. In the present study, assignment into experimental groups was random, but personal preference to music should be assessed prior to group assignment to see if generally aggressive individuals do prefer aggressive music. Also, initial aggression levels were not assessed in the present study, therefore, the results do not reflect an increase in aggressive attitudes. A pre-test/ post-test on aggressive attitudes and initial mood tendencies would determine an increase in such attitudes. Another limitation to the study was the fact that the sample size was small. However, such a small sample size could reflect a greater sensitivity. In future studies, a larger sample size ought to be used to diminish any within participants variance and other such confounds as initial mood and past experiences. Appendix B Table 1 Summary table Source Mean St. Deviation df t p Heavy Metal 37.14 2.54 11 2.33 0.04 Rock 28.33 9.69 12 0.45 0.66 Classical 26.36 6.68 13 4.01 0 References Arentt, J. (1991). Adolescents and heavy metal music: From the mouths of metal heads. Youth & Society, 23. 76-98. Gowensmith, W. & Bloom, L. (1997). The effects of heavy metal music on arousal and anger. Journal of Music Therapy, 34. 33-45. Harris, C., Bradley, R., & Titus, S. (1992). A comparison of the effects of hard rock and easy listening on the frequency of observed inappropriate behaviors: Control of environmental antecedents in a large public area. Journal of Music Therapy, 14. 6-17. Lester, D. (1987). A subcultural theory of teenage suicide. Adolescence, 22. 317-320. Lull, J. (1982). Popular music: Resistance to new wave. Journal of Communication,32. 121-131. McFarland, R. (1984). Effects of music upon emotional content of TAT stories. Journal of Psychology, 16. 227-234. Pignatiello, M., Camp, C., & Rasar, L. (1986). Musical mood induction: An alternative to the Velten technique. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 95. 295-297. Rosenbaum, J. & Prinsky, L. (1991). The presumption of influence: Responses in popular music subcultures. Crime & Delinquency, 37. 528-535. Stack, S., Gundlach, J., & Reeves, J. (1994). The heavy metal subculture and suicide. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 24. 15-23. Sratton, V., & Zalanowski, A. (1997). The relationship between characteristic moods and most commonly listened to types of music. Journal of Music Therapy, 34. 129-140. Trzcinski, J. (1992). Heavy metal kids: Are they dancing with the devil? Child & Youth Care Forum, 21. 7-22. Wanamaker, C. & Reznikoff, M. (1989). Effects of aggressive and nonaggressive rock songs on projective and structured tests. The Journal of Psychology, 123. 561-570. Wass, H., Raup, J., Cerullo, K., Martel, L., Mingione, L., & Sperring, A. (1989). Adolescents' interests in and views of destructive themes in rock music. Omega, 19. 177-186. |
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