Individual differences and emotion regulation through music

Many individuals manipulate and change emotions using music. People may use different strategies to regulate emotions; some strategies may be adaptive in nature by producing positive emotions, or maladaptive, producing negative affect. Researchers have identified how different populations are likely...

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Main Author: Pickard, Hannah
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/59483/
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author Pickard, Hannah
author_facet Pickard, Hannah
author_sort Pickard, Hannah
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Many individuals manipulate and change emotions using music. People may use different strategies to regulate emotions; some strategies may be adaptive in nature by producing positive emotions, or maladaptive, producing negative affect. Researchers have identified how different populations are likely to use music to regulate emotions and which strategies are commonly utilised by different groups of people. This is an active area of research, but no consensus has been achieved regarding the results of this field; thus, this thesis combines the data collected in previous studies into three meta-analyses, focussing on personality, mental health, and other demographics. A discussion of previous literature contextualises these results, focussing on other uses of music, namely cognitive and background uses, and genre preferences. Of the five traits of the Five-Factor Model of personality, neuroticism correlated the most with the regulation of emotions with a positive and medium-to-large correlation, suggesting that individuals with unstable emotions are more likely to regulate mood through music. Individuals with depression or stress are also likely to use music to regulate emotions with a small-to-medium correlation, further portraying that individuals with negative emotions are more likely to need to use regulatory strategies. Age negatively correlates with emotion regulation use with music, suggesting that as individuals get older, they are less likely to need to regulate emotions. This thesis recommends that the adaptive strategies reappraisal, the process of interpreting stressful situations in positive ways, and problem solving, adapting thought processes about stressful events, can be used in therapeutic settings as these techniques may change negative mood states into positive emotions, improving long-term subjective wellbeing. Future research is needed to focus on the effectiveness of applied emotion regulation through music on wellbeing, and whether certain genres of music in particular may help produce positive affect via music regulatory techniques.
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spelling nottingham-594832025-02-28T14:43:19Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/59483/ Individual differences and emotion regulation through music Pickard, Hannah Many individuals manipulate and change emotions using music. People may use different strategies to regulate emotions; some strategies may be adaptive in nature by producing positive emotions, or maladaptive, producing negative affect. Researchers have identified how different populations are likely to use music to regulate emotions and which strategies are commonly utilised by different groups of people. This is an active area of research, but no consensus has been achieved regarding the results of this field; thus, this thesis combines the data collected in previous studies into three meta-analyses, focussing on personality, mental health, and other demographics. A discussion of previous literature contextualises these results, focussing on other uses of music, namely cognitive and background uses, and genre preferences. Of the five traits of the Five-Factor Model of personality, neuroticism correlated the most with the regulation of emotions with a positive and medium-to-large correlation, suggesting that individuals with unstable emotions are more likely to regulate mood through music. Individuals with depression or stress are also likely to use music to regulate emotions with a small-to-medium correlation, further portraying that individuals with negative emotions are more likely to need to use regulatory strategies. Age negatively correlates with emotion regulation use with music, suggesting that as individuals get older, they are less likely to need to regulate emotions. This thesis recommends that the adaptive strategies reappraisal, the process of interpreting stressful situations in positive ways, and problem solving, adapting thought processes about stressful events, can be used in therapeutic settings as these techniques may change negative mood states into positive emotions, improving long-term subjective wellbeing. Future research is needed to focus on the effectiveness of applied emotion regulation through music on wellbeing, and whether certain genres of music in particular may help produce positive affect via music regulatory techniques. 2019-12-10 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/59483/1/W34CUB%20SPECIAL%20PROJECT%204340172%20MA%20MUSIC.pdf Pickard, Hannah (2019) Individual differences and emotion regulation through music. MA(Res) thesis, University of Nottingham. Emotion regulation music listening wellbeing personality mental health
spellingShingle Emotion regulation
music listening
wellbeing
personality
mental health
Pickard, Hannah
Individual differences and emotion regulation through music
title Individual differences and emotion regulation through music
title_full Individual differences and emotion regulation through music
title_fullStr Individual differences and emotion regulation through music
title_full_unstemmed Individual differences and emotion regulation through music
title_short Individual differences and emotion regulation through music
title_sort individual differences and emotion regulation through music
topic Emotion regulation
music listening
wellbeing
personality
mental health
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/59483/