Category: Project

Categories
Music Project

Music And Well-Being

The Benefits of Music Music not only has a powerful emotional impact, it also contributes to health and well-being. Whether through listening, playing, or composing, music is a fundamental aspect of leisure for many, serving as both an expression of personal identity and a tool for managing difficult emotions. In addition, research has revealed the far-reaching effects of music, showing links between musical training and memory, language skills, and academic success. Some people find that listening to music in the background while studying helps them focus. Others turn to music to motivate themselves before facing challenges. Below is an overview of our research looking at the positive effects of music. Click on the articles to read more about our findings. Our Research Listening to music in the classroom In a mixed-methods study, we examined the effects of listening to self-selected music before class on mood, motivation, concentration, and learning in a high school setting. In the first week, students experienced a standard school day without music, while in the second week they incorporated self-selected music before each class. Our results revealed robust positive effects on mood, motivation, and concentration, with moderate effects on learning outcomes.Qualitative analysis of open-ended responses revealed that perceived benefits were primarily attributed to the generation of positive and energizing emotions, improved attention, and the establishment of a routine that provided a break between classes. These findings suggest that the integration of self-selected music can serve as an effective and cost-efficient strategy to enhance students’ emotional well-being, motivation, and concentration in a school setting.

Categories
Emotion Music Project

Factors of Music Induced Emotions

The emotional impact of music Music has the ability to express and evoke emotions that listeners can recognize and experience within themselves. Previous studies indicate that the primary reason for intentional music listening is often the emotional impact it provides. Whether it’s to enhance, reduce, or alter one’s mood, music holds the power to elicit emotions in roughly half of listening episodes, with positive emotions prevailing. The strongest emotions are reported when music receives focused attention and when it is listened to alone. However, individuals sometimes find it challenging to differentiate between the emotions they genuinely felt while listening to music and those they perceive as inherent to the composition itself. Which emotions does music induce? The fact that music is able to evoke emotions is something that everyone has probably felt at some time. In research, there are three main approaches to the question of what kind of emotions are involved, whereby in our research we focus primarily on the latter. The dimensional approach represents emotions on the basis of the expression of several continuums, above all on the basis of the dimensions valence (positivity/negativity) and arousal (strength or intensity of the emotion). Discrete emotion models apply basic emotions such as joy, sadness, anger or fear to the measurement of music-induced emotions. Domain-specific approaches take into account the special character of aesthetic emotions and define music-specific emotion terms. One example is the GEMS, with 45 emotion terms, 9 dimensions and the three superordinate factors Sublimity, Vitality and Unease. Factors influencing music induced emotions Despite the general consensus among music listeners regarding the intended emotional expression of a piece of music, there exist variations among individuals in terms of the intensity and differentiation of their emotional responses to music. These differences can primarily be attributed to four factors that influence the emotional impact of musical compositions: the musical structure, the performance, the personal characteristics of the listener, and the context in which the music is experienced. In our research, we take a closer look at these four factors and their interactions and base our studies on the Induction Rule Model (Scherer & Zentner, 2001). Read about our published articles Performance Features and Music Induced Emotions Read More Listener Features and Music Induced Emotions Read More

Categories
Close relationships Project

Love in times of Covid

About the Project This project is a longitudinal study that was launched at the very beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in April 2020 and ran for two years. Its aim is to take a closer look at romantic relationships during the pandemic, specifically to examine the trajectories of relationship and sexual satisfaction. Furthermore, we seek to identify factors that help or challenge couples under unusually stressful conditions, such as the current pandemic. We hope that this will facilitate the development and deployment of effective means of prevention and intervention for couples facing unusual challenges in the future. Over 3000 individuals participated in the first measurement point of the study in April 2020 and shared the perceived changes in their relationships and living arrangements with us. More than 2500 individuals also took part in at least one of the five other measurement time points, which allowed us to draw conclusions about eventual changes in relationship dynamics during the pandemic.  CC BY-ND image by the Music, Emotion, Assessment, and Personality Lab Study design The longitudinal study started in April 2020 and was open to all individuals who were currently in any form of romantic relationship. After participating in the first measurement point (T1), individuals were invited to the second and third measurement point individually after 10 days (T2 and T3). For the subsequent measurement time points, all participants were invited in November 2020 (T4), March 2021 (T5), and March 2022 (T6).  CC BY-ND image by the Music, Emotion, Assessment, and Personality Lab At each measurement point, participants were asked about their relationship and sexual satisfaction, about their worries regarding the pandemic, and about symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression. At the first measurement time point, various life circumstances (living situation, occupation, demographic information) and stable personality traits (anxious and avoidant attachment style, negative affectivity) were assessed.  Publications and Findings To date, we have published two articles on the project in peer-reviewed journals, and a third article is available as a preprint. In addition, we provide preliminary data, which have not yet been published as independent articles.  Published Articles, Preprints, and Additional Information Article 1 Article 2 Article 3 (Preprint) Additional Information Learn more about our first article, which was published in PLOS ONE as part as the Love in Times of Covid project.  In this article, we analyzed the first measurement point of our longitudinal study in April 2020 and addressed whether relationship and sexual satisfaction changed among cohabitating and non-cohabitating couples at the onset of the pandemic. In addition, we sought to identify vulnerabilities and resilience factors for romantic relationships. Learn more about the second article we published in the Journal of Personality as part of the Love in Times of Covid project. In this article, we focused on changes in relationship and sexual satisfaction among cohabitating and non-cohabitating couples, analyzing the study period of one year (April 2020 – March 2021). Moreover, we were able to show what influence external stressors, personal vulnerabilities as well as their interaction had on relationships during the pandemic.  Learn more about the third article, wich was written as part of the Love in Times of Covid project and is currently available as a preprint.  In this article, we extended the research period by another year (April 2020-March 2022) and were able to identify different classes of change patterns in relationship and sexual satisfaction during the pandemic. In addition to providing information on what proportion of the sample followed the different change trajectories during the pandemic, we were able to highlight predictors of class membership as well as predictors of breakups.   In this report, we provide insight into findings related to the project that are not addressed in the published articles. For example, you will find information about the changes in daily routine participants reported at the beginning of the pandemic, about the factors participants themselves experienced as predictors of an improvement or deterioration in their relationship, and about the extent to which domestic and care work developed during the pandemic.