Why do we like to listen to sad songs?
MOST of us want to avoid feeling sad. And yet melancholy music is a favorite with many music lovers. A study published in the journal PLOS One examines this apparent paradox, and reveals that humans derive pleasure from listening to sad songs.
Professor Emery Schubert, the author of this study, came to this conclusion after conducting an experiment with 50 participants. They were asked to select a sad song they liked and imagine what it would sound like if it were no longer melancholy.
“We know that many people are quite apt when it comes to thought experiments, so it’s a reasonable approach to use and, at worst, it should produce no results,“explains Schubert in a statement.
It turned out that 82% of the volunteers said they would enjoy listening to their chosen song less if it were no longer sad, suggesting a marked preference for music evoking partially negative emotions. This may be explained by the fact that listening to sad music helps to regulate negative emotions and provides a form of consolation.
“Experiencing a wide range of emotions in a more or less safe environment could help us learn how to deal with what we encounter in the world,” Schubert points out.
Previous studies on the subject have put forward the hypothesis that individuals who enjoy sad music seek, above all, to be moved by what they hear. Schubert wanted to test this theory by conducting a similar experiment with a control group of 53 volunteers. It turned out that these individuals experienced more than one emotion when listening to sad music.
“The findings of this study suggest that being moved and feeling sadness have overlapping meanings. In other words, being moved triggers sadness, and sadness triggers being moved,” says Schubert.
In addition to the small panel of participants, this study has certain methodological limitations. But it does raise some interesting questions about the relationship we have with negative emotions when they are evoked in music.
– ETX Studio