The Role of Cognitions and Emotions in the Music-Approach-Avoidance Behavior Relationship

Music is all around you; when you are walking down the street, standing in an elevator, doing your grocery shopping, or taking you children back to school clothes shopping.  You would be surprised that even though you are hearing the music and not necessarily listening to it, it will still have an effect on how you are feeling during the day. 

In “The Role of Cognitions and Emotions in the Music-Approach-Avoidance Behavior Relationship” by authors Jillian C. Sweeney and Fiona Wyber, their main goal in this article is to test the effect of two characteristics of music, tempo and genre, on consumers’ emotional states, cognitive processing, and to determine the emotional states and cognitive processing on intended in-store behaviors.  This also happens to be the thesis statement in the article. Even though there is not a clear context, the subject of music on consumers’ emotional states and the claim hoping to be able to determine the emotional states and cognitive processing on intended behaviors in stores.  This is a very well written thesis statement that does fully connect to the article and the supports given after it.  One drawback is that the audience this article was written for, meaning the diction that has been chosen, suggests that this article was written for a more scholarly audience by using some phrases that our peers would not be quite sure of.

The claim of this article is suggesting that if you do play music while people are shopping, say in a grocery store, or a mall, that it will have an effect on that person’s mood whether it is positive or negative.  Based on personal opinion, I agree with the point their thesis statement is trying to make. In previous articles I have written about, they all state that music can influence your mood, well-being, and performance.  This statement supports what I believe.  I also believe that I think they did really well showing evidence of their argument.  There are a lot of tables, graphs, and charts to support their evidence.  For example, in Figure 1, it models the relationship between music, cognitive processing, and emotional states and approach-avoidance behaviors.  The difference from this table and other tables in opposing articles is the simplicity of this article.  It is made extremely easy to read and understand.

There is a lot of information supporting their idea and about a couple paragraphs refuting the idea that music influences a person’s mood.  These refutation paragraphs make the paper stronger because it gives the authors a chance to argue with their peers who have opposite beliefs. 

For example, in Figure 2, to test the effectiveness in music while shopping, one graph in particular constructed by Sweeney and Wyber tested pleasure and arousal and service quality and merchandise quality.  They also tested the subject’s being tested how they felt when they listened to Tempo 0, or music with a slower tempo, and Tempo 1, music with a faster tempo to see which type of music caused a certain type of emotion.  This graph also tested two types of genres, top 40 and classical music.  After both the results of the tempos and the genres were recorded, they tested them against each other to see if they corresponded with each other.  The results were that they did, tempo 0 corresponded with classical music where as Tempo 1 corresponded to top 40 music.  Even though this was shown in graph 2, it is shown in other tables throughout the articles as well.  I believe that this article argues their belief extremely well with a lot of details, evidence, and by the way it was written.  Without any grammatical errors in this article, it is a very well written article filled with lots of useful information and experiments to support it.

The results of this article and experiment showed a number of helpful things to store managers to get their customers more interested in buying their products.  Research from this experiment revealed that if the customers liked the music playing in stores, they were more likely to feel aroused and praise the quality of the service and also merchandise of the store they were at.  These experiments also show that the majority of shoppers enjoyed listening to slow top 40 music.  Top 40 music, with a slower tempo, seemed to make the customers more talkative and friendlier to strangers and staff.  Finally and most importantly, store owners should avoid mixing tempos and genres for one specific store.  The goal is to try and pick music that their customers will like, not necessarily are familiar with.

Music creates an atmosphere for where ever you are, whether it is at the store, restaurant, or on the train.  I believe this article would greatly help out someone who was struggling to open up a new business or to “spice up” an old business.  Music creates an environment “in which sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch act together to create a powerful and consistent image that cannot be attained from one sense alone” (19).

WORKS CITED

1.)  Jillian C. Sweeney, Fiona Wyber, (2002) "The role of cognitions and emotions in the music-approach-avoidance behavior relationship", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 16 Iss: 1, pp.51 - 69

Effects of Music Therapy on Psychological Health of Women During Pregnancy

It is believed that listening to music can help reduce stress.  Chang’s article, “Effects of music therapy on psychological health of women during pregnancy” tests the theory of music therapy on pregnant Taiwanese women, all in their second or third trimester of pregnancy, to see if the theory holds.  Mei-Yueh Chang, Chung-Hey Chen, and Kuo-Feng Huang conducted an experiment to test this theory by getting the consent of 121 pregnant women to be split into two groups. 

To avoid between-group contamination, the number of participants per group was chosen by block randomization. This was executed by giving each person a ball either marked “E” for experimental group of “C” for control group.  Group one, or the experimental group, listened daily to 30 minutes of classical music, nature sounds, a lullaby, or crystal music performing Chinese children’s rhymes and songs.  The participants also wrote in a journal where they described what type of song they listened to and what they were doing.  Group two, the control group, just received the general prenatal care.  Chang states that “The aesthetic pleasure received by the right brain [that can be received by listening to music] can release endorphins from the pituitary gland, thereby decreasing the concentration of adrenocorticotrophic hormone in the blood” (Chang 25810). 

To test the results of this experiment, the participant’s PSS scores were collected along with their S-STAI scores and EPDS scores, or in other words the Perceived Stress Scale, State Scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and depression.  In all three tests, women in the experimental group generally had lower scores than the control group.  Music Therapy is an effective alternative to lessen the amount of pain, decrease psychological stress, and mental distress caused by pregnancy for people who feel uncomfortable taking medication or for any other reason.  Another side study was also conducted involving thirteen women who listened to music while in labor and delivery compared with seven women who gave birth without listening to music. The thirteen women who listened to music all reported significantly lower levels of anxiety, pain, and discomfort. 

          This study also has several limitations that are listed as such.  To avoid the Hawthorne effect, the control group did not maintain a diary.  “Therefore, comparisons of the amount of time and type of music listened to were limited (2586).”  A second limitation was that whatever the participants were doing while listening to music could have influenced their mood and emotions.  The main limitation in the study is the factor that while doing whatever task they were working on while listening to the music, there is the possibility that the participants may have sit down or rested while listening to music resulting in a more relaxed feeling.  It is concluded that to draw a more firm conclusion, more control is needed.  The presence of these limitations show that this article is not bias argument because it gives both the positives of the experiment, and the faults that could have been changed to make it a more precise collection of data.

          The ending results overall of this experiment supported the use of music therapy.   Listening just for thirty minutes a day made the women feel less stressed, lower levels of anxiety, and also lower levels of depression.  Music greatly influences how people feel and what different emotions they experience.  This study is a great support of that theory and also how music can not only make you feel happier for a moment, but help turn that temporary happiness into long-term happiness.

WORKS CITED

1.)   Chang, Mei-Yueh, Chung-Hey Chen, and Kuo-Feng Huang. "Effects of Music Therapy on Psyhcological Health of Women During Pregnancy." EBSCO Publishing Service Selection Page. Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2008. Web. 16 Feb. 2012. <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=fff4cf00-cb70-4477-bf7b-555d1a993f09@sessionmgr4>