Really sorry this took so long. Rather than try to sum it up, ill just go ahead and post exactly what i turned in. Its going to be long as hell though. It seems also that in copy/pasting it here, some of the formatting got kindof screwed up, like certain spaces are gone for some reason. But it still seems to be readable. It may seem overall inconclusive, but the fact is, it was as comprehensive as i could make it with no actual resources or funding. Hope people still find it a little interesting. I also made a video to go with it, that i will upload to and post back with. Again, sorry this took so long, and thank you all so much for your help. Couldnt have done it without you guys.
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The Connection Between Music and Behavior
Music has always been an integral part of society. It has been around in someform since the earliest recorded history. It has even been referred to as a universallanguage because everybody can identify with it, regardless of language, race, religious belief, or anything else. One would be hard pressedto find somebody who listens to absolutely no music whatsoever. With the advent of musicvideos,a visual element has been added to the music that reinforces the content of thelyrics.With music being such a huge part of life, it forces us to ask: Can the values and behaviorswe hear and see in music over and over again begin to rub off on us? This isthe very question I set out to answer in researching the subject. Work done in the past , in combination with my ownprimary research,has allowed me to draw a conclusion. It is possiblethat over time,if ones listening habits focus solely around a particular genre, the content of the musicthey are listening to could begin to have an effect on a person’s behavior, however it is not the mostdominant factor.
Thereare a few recurring themes in certain genres of music upon which a greaterfocus has been placed for the purposes of this study. These themes are violence, insubordination, sex, alcohol consumption, and drug use. Specifically, we are looking at contentthat portrays related, potentially destructive behaviors in a positive light, or in a manner that appearsto condone the activities. These themes are generally most prevalent in Metal, Rock, and Rap music. That is not to say thatthese themes aren’t present in other genres, they just tend to be focused on less.
Thisis not the first time this subject has been discussed. The question of how much ofan impact music has on behavior tends to come up in the wake of tragedy. A well-known example wouldbe the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School. In the aftermath of the shooting blame wasdirected at various mainstream artists such as Marilyn Manson and Rammstein. People were speculatingthat the often-violent content of the music these artists produced played alarge part in driving the shooters to do what they did. In this case, the music in question could be classified as metal, a genre in which violenceis commonplace in a way. As a person who has been to a number of metal concerts, I know that some of theactivities that take place at such concerts could be perceived as violent innature.In the vast majority of these cases, the intention is not to cause actual harm, and it is more aboutself-expression.However,it does seem that violence isencouraged,and even if it isn’t meant to be serious, it is not difficult to see how in some cases, a person might becomedesensitized to some extent to violence.
Anothercommon theme in popular music that has been discussed before is therepresentation of values pertaining to sex, and sex role. “Sex role” refers to the perceived role of eachgender in our society. This tends to refer to the way that women specifically are portrayedin the music.It has actually been stated by one study that the images present in certainmusic videos relating specifically to sex role can have “strong, predictable, and nonconscious cognitiveeffects on viewers” (Hansen 371). This is where much of the concern surrounding suchcontent comes from.
Thereis yet another common theme in popular music that some might argue has a moresevere impact than the previously mentioned themes because it would seem tohave a very widespread affect. This theme is substance abuse. It can be seen especially in Rock, Metal, and Rap music videos, as well as it can be heardin the lyrics of songs within said genres. Substance abuse is often glorified, and many artists can oftenbe seen abusing substances in their videos or heard talking about abusingsubstances in their lyrics. The concern here is that this could have the potential to cause somepeople to develop misconceptions about substances, and the problems that could arise from abusingthem.
Thefinal common musical theme being examined in this study is insubordination, or defiance of authority. This theme seems to beoverall most prevalent in punk music, however as with the other themes, it can be found in any ofthe genres being examined.
Onevery important thing to keep in mind when discussing the concerns that arisefrom music,is that perception plays a huge role in creating those concerns, and can in some cases leadpeople astray from the truth. There was a study done in 2007 regarding the way people perceivelisteners of certain genres of music, and how accurate those perceptions are. The study was conducted byfirst asking 200 college students to describe the way they thought listeners ofcertain genres to be. Generally speaking, all of the people asked gave very similar responses. However, when the conductors of thestudy proceeded to ask 85 music fans about their actual preferences, “their own ratings agreedwith the [answers given by the college students] for just two of thesegenres” (Munger 1). This study serves as aperfect example of how perception can differ greatly from reality whendiscussing matters such as this.
Asmentioned before,there has already been research done regarding most of the aforementionedthemes.Two themes that have received a particularly large amount of attention in thepast are sex and sex role. One such study explained how related content could affect a personsubconsciously in the areas of “memory for the subsequent stimuli event, evaluation of the actorsparticipating in the event, and inferences made about the actors’ traits from the event” (Hansen372).Essentially what this means, is that after seeing a music video with certain stereotypical sexrole messages people are going to perceive certain events in real lifedifferently than if they had never seen the video, specifically when it comes to their feelingstowards people involved in certain scenarios. For example, if they see a woman doing something that reinforcesthe values seen in the music video, they will perceive them to be a better person. Inversely, if they see a woman doingsomething opposite the values in the video, they will have a slightly negative view of her. This is all subconscioushowever,and the person in question wouldn’t be aware of their altered thought process.
Similar processes to the ones discussed above canalso cause a person’s views on sex to become skewed. Often times in popularmusic, theartists tend to condone promiscuity. There are even entire songs dedicated topromiscuity alone.The concern surrounding this is based on the idea that listeners, particularly younglisteners will lose sight of the importance of practicing safe sex. I did some of my ownresearch regarding this idea, and ended up with interesting results. In a survey to which I got 772 responses, I was able to compare thesexual habits of people who listen to certain genres almost exclusively, against those who don’tidentify with one particular genre of music more than the other (the controlgroup).Among those in the control group, 1.8% reported having had many sexual partners. Of the respondents in theHip-Hop and Rap group, 7.7%responded similarly. This is compared to 2% in the Metal group and 4.9% in the punk group. While the differencesaren’t huge,these results do seem to indicate that those who identify specifically with oneof the three genres above tend to lead slightly more promiscuous life styles, particularly those whofocus primarily on Hip-Hop and Rap. Thisfinding is in line with prior research to an extent; however in a way it issimply raises another question (as do the rest of the findings of this study), which will be discussedlater on.
Prior to the writing of this paper, research has also been doneinvestigating the violent tendencies of those who listen to certain genres ofmusic. One suchstudy came to some interesting conclusions, which once again go back to the earlier point onperception.The most relevant of these conclusions was that “heavy metal fans are seen as athreat to themselves while rap fans are seen as a threat to others” (Fried 2). Thismeans that generally speaking, in the eyes of the public those who listen to rap, are seen as threats tosociety as a whole,where as those who listen to heavy metal are expected to be more selfdestructive in nature. While the study focused more on the reasons people have those views, it raised another point, which I investigatedthrough the use of the survey mentioned before. On the survey, participants were asked how often the found themselves in physically violent confrontations. Within the control group, 12.1% said they were in such aconfrontation “occasionally” and 0 answered “very often”. Within the Metal group, 19.7% answered “occasionally”and 2.5% said“very often”.Of the participants who identified with Hip-Hop and Rap 16.7% answered “occasionally”and 3.2% answered“very often”.Based on these results, we can definitively say that there is a noticeable increase inviolent behavior within study groups outside of the control. However, the differences betweenlisteners of Rap and those of Metal are generally too small to come to anydefinitive conclusions. Specifically, while more Rap fans responded “very often”, more Metal fans responded“occasionally”.This contradiction makes it impossible to say which group actually has moreviolent tendencies.One might speculate that the lower number of “very often” answers on the partof the Metal group could be a result of the fact that in many cases, it is possible that many ofthe activities associated with listening to Metal could serve as outlets foraggression,while listening to Rap tends to be a much more passive experience. Again, that is mostly speculationbecause the differences are almost negligible.
This portion of the study proved ultimatelyinconclusive as far as determining a difference in violent behavior betweenstudy groups. However, it brings us back to my previous point: perceptionoften overshadows reality. It appears that this is becoming the trend. Based on everythingdiscussed so far,the evidence continues to point more and more to the conclusion that music isnot an especially dominant factor in determining a person’s behavior. This in turn suggests analternative conclusion, which once again, will be discussed later in the paper.
AsI had stated earlier, one of the themes in popular music that seems to get a lot ofattention is substance abuse, probably because often times the issue hits close to home for a lotof people in that almost everybody knows somebody who has fallen victim to it, especially amongadolescents.Some studies suggest that there is a connection between musical preferencesamong adolescents,and drug use.One such study stated, “music was an indicator of adolescent substanceuse” (Forsyth, Barnard and McKegany 1324). Once again, we could look at theresults of my study for the purposes of comparison. Among participants in thecontrol group,9.9% saidthey consumed alcoholic beverages “very often” and 8.9% said they used marijuana“very often”.Surprisingly,the numbers are much higher among listeners of Rap and Hip-Hop, with 13.5% saying they consumedalcoholic beverages, and 17.9%saying they used marijuana “very often”. These findings are very interesting because foressentially the first time in this study so far, there appears to be a significant correlationbetween musical preference and substance abuse. However, perhaps even more interesting are the numbersamong those who identify with the Metal group. Of the participants in the Metal group 7.3% said they consumedalcoholic beverages “very often” and 5.3% said they used Marijuana “very often”. These numbers are muchlower than either the control group or the Hip-Hop and Rap group. Within the confines of thisstudy, there isno real way to know why this could be.
Withall of that being said, the study mentioned earlier also made a very important distinction. The study states that, although there was acorrelation,“This does not mean that onecauses the other, indeed both drug use and interestin [certain genres of] music may have other common causes which may develop ina form of symbiosis” (Forsyth, Barnard and McKegany 1324). This suggesting that it may not bethe music that creates a personality,but rather the other way around. This is alsothe conclusion that we seem to be moving towards with this study.
Thefinal theme of popular music to be discussed for the purposes of this study isinsubordinance, the defiance of authority. In a way, one could look at any of the otherbehaviors we have discussed so far,and consider them to be a subcategory of insubordinance. For the most part, adolescents are always told toavoid drugs and alcohol, among manyother things. Sometimes when an adolescent doesany of those things, it is a formof rebellion. It is because of this that it canbe difficult to get a truly accurate read on the level of insubordinance amonglisteners of certain genres. However, there are a few things that couldbe good indicators. When filling out the survey Icreated for this study, respondentswere asked about both their school disciplinary history, as well as their history with thelaw. When asked if they had ever beenadministratively disciplined (detention,suspension, expulsion, etc.) for behavior problems in school, 37% said yes, compared to 30.6% among Metal fans, and 49.6% between Hip-Hop and Rap fans. When asked if they had ever beenconvicted of a crime, 1.3% reported having been convictedof multiple, compared to 4.1% among Metal fans and 7.1% among Hip-Hop and Rap fans. Once again, the Hip-Hop and Rap group has thehighest numbers. The fact that this has been theconsistent outcome throughout the study seems to indicate that there is acorrelation. Once again however, it is impossible to say with anydegree of certainty why exactly this is.
Withthese findings, we still have to remember thetheory discussed earlier. This was theidea that perhaps it isn’t certain genres of music that are causing people tobehave a certain way, but ratherit’s that people with certain personality traits have a tendency to gravitatetowards certain genres. Again, within the confines of this study, it is very difficult to prove ordisprove this theory. It is howeversomething that should be kept within sight.
Givenall of this data, it seems safe to conclude thatwhile is possible that music couldhave an impact on a person’s behavior to some extent, it is far from a dominant factor. If we look at the numbers in thegrand scheme of things, we can seethat in almost every case we are examining the small minority of each studygroup in looking at the worst of the negative behaviors. Generally speaking, the vast majority of the studygroups don’t exhibit any of those negative behaviors to any further extent thanthe control group does. Some studieshave actually been done in the past,which conclude that some of the very musical genres that are in question canactually have positive effects on a person’s behavior. One such study found that “listening to [heavy metal] music toexpress uncomfortable emotions could be a rather effective coping mechanism forgirls since it reduces the risk for suicidal behaviors” (Lacourse 331). The subject is still very open fordiscussion and research, and it may be awhile before someone is able to come up with a truly definitive answer to thesequestions, if it ever happens. For now however, the evidence that I have gatheredfor this study suggests the music a person listens to has very little affect onthe person’s behavior and personality.
WorksCited
Forsyth, Alasdair J. M.,Marina Barnard, and Neil P. McKeganey. “Musical Preference as an Indicator ofAdolescent Drug Use.” Addiction 92.10 (1997): 1317-1325. Print. Thisarticle provided me with a lot of information regarding the possible connectionbetween musical preference and drug use. The article also gave me supportingevidence for the idea that personality traits could lead to a person’spreference for certain genres of music as opposed to the other way around.
Fried, Carrie B, Ph.D.“Stereotypes of Music Fans: Are Rap and Heavy Metal Fans a Danger to Themselvesor Others?” Journal of Media Psychology 8.3 (2003): 1-21. Print. Thisarticle had a lot of good information regarding violent tendencies among thosewho listen to Rap and Heavy Metal music. This was especially useful for bothbackground information as well as for giving an example of the subject beingdiscussed.
Hansen, Christine Hall.“Priming Sex-Role Stereotypic Event Schemas with Rock Music Videos: Effects onImpression Favorability, Trait Inferences, and Recall of a SubsequentMale-Female Interaction.” Basic and Applied Social Psychology 10.4(1989): 371-391. Print. I used this source to get information regarding thepossible effects of the images in music and music videos on sex rolestereotypes.
Lacourse, Eric, MichaelClaes, and Martine Villeneuve. “Heavy Metal Music and Adolescent SuicidalRisk.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence 30.3 (2001): 321-332. Print.This article provided me with strong supporting evidence for the idea thatcertain genres of music in question in the study can actually have beneficialaffects on behavior in some cases.
Munger, Dave. Weblogpost. Do Our Stereotypes about Music Fans Match Their Actual Preference.ScienceBlogs, 20 Feb. 2008. Web. 9 June 2010. <http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2008/02/do_our_stereotypes_about_music.php>. Thisarticle gave me useful background information as well as supporting evidenceregarding the idea that perception overshadows reality.
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