My Thesis on Affect regulation in everyday life

I have now printed my thesis in a little book according to Dutch tradition. If you would like a copy, you can contact me (I will ask you to contribute to the costs of the book).

Abstract

The ability to regulate affect has widely been recognized as being crucial for a healthy psychological life. Although existing literature provided a focus on affect regulation strategies such as reappraisal, more specific tactics such as listening to music had also previously been defined. However, the difference between the levels on which affect regulation can occur had not been clearly recognized in the literature. Nevertheless, it had been suggested that music listening was a potentially widely used and effective tactic.

The aim of this thesis was to demonstrate how affect regulation can be studied in everyday life, including four levels of analysis of a newly proposed framework: goals, strategies, tactics, and underlying mechanisms (the GSTM framework). To demonstrate the use of this framework music listening in everyday life for affect regulation was investigated. A mixed method design was used including a literature study, two survey studies, a diary study with follow-up semi-structured interviews, and finally a diary-based intervention study. All participants were recruited at a university in the Midlands, UK, with the majority being young adults. Participants had no specific musical background and were not known to have experienced psychological problems.

The thesis generated a list of reliably judged strategies which were found to be used in everyday life (relaxation, distraction, active coping, rational thinking, venting, and introspection), and demonstrated that music listening is used more often than, and for a wider range of strategies than any other tactic. Different underlying mechanisms of music were discovered showing not only musical features but also factors such as memories and music-unrelated activities as being responsible for the ways in which music helped to regulate affect. The results illustrated how participants regulated strong affects by using a stepwise approach, whereas participants reporting unsuccessful regulation attempts often attempted to regulate their affect all at once. Participants were able to include more music listening in their affect regulation habits when requested. In addition, other widely used tactics were established, opening up avenues for further research. This thesis has established the important role of music listening for affect regulation purposes, and demonstrated that it is possible to investigate the operation of affect regulation in everyday life including every level of analysis through an everyday life design.

Psychologie magazine

In het februari nummer van psychologie magazine staat een artikel over zielige muziek en waarom mensen deze muziek graag luisteren (Om te huilen zo mooi- door Manon Sikkel). Ik heb meegewerkt aan dat artikel, en via deze link kun je mijn top drie van zielige muziek beluisteren en lezen waarom dat mijn top drie is. De link van Gerard van Maasakkers is trouwens niet Gerard van Maasakkers zelf. En via deze link kun je ook andere top drie lijstjes van muziek, boeken en films bekijken. Kleine kanttekening bij het stuk is dat uiteraard ook de muziek zelf emoties opwekt (en zelfs belangrijk is), maar dat daarnaast ook de persoonlijke associaties belangrijk zijn (het zijn dus zeker niet alleen de persoonlijke associaties die een rol spelen).

In the February edition of the Dutch "psychology magazine" an article was written about sad music and why people listen to sad music (written by Manon Sikkel). I was interviewed for this article. Through this link you can listen to my top three of sad music pieces. The explanation of why this music appears in my top three is in Dutch, so if you have any questions about that, please ask. Through this link you can find other top three lists of books, movies and music.

Handbook of Music and Emotion

I would like to point out the forthcoming publication of the book : Handbook of Music and Emotion by Juslin and Sloboda.

My supervisor John Sloboda and his colleague Patrik Juslin made an up-to-date version of their book Music and Emotion, which does not only elaborate in the already existing chapters, but also has some new chapters in it. Especially Chapter 4 about the psychological perspectives and the newly added Chapter 18 on Music in Everyday Life are very interesting in respect to my work. And for those who like to know, reference is made to my research in these chapters.

This book will become available around the 17th of December.

Music's ability to express and arouse emotions is a mystery that has fascinated both experts and laymen at least since ancient Greece. The predecessor to this book, Music and Emotion (OUP, 2001) was critically and commercially successful and stimulated much further work in this area. In the years since the publication of that book, empirical research in this area has blossomed, and the successor to Music and Emotion reflects the considerable activity in this area.
The Handbook of Music and Emotion offers an 'up-to-date' account of this vibrant domain. It provides comprehensive coverage of the many approaches that may be said to define the field of music and emotion, in all its breadth and depth.

Everyone is musically skilled

I would like to point out this book written by my former teacher and now colleague in the world of music psychology: Henkjan Honing.
The book is in Dutch and translates as: Everyone is musically skilled: What we know about listening to music. The English version will not be available for another year, but for Dutch people it is certainly worth looking into now. The book is available here.

The Muppets

I love the Muppets, and since it is music, I think it is allright to include a fun video for once.

Sad in a nice way- update where to find

The contribution I made to Hear here from Classic FM is not as easy to find anymore. Please click here to go to the page where the contributions of our research group can be found. Then just click on the story: sad in a nice way. Of course the other contributions are worth checking out as well!

ISRE

From the 6-8Th of August 2009 I attended the bi-annual meeting of ISRE. Besides the many wonderful talks, I will mostly remember all the nice people I met, and the interesting conversations I had.

I presented a poster at this conference and will include the abstract below. If you are interested in a handout, please do not hesitate to ask me.

This paper will articulate an undertheorised distinction between general affect regulation strategies and the tactics people adopt in everyday life to effect these strategies (Parkinson and Totterdell, 1999). Although some research hints at this distinction (Parkinson and Totterdell, 1999; Carver, Scheier and Weintraub, 1989), there is insufficient conceptual clarity, with different levels of activity often all being described as strategies. The present research takes the view that concrete tactics like taking a shower, and listening to music are at a different level to more abstract strategies like distraction and reappraisal. The former are the specific means to achieve the latter. It is suggested that location, situation and personal preference define which tactic is used for which strategy. To give substance to this proposal an empirical study was conducted, for which the most extensive list of strategies so far proposed was combined with a similar number of tactics derived from Parkinson and Totterdell’s 1999 study. Participants were asked to discriminate the items and, on basis of their judgment, a set of reliably judged strategies and tactics were identified. Participants demonstrated that they understand the difference between strategies and tactics. 24 of the 100 items were agreed by most participants to be strategies, and 23 were agreed to be tactics. This data provides confirmation of a robust and generally applicable distinction between these two levels of description. Thus, the same activity can be described both at strategic level (e.g. distraction) and at tactical level (listening to music as a means to distraction).

Mood regulation and music

On the 7th of November 2008, I gave a presentation at the RNCM in Manchester at the conference Music Health and Happiness. Due to the positive reactions and many emails being send to request more information I decided to provide the abstract on this blog. If you have any further questions do not hesitate to contact me.

Music is not simply a source of enjoyment or recreation; it can also affect health and psychological well-being. In particular, music can regulate emotions and moods, and there is evidence that people deliberately and regularly use it for this purpose. Mood regulation is generally considered as one of the most important skills one needs to possess in order to function in a healthy adaptive way (Larsen 2000). It has been demonstrated that people who do not know how to regulate their affect are more likely to suffer from psychological and social problems than people who do. It has also been shown in several studies that music is one of the most widely used ways to regulate mood in everyday life (e.g. Thayer, Newman and McClain, 1994). However, it has yet to be precisely established how music contributes to this regulation, and which moods are in fact regulated. In previous studies of this project it was indicated that music as a tactic might serve mood regulation strategies. For example, it can help a person to become distracted from a prevailing emotion or a difficult situation, to relax, to think rationally, or to vent emotions. It was therefore expected that participants would report to use music for a wide variety of strategies, situations as well as moods. Due to the explorative character of the study, no hypotheses were made. To discover the exact way in which music helps people to regulate their mood, a diary study followed by interviews was conducted. A total of 44 participants wrote down details about their daily music listening episodes during a period of one week, and then took part in an in-depth semi structured interview to explain more about the effect of the music on their mood, and the exact working of the music to help the different strategies. Key results will be presented in this paper. Preliminary analysis has shown that people indeed use music to regulate a large variety of moods in a large variety of situations. It was found that music is used in an often complex way, involving a wide variety of strategies. In many occasions people use several strategies simultaneously or in a sequential order. The data help explain how even sad music and sadness can contribute to happiness, and they also show that individuals can learn from mood regulation attempts that did not have the desired effect. The findings of the study will be evaluated for their potential to inform interventions which could help people to further develop their mood regulation skills through the use of music.

Larsen, R.J. (2000), Toward a Science of Mood Regulation. Psychological Inquiry, 11 [3], 129-141. Thayer, R.E., Newman, J.R., and McClain, T.M. (1994). Self-regulation of mood: Strategies for changing a bad mood, raising energy, and reducing tension. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 910-925.

Affect regulation skills with music

Last week I presented a paper at the conference for Music Development and Learning at Roehampton University. This conference was organized by Roehampton University and SEMPRE. For this conference I also wrote a paper for the proceedings titled: "Affect regulation skills with music: Insight and changes over time". You will find the abstract of this paper below.
If you like a copy of the paper (pdf) then let me know.

ABSTRACT
This paper describes a diary study followed by interviews in which it was explored how people use music for affect regulation. For this paper specifically, the data concerning the development, change, and learning of affect regulation skills are discussed. Two types of development are identified: First, lifelong development through experience with the working and outcomes of music, and second, the development of skills and especially insight of skills through participation in the study itself. The latter shows that after participants had the opportunity to think about the topic, the study caused them to reflect on their day-to-day affect regulation and they gained insight in their affect regulation behaviour. This indicates that the study itself can be a useful tool to gain knowledge. By means of this tool, one could improve one’s own affect regulation skills. The study incorporated a wide range of age, 18-64, and age-related effects will be reported.

Podcast on Hear here

After posting the little articles about music psychology (see previous post), the website Hear here from royal philharmonic orchestra and classic FM also posted a podcast in which Alex Lamont (at 6'25'') and I (at 8' 36'') are explaining a little about music and its influence on our moods. My piece was cut a little unfortunate, but basically what I am saying here is that people do not always want to be happy as the hedonistic theories claim we do, but they turn out to make themselves relaxed with listening to music. Something I also agree as to be a form of happiness, but a form of happiness that contains less arousal, and is therefore less tiresome to be in.
Especially in comparison with the perfect English accents of the host, my accent sticks out horribly, my apologies for that :-). Even more reason to compliment the host on his lovely pronunciation of my name.
Go to "this month", "podcasts" no. 10. to hear the complete podcast.

Sad-in a nice way!

Every month, the website "hear here" has a special music related theme. This month they focus on music psychology and mostly music in everyday life. Most contributions come from the music psychology group from Keele University of which I am part. Check out the site for Augusts "Listen and Discuss" called: "An outburst of the soul" and find besides the wonderful pieces of Alex, Alinka, and Andreas, mine on mood regulation.
My piece is about mood regulation with music and points out a new approach to mood regulation. I distinguise broad strategies like distraction and relaxation from tactics (or tools), like listening to music, and excersizing. I claim that the tactics like music listening can help the broader strategies, and I point out how widely used and how varied the outcome of music listening can be. If you lost it by now, check out the piece. The piece is called: Sad-in a nice way!

Nature article

Nature Magazine has recently published a series of essays about science and music. In total 9 essays were produced by leading figures in the field of music. The final essay was written by my supervisor John Sloboda. The article argues why it is impossible to study the influence of music on human beings in lab situations, and John argues why the best way to study the influence of music on thoughts and feelings is through diary studies, or experience sampling methods, followed by interviews. John also explains that we generally put too much trust in the effect of music on our life. We often refer to music as being a magic pill, while in fact music can help us to alter our mood and emotion to a certain extend, but exspecially in extreme situations, this can be hard to do.

This essay of John hints to my study in several ways which I will not point out here. I guess you will just all have to wait for my publications about my study to see. What I can say is that I am very thankfull to John to provide a reference in such a respectable place to back up the things I am doing.

On the nature site you can also find a podcast with John Sloboda about this topic.

beat parrot

Henkjan Honing is my former teacher and one of the few Music psychologists in the Netherlands. He appears often in the media, and also manages a blogger page. It was when I was looking for new media appearances of him on youtube that I came accross the beat parrot. It is generally assumed that music is a human thing, and no animals can understand or create music. This is why is it interesting to see this parrot "dancing" on the beat of a song. Notice how he "looses" the beat when the beat of the song is less obvious. He gets better towards the end of the video as well. Enjoy!

Welcome

More and more people use blogger.com to share their thoughts and interesting information. Not that I have many thoughts to share, but once in a while I come across interesting information that might be nice to check out for others. Youtube videos, interesting articles, programs etc.
"Why not start a blogger page too?", I thought. And here it is. Although I already have some things in mind which I could share with you, I will slowly feed it into the blog to prevent an overload, followed by a long silence.

I hope you will enjoy the blog!