The Power of Love (songs): Can listening to pop love songs influence the commitment,intimacy,satisfaction,and passionate love of adults in romantic relationships?

Abstract

While love is a common theme in pop music and studies indicate that music can significantly influence people’s emotions and behaviors, research on the impact of pop love songs on listeners—particularly regarding romantic love—remains limited. This study examined the short-term effect of listening to pop love songs on self-reported feelings of romantic love among a sample of adults in romantic relationships. Participants were randomly assigned to listen briefly to love songs (n = 98) or non-love songs (n = 101), before completing measures of four facets of love. While participants who listened to love (vs non-love) songs scored higher, on average, on measures of relationship commitment, intimacy, satisfaction, and passionate love, the results were not statistically significant. We discuss the limitations of our study and provide recommendations for future research.

Keywords

pop music emotion romantic relationships love music

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