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Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain 2016, Vol. 26, No. 3, 279 –283

© 2016 American Psychological Association 0275-3987/16/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pmu0000155

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“Count on Me”—The Influence of Music With Prosocial Lyrics on Cognitive and Affective Aggression Tamara Böhm, Nicolas Ruth, and Holger Schramm

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University of Wuerzburg While there has been extensive research on the potentially harmful effects of exposure to songs with aggressive or violent lyrics, little is known about the potential prosocial effects of more positive music; although it is well known that many musicians communicate norms and values of empathy and helping others through their lyrics, the effects of these messages are not well researched. Based on the General Learning Model, we expected that participants who listened to a song with prosocial lyrics would then experience less aggressive thoughts and feelings than recipients who listened to a song with neutral lyrics. An online experiment was conducted to compare the influence of prosocial versus neutral song lyrics on aggression level. A pilot study was first conducted to identify a prosocial and a neutral song, and music professionals and music students rated pairs of songs (by the same artist) that were comparable in terms of recognition, enjoyment, emotional arousal, and intelligibility; for example, Bruno Mars’s “The Lazy Song” and “Count On Me.” Our results indicate that while listening to prosocial lyrics decreases aggressive thoughts, there is no effect on aggressive feelings. One possible explanation is that the upbeat melodies and harmonies present in both the positive and neutral songs overshadowed any effect that lyrics had on feelings. Keywords: prosocial music, aggression, popular music, General Learning Model, word completion task

Music is an appealing vehicle with which to transmit messages to recipients, inspiring many musicians to promote their own values and norms through their song lyrics. While the idea that music can evoke emotions or express profound ideas is a widely accepted one, the vast majority of research has focused on the possible harmful effects of music: While a great deal of research has been conducted on the effects of aggressive and violent song lyrics (Anderson, Carnagey, & Eubanks, 2003; Gutscher, Schramm, & Wirth, 2011), little is known about the potential positive effects of prosocial music, meaning music with lyrics that deal with prosocial issues like helping, supporting, or donating. Greit-

emeyer (2009a, 2009b, 2011b) has been the first researcher to consider the possibility that music with prosocial lyrics may enhance empathy and altruism and decrease hostile feelings. If aggressive content increases aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior, one possibility is to wonder whether prosocial content, that fosters positive effects as shown by Greitemeyer, decreases such effects. The primary purpose of this study is therefore to investigate the effects of prosocial music on aggression, with aggression referring to a range of behaviors that can result in both psychological and physical harm to oneself, others, or objects in the environment (Buss, 1961).

This article was published Online First August 8, 2016. Tamara Böhm, Nicolas Ruth, and Holger Schramm, Media and Business Communication, Institute Human-Computer-Media, University of Wuerzburg. TAMARA BÖHM, BA, born in 1993, studies media communication (Master of Science) at the Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg. She acquired experience in different branches like marketing, copywriting, public relations and works in an advertising agency. There she is employed in the field of strategy and conception and conducts market research projects for several customers. In 2015 she became a tutor for the course Public Relations in the “Media and Business Communication”-Department at the Institute HumanComputer-Media (Julius-Maximilians-University, Würzburg). NICOLAS RUTH, MA, born in 1986, studied musicology at the Justus-Liebig-University Gießen and “Popular Music and Media” (musicology, media science and economics) at the University of Paderborn. He acquired experience in different branches like television and radio and worked as an event manager at the international Emergenza Festi-

val. In 2012 he became a scientific assistant in the “Media and Business Communication”-Department at the Institute Human-Computer-Media (Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg). Ruth’s research focus is on popular music, prosocial music, music radio programming, and copyright matters. HOLGER SCHRAMM (Prof. Dr. phil., Dipl.-Medienwiss.), born in 1973, is Professor and Head of the “Media and Business Communication”-Department at the Institute Human-Computer-Media (Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg). He is author or (co-)editor of more than ten books, e.g., “Handbuch Musik und Medien” (Handbook of Music and Media) and “Handbuch Medienrezeption” (Handbook of Media Processes). His numerous articles are published in edited books and national/international journals. His research focuses on music and media, sports communication, entertainment, and advertising effects. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Nicolas Ruth, Media and Business Communication, Institute Human-ComputerMedia, University of Wuerzburg, Oswald-Kuelpe-Weg 82, 97074 Würzburg, Germany. E-mail: [email protected] 279

BÖHM, RUTH, AND SCHRAMM

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Greitemeyer (2009a) has noted that the processes underlying the prosocial effects of music are based on broader learning theories, such as the general learning model (GLM) created by Buckley and Anderson (2006). This model predicts that any stimulus (including music) has short- and long-term effects via several learning mechanisms. This model posits a continuous feedback cycle between the recipient and the environment, and suggests that media prosocial content may affect a person’s internal state by altering his or her cognition, affect, or arousal. This internal state again influences how situations are perceived, interpreted, and appraised. Eventually, this appraising process leads to a shaping of a person’s decision in a social encounter. If the media input is a positive one like prosocial music, it is likely that a prosocial internal state is activated, which most likely leads to a prosocial behavior.1 Unlike the general aggression model (GAM; Anderson & Bushman, 2002), which is the theoretical base of the GLM, the GLM provides information on how human behavior can be affected by media and social learning scenarios in a more general sense, while the GAM describes only the effects of violent media contents on the internal states which can lead to a more aggressive behavior. The GLM assumes that positive media can have positive effects, and first studies showed that positive media like prosocial music can reduce aggression (Greitemeyer, 2011b), which can be regarded as a positive effect, as predicted.

ity. Niven (2015), however, showed that music in general helps to decrease customer aggression, but found no specific effects of prosocial music. His findings could be explained by the fact that the experiment was conducted as a field study in a call center. Perhaps, the participants did not listen to the music while they were in the “wait loop” and therefore no effects for prosocial music were found. These investigations have looked at not only whether inspiring and positive lyrics can have prosocial effects, but also whether such lyrics can potentially inhibit antisocial behavior. In a series of five studies, Greitemeyer (2011b) showed that listening to a prosocial song—“Help” by The Beatles and other songs—reduced the accessibility of aggressive thoughts, hostile emotions, and aggressive behaviors. The present study builds on Greitemeyer’s work, but improved the quality of the stimulus material (i.e., the presented songs). In the present study, unlike in Greitemeyer’s earlier work, music experts were employed in the pilot study to ensure the comparability of the paired positive and neutral songs. Since most of the described studies were laboratory experiments, the effects that were found could be confounded by the laboratory settings. Online surveys instead could provide natural self-chosen settings by the participants. In addition, the present online study also had a larger sample and more diverse measuring instruments, and compared reception differences between women and men.

Recent Literature

Hypotheses

To date there have been only a limited number of studies regarding the effects of song lyrics. Regarding the impact of violent or antisocial content, Anderson et al. (2003) conducted a series of studies whose findings indicated that participants who listened to songs with violent content had more hostile thoughts and feelings than persons who listened to a song with neutral lyrics that was otherwise comparable. Several other studies have also indicated that listening to violent songs can increase aggressive behaviors under certain circumstances (Barongan & Hall, 1995; Fischer & Greitemeyer, 2006; Gutscher, Schramm, & Wirth, 2011; Mast & McAndrew, 2011). In the first research into the possible positive effects of prosocial songs, Greitemeyer (2009a) conducted a series of studies on prosocial lyrics, finding that listening to songs with prosocial lyrics increased the accessibility of prosocial thoughts (i.e., the rate of prosocial thoughts that come to mind). Greitemeyer (2009b) also found that listening to such lyrics led to more empathy (an indicator of prosocial feelings) and increased the helping behavior of participants. Regarding the influence of empathy on prosocial behavior, the findings of Clark and Giacomantonio (2013) show that certain music preferences of individuals, especially of male adolescents, contribute to their empathy. Other similar studies have also reported on the effects of prosocial music. For example, a field study by Jacob, Guéguen, and Boulbry (2010) showed that exposure to music with prosocial lyrics in a natural setting led to better tipping, which is regarded as a prosocial behavior. Likewise, experiments by Greitemeyer (2013) revealed that prosocial music decreases reckless driving, while studies by Greitemeyer, Hollingdale, and Traut-Mattausch (2015) and by Greitemeyer and Schwab (2014) showed that songs with proequality lyrics led to more positive opinions toward equal-

According to Anderson and Bushman’s (2002) GAM, as well as its extension, the GLM (Buckley & Anderson, 2006), individualdependent and situational variables are two major causes of aggressive behavior, as one’s mental condition determines situational and behavioral perceptions. For this reason, the thoughts and feelings of the recipient play a central role (Greitemeyer, 2009a). The GLM postulates that the reception of prosocial media content promotes prosocial behavior and reduces antisocial behavior. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed: H1a/b: After the reception of a song with prosocial lyrics, recipients experience fewer aggressive (a) thoughts and (b) feelings than recipients who listened to a song with neutral lyrics. In terms of both prosocial and aggressive behaviors, the interpersonal empathic abilities of individuals play a central role (Clark & Giacomantonio, 2013). In general, women seem to have a more pronounced empathic side than men; they are considered to care more about others and to have a lower inclination toward aggression than men (Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004; Hall, 1984). As the reception of a song is about understanding and recreating the thoughts and messages from the artist, a high capacity for interpersonal empathy might be more conducive. In addition, interpersonal empathy is an important mediator in the processing of prosocial media (Greitemeyer, 2009b). It seems plausible that there is a difference between men and women in their thoughts and feelings after the reception of a prosocial song, because of their 1 For a more detailed overview of the GLM and positive media effects, see Greitemeyer (2011a).

COUNT ON ME

interpersonal empathy. Based on these considerations, the following hypotheses are derived:

Table 1 Mean Values (M) and Standard Deviations (SD) of the Song Pair

H2a/b: Female recipients experience fewer aggressive (a) thoughts and (b) feelings than male recipients after the reception of a song with prosocial lyrics.

Method

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Pilot Study Before the main study took place, a pilot study was conducted to choose two songs (one prosocial and one neutral) to serve as stimulus material. In the pilot study, pairs of songs (one with prosocial and one with neutral lyrics) by the same artists were rated by music experts such as music journalists and music students (this subsample was recruited by the authors independently from the main sample, via an email inquiry). To ensure that any observed effects were due exclusively to the songs’ lyrics, song pairs were chosen which differed only in terms of their lyrics. Raters therefore compared three pairs of songs with regard to the timbre of the singing voice, gender of the singer, music genre, and orchestration (i.e., the instruments used in the recording). As this investigation focused on prosocial music, only artists with high social commitment and media presence in terms of social issues— and, of course, songs that contain prosocial lyrics—were chosen. These criteria were fully met by the following artists: Birdy (“People Help the People” and “Without a Word” from the album Birdy, released in 2011), Coldplay (“Fix You” from the 2005 album X & Y and “Lost!” from Viva la Vida, released in 2008), and Bruno Mars (“Count On Me” (2010a) and “The Lazy Song” (2010b) from the album Doo-Wops & Hooligans, released in 2010).2 Songs were played to raters in a randomized order. After listening to each song, raters completed a questionnaire that assessed recognition (“Do you know this song?”), enjoyment (“Do you like this song?”), arousal (“I feel sad or happy”), and intelligibility (“I understood the lyrics of the song”). Finally, raters were asked whether they considered the song prosocial (“The song contains prosocial lyrics.”). To improve response validity, a brief definition of prosocial was presented: “prosocial means: caring about the wellbeing of others and acting helpful” (translated from German). All questions (except that concerning recognition, which was assessed using a simple yes–no question) were answered on a 6-point Likert scale from 1 ⫽ “strongly disagree” to 6 ⫽ “strongly agree.” The pilot study had a total of 44 participants, 25 women (56.8%) and 19 men (43.2%). Participants were between 19 and 39 years old (M ⫽ 24.7 years, SD ⫽ 4.10); 30 (68.2%) had jobs relating to music and 39 (88.9%) had professional instrumental or vocal training. The best-known and most-liked pair of songs with the biggest reported difference between them in terms of prosocial content was Bruno Mars’s “The Lazy Song” and “Count On Me,” t(43) ⫽ 11.87, p ⬍ .01, ␦= ⫽ 1.73. These two songs were also comparable in terms of evoked arousal, length, orchestration, and lyric intelligibility, and were therefore chosen as the stimulus material for the main study. Results for this song pair are given in Table 1.

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Bruno Mars— “Count On Me”

Bruno Mars— “The Lazy Song”

Variables

M

SD

M

SD

Prosocial awareness Arousal Enjoyment Intelligibility Recognition

5.27 4.25 3.86 5.50 90.9%

0.95 0.62 1.53 0.85

2.07 4.48 3.75 5.45 95.5%

1.49 0.08 1.57 1.07

Dependent and Independent Variables For the main study, the two songs by Bruno Mars represented the independent variable: The experimental group listened to the prosocial song “Count On Me,” while the control group listened to the neutral “The Lazy Song.” The impact of lyrics on aggressive feelings and thoughts was then assessed. Aggressive feelings. To measure the accessibility of aggressive feelings, the established State-Trait-Anger-Expression Inventory (STAXI) by Schwenkmezger, Hodapp, and Spielberger (1992) was used. To assess participants’ angry feelings after song reception, only the scale from the STAXI that measures the intensity of the anger state for a defined point in time was used. This scale includes eight items such as “I am disappointed” and “I am mad.” All items were answered on a 4-point Likert-type scale from 1 ⫽ “not at all” to 4 ⫽ “very.” The scale had good reliability, ␣ ⫽ .88. Aggressive thoughts. To measure the availability of aggressive thoughts, an implicit word completion test, the WCT (Word Completion Task) was used, a method previously used by Anderson et al. (2003), as well as by Gutscher, Schramm, and Wirth (2011) to investigate the influence of songs with violent content on the aggressive thoughts of participants. In this test, participants were confronted with 10 two- to three-letter word fragments, and were asked to complete these stems with the first words that came to mind, responding spontaneously and intuitively. The chosen word stems were equally well-suited to neutral and aggressive words (e.g., ki__— neutral words could be kite or kiss, aggressive words could be kick or kill). For scoring, aggressive words were coded as one, while all other words were coded as zero. For this task a code book was used based on the rules by Anderson et al. (2003) and the words were rated by the authors and an independent rater, the intercoder reliability was satisfying with .95. To transform these data into the correct form for analysis, the proportion of aggressive words was calculated for each person, with possible values ranging from .00 (i.e., no aggressive words) to 1.00 (i.e., all aggressive words). Evaluation of the data confirmed that each stem could be completed with a neutral or an aggressive word (i.e., each stem had received at least one response from each category), so no stems had to be excluded.

Procedure An online-based experimental 2 ⫻ 1 between-subjects design was used to compare the influence of the factor prosocial versus 2

All songs were purchased as downloads from iTunes.

BÖHM, RUTH, AND SCHRAMM

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neutral song lyrics on aggression level (N ⫽ 381, Mage ⫽ 22.36, SDage ⫽ 3.88, 52% female). To recruit the largest number of participants, as well as to ensure a diverse sample in terms of age and musical preference, the link to the online experiment was disseminated via social media platforms such as Facebook, where recipients were asked to participate and to share the link. Only non-English native speakers currently living in Germany were recruited; all of them stated they understand English language due to their educational training. To provide an incentive, participants were entered into a lottery to win Amazon gift cards. Data were collected via an online questionnaire. The average processing time of the questionnaire was about 15 min. The structure of the questionnaire was divided into several sections as follows: At the beginning a greeting was presented that explained that the scope of the study is about music and related feelings. Since the participants should hear a song in the next part of the questionnaire, an instruction followed explaining that speakers or headphones should be used at a comfortable sound intensity. Participants were also advised that they should listen to the song completely and pay attention to the lyrics in particular. We secured that the participants were able to listen to the stimulus via a short test. They were asked to listen to a sound and state correctly which animal they heard. Only persons who could identify the sound were able to go on in the questionnaire. At this point, a random allocation of the participants was ensured. On the next page, the questionnaire thus was divided according to the respective experimental condition: The subjects were forwarded either to the prosocial or the neutral song. After the song reception, the word completion test followed. Since this is a reactive measure, the test was deliberately placed directly after the reception of the song. Moreover, the participants were asked to respond spontaneously and intuitively and not to think too long about the complementary words. To ensure this, only five stems were presented per page and the permitted time to fill out the test on the page did not exceed 40 s. Next, participants were asked to fill out items measuring the aggressive feelings. The following questionnaire section contained items asking the participants to judge the songs in terms of familiarity as well as popularity and intelligibility of the lyrics. Finally, the participants were asked to answer questions about their sociodemographics.

Results Hypothesis 1a and 1b stated that recipients of a song with prosocial lyrics experience less aggressive thoughts and feelings, respectively, than recipients of neutral songs. The results indicated that the participants in the prosocial condition with a mean of 0.13 (SD ⫽ 0.12, n ⫽ 196) had significantly less aggressive thoughts than participants in the neutral condition with a mean of 0.17 (SD ⫽ 0.14, n ⫽ 185), t(379) ⫽ ⫺2.69, p ⬍ .01, d ⫽ .28. Hypothesis 1a can therefore be confirmed. However, since recipients of the neutral song (M ⫽ 1.24, SD ⫽ 0.38) did not demonstrate significantly more aggressive feelings than recipients of the prosocial song (M ⫽ 1.19, SD ⫽ 0.33), t(379) ⫽ ⫺1.37, d ⫽ .14, ns. Hypothesis 1b was not supported. Hypothesis 2a and 2b stated that female recipients experience fewer aggressive thoughts and feelings, respectively, than male recipients after the reception of a song with prosocial lyrics. Our results indicated that while females, M ⫽ 0.11 (SD ⫽ 0.11, n ⫽

101), reported significantly less aggressive thoughts than males, M ⫽ 0.15 (SD ⫽ 0.13, n ⫽ 95), t(194) ⫽ ⫺2.40, p ⬍ .05, d ⫽ .31, there was no significant difference between males (M ⫽ 1.17, SD ⫽ 0.31) and females (M ⫽ 1.20, SD ⫽ 0.34) with regard to aggressive feelings, t(194) ⫽ .63, d ⫽ .09, ns. Therefore, only Hypothesis 2a can be supported.

Discussion First, our study supported our hypothesis 1a. We found a small but significant effect on aggressive thoughts when recipients listened to music with prosocial lyrics. As the GLM (Buckley & Anderson, 2006) postulates, prosocial lyrics are a key stimulus that triggers prosocial thoughts and suppresses aggressive thoughts. Following the GLM, the internal routes influence each other and therefore one route can lead to specific setting of the internal state. This means people who listened to prosocial lyrics and whose cognitive routes were triggered by the lyrics are likely to get to a prosocial state that is more prevalent than an aggressive state. While our results support the insights proposed by Greitemeyer (2011a, 2011b), we found prosocial lyrics to have no effect on aggressive feelings and could not confirm Hypothesis 1b. This was an unexpected finding, as Greitemeyer (2009b) had previously established the essential role of affective states in the reception process. A possible interpretation could be that the song stimulus was not emotional enough or that the upbeat melodies and the harmonies present in both songs eclipsed the effect that lyrics had on participants’ feelings. Another explanation could be that the measurement we used in this study did not measure the feelings accurately, because the recipients did not feel at all aggressive. Second, our study found that women experienced less aggressive thoughts than men after both groups listened to prosocial lyrics as stated by Hypothesis 2a. This result could be explained because women usually have more interpersonal empathy which is a key mediating factor when listening to prosocial music. Due to their empathetic ability women experience more prosocial thoughts which possibly suppress aggressive thoughts. Hypothesis 2b could not be supported by our results. There was no significant difference in terms of aggressive feelings, despite the fact that findings from prior studies indicate that there should be differences between these two groups for affective states like emotions and feelings (Anderson et al., 2003). Again this could be because of the nature of the songs, the state of the recipients, or because of methodological reasons.

Limitations There are some limitations to this study. At first, the musical stimulus was well evaluated and the two songs are somehow comparable, but future studies could achieve more validity by creating a novel song that only alters the lyrics (prosocial, neutral, and/or antisocial). Second, we already mentioned that we found no aggressive feelings and therefore suggest that future studies induce aggression before the reception of the stimulus or include a baseline measurement of aggression before the reception, which might produce a stronger effect and could reveal within-groups effects. Third, a common problem with online studies is that the reception situation cannot be controlled and, for example, we cannot be certain if participants listen to the stimulus attentively enough; we

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COUNT ON ME

tried to minimize this issue by including a short test at the beginning that secured people had their headphones or speakers turned on, but still this issue must be considered a problem. Fourth, as all participants were not English native speakers, there could be a language bias in this study, but still both Bruno Mars songs are easy to comprehend and people in Germany are very used to music with English lyrics in their everyday life. Fifth and last, we only used one song as a stimulus. This can be considered as nonrepresentative, but other studies showed that other songs worked as well, so we only used one song instead of a playlist hoping that the online participants stay focused on the stimulus. Finally, we suggest that future studies should focus on the entire learning process described by the GLM (Buckley & Anderson, 2006), taking a closer look at the resulting behaviors and at differences between men and women.

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Received November 11, 2015 Revision received June 6, 2016 Accepted June 15, 2016 䡲