Date of Award
5-2015
Document Type
Honors Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Psychology
Advisor/Committee Chair
Tina DeMarco
Committee Member
Ronald Friedman
Committee Member
Trammell Neill
Abstract
Through a series of studies, Lee, Andrade, and Palmer (2013) predicted and found that sadness caused by an interpersonal loss creates greater preference for listening to mood-congruent music than sadness caused by a noninterpersonal loss. However, in their experimental procedures, they inadvertently confounded the intensity of the sadness induced in the noninterpersonal and interpersonal sadness conditions, such that the interpersonal sadness condition created stronger feelings of sadness. The current study sought to replicate Lee et al.’s (2013) findings with the modification of unconfounding the intensity of sadness in the interpersonal and noninterpersonal conditions. After controlling for intensity, this study found no significant difference between the interpersonal and noninterpersonal sadness conditions in their preference for mood-congruent music. However, in support of Lee et al. (2013) findings, this study did find that the interpersonal sadness group was more likely to choose sad songs than the neutral group. This result was not found for the noninterpersonal sadness group. In effect, this could indicate an overall preference for mood-congruent music when sadness is caused by an interpersonal loss.
Recommended Citation
Bjornsson, Alberte, "The Effects of Interpersonal and Noninterpersonal Loss on Music Preference" (2015). Psychology. 25.
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/honorscollege_psych/25