Music is universal at least partly because it expresses emotion and regulates affect. Associations between music and emotion have been examined regularly by music psychologists. Here, we review recent findings in three areas: (a) the communication and perception of emotion in music, (b) the emotional consequences of music listening, and (c) predictors of music preferences.
AdachiM.TrehubS. E. (1998). Children’s expression of emotion in song. Psychology of Music, 26, 133–153.
2.
BalkwillL. L.ThompsonW. F. (1999). A cross-cultural investigation of the perception of emotion in music: Psychophysical and cultural cues. Music Perception, 17, 43–64.
3.
BalkwillL. L.ThompsonW. F.MatsunagaR. (2004). Recognition of emotion in Japanese, Western, and Hindustani music by Japanese listeners. Japanese Psychological Research, 46, 337–349.
4.
BloodA. J.ZatorreR. J. (2001). Intensely pleasurable responses to music correlate with activity in brain regions implicated in reward and emotion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 98, 11818–11823.
5.
BloodA. J.ZatorreR. J.BermudezP.EvansA. C. (1999). Emotional responses to pleasant and unpleasant music correlate with activity in paralimbic brain regions. Nature Neuroscience, 2, 382–387.
6.
BowlingD. L.SundararajanJ.HanS.PurvesD. (2012). Expression of emotion in eastern and western music mirrors vocalization. PLoS ONE, 7(3), e31942. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0031942
7.
BratticoE.AlluriV.BogertB.JacobsenT.VartiainenN.NieminenS.TervaniemiM. (2011). A functional MRI study of happy and sad emotions in music with and without lyrics. Frontiers in Psychology, 2, 308. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00308
8.
CacioppoJ. T.BerntsonG. G. (1994). Relationship between attitudes and evaluative space: A critical review, with emphasis on the separability of positive and negative substrates. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 401–423.
9.
CacioppoJ. T.GardnerW. L.BerntsonG. G. (1997). Beyond bipolar conceptualizations and measures: The case of attitudes and evaluative space. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 1, 3–25.
10.
CattellR. B.AndersonJ. C. (1953). The measurement of personality and behavior disorders by the IPAT Music Preference Test. Journal of Applied Psychology, 37, 446–454.
11.
ChenJ. L.PenhuneV. B.ZatorreR. J. (2008). Moving on time: Brain network for auditory-motor synchronization is modulated by rhythm complexity and musical training. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20, 226–239.
12.
ChenL.ZhouS.BryantJ. (2007). Temporal changes in mood repair through music consumption: Effects of mood, mood salience, and individual differences. Media Psychology, 9, 695–713.
13.
CsikszentmihalyiM. (1990). Flow. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
14.
CsikszentmihalyiM.RobinsonR. E. (1990). The art of seeing: An interpretation of the aesthetic encounter. Los Angeles, CA: Getty.
15.
Dalla BellaS.PeretzI.RousseauL.GosselinN. (2001). A developmental study of the affective value of tempo and mode in music. Cognition, 80, B1–B10.
16.
DollingerS. J. (1993). Research note: Personality and music preference: Extraversion and excitement seeking or openness to experience?Psychology of Music, 21, 73–77.
17.
DunnP. G.de RuyterB.BouwhuisD. G. (2011). Toward a better understanding of the relation between music preference, listening behavior, and personality. Psychology of Music, 40, 411–428.
18.
DysS. P.SchellenbergE. G.McLeanK. C. (in press). Musical identities, music preferences, and individual differences. In MacDonaldR. A. R.MiellD.HargreavesD. J. (Eds.), Oxford handbook of musical identities. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
19.
EerolaT.VuoskoskiJ. K. (2010). A comparison of the discrete and dimensional models of emotion in music. Psychology of Music, 39, 18–49.
20.
EgermannH.McAdamsS. (2013). Empathy and emotional contagion as a link between recognized and felt emotions in music listening. Music Perception, 31, 139–156.
21.
EllsworthP. C.SchererK. R. (2003). Appraisal processes in emotion. In DavidsonR. J.SchererK. R.GoldsmithH. H. (Eds.), Handbook of affective sciences (pp. 572–595). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
22.
EvansP.SchubertE. (2008). Relationships between expressed and felt emotions in music. Musicae Scientiae, 12, 75–99.
23.
FernaldA.TaeschnerT.DunnJ.PapousekM.de Boysson-BardiesB.FukuiI. (1989). A cross-language study of prosodic modifications in mothers’ and fathers’ speech to preverbal infants. Journal of Child Language, 16, 477–501.
24.
FriedmanR. S.GordisE.FörsterJ. (2012). Re-exploring the influence of sad mood on music preference. Media Psychology, 15, 249–266.
25.
FritzT.JentschkeS.GosselinN.SammlerD.PeretzI.TurnerR.… KoelschS. (2009). Universal recognition of three basic emotions in music. Current Biology, 19, 573–576.
26.
GabrielssonA. (2002). Emotion perceived and emotion felt: Same or different?Musicae Scientiae, 5, 123–147.
27.
GagnonL.PeretzI. (2003). Mode and tempo: Relative contributions to “happy-sad” judgements in equitone melodies. Cognition & Emotion, 17, 25–40.
28.
GarridoS.SchubertE. (2011). Individual differences in the enjoyment of negative emotion in music: A literature review and experiment. Music Perception, 28, 279–295.
29.
GarridoS.SchubertE. (2013). Adaptive and maladaptive attraction to negative emotions in music. Musicae Scientiae, 17, 147–166.
30.
GarridoS.SchubertE. (2015). Moody melodies: Do they cheer us up? A study of the effect of sad music on mood. Psychology of Music, 43, 244–261.
31.
GetzL. M.MarksS.RoyM. (2014). The influence of stress, optimism, and music training on music uses and preferences. Psychology of Music, 42, 71–85.
32.
GoldsteinA. (1980). Thrills in response to music and other stimuli. Physiological Psychology, 8, 126–129.
33.
GomezP.DanuserB. (2004). Affective and physiological responses to environmental noises and music. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 53, 91–103.
34.
GomezP.DanuserB. (2007). Relationships between musical structure and psychophysiological measures of emotion. Emotion, 7, 377–387.
35.
GreenA. C.BærentsenK. B.Stødkilde-JørgensenH.WallentinM.RoepstorffA.VuustP. (2008). Music in minor activates limbic structures: A relationship with dissonance?Neuroreport, 19, 711–715.
36.
GreweO.KatzurB.KopiezR.AltenmüllerE. (2010). Chills in different sensory domains: Frisson elicited by acoustical, visual, tactile and gustatory stimuli. Psychology of Music, 39, 220–239.
37.
GreweO.KopiezR.AltenmüllerE. (2009). The chill parameter: Goose bumps and shivers as promising measures in emotion research. Music Perception, 27, 61–74.
38.
GuhnM.HammA.ZentnerM. (2007). Physiological and musico-acoustic correlates of the chill response. Music Perception, 24, 473–483.
39.
HickokG. (2009). Eight problems for the mirror neuron theory of action understanding in monkeys and humans. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 21, 1229–1243.
40.
HunterP. G.SchellenbergE. G. (2011). Interactive effects of personality and frequency of exposure on liking for music. Personality and Individual Differences, 50, 175–179.
41.
HunterP. G.SchellenbergE. G.GriffithA. T. (2011). Misery loves company: Mood-congruent emotional responding to music. Emotion, 11, 1068–1072.
42.
HunterP. G.SchellenbergE. G.SchimmackU. (2008). Mixed affective responses to music with conflicting cues. Cognition & Emotion, 22, 327–352.
43.
HunterP. G.SchellenbergE. G.SchimmackU. (2010). Feelings and perceptions of happiness and sadness induced by music: Similarities, differences, and mixed emotions. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 4, 47–56.
44.
HunterP. G.SchellenbergE. G.StalinskiS. M. (2011). Liking and identifying emotionally expressive music: Age and gender differences. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 110, 80–93.
45.
HuronD. (2006). Sweet anticipation: Music and the psychology of expectation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
46.
HuronD. (2011). Why is sad music pleasurable? A possible role for prolactin. Musicae Scientiae, 15, 146–158.
47.
HusainG.ThompsonW. F.SchellenbergE. G. (2002). Effects of musical tempo and mode on arousal, mood, and spatial abilities. Music Perception, 20, 151–171.
48.
IstókE.BratticoE.JacobsenT.RitterA.TervaniemiM. (2013). “I love rock ‘n’ roll”—Music genre preference modulates brain responses to music. Biological Psychology, 92, 142–151.
49.
JaquetL.DanuserB.GomezP. (2014). Music and felt emotions: How systematic pitch level variations affect the experience of pleasantness and arousal. Psychology of Music, 42, 51–70.
50.
JuslinP. N.IsakssonS. (2014). Subjective criteria for choice and aesthetic judgment of music: A comparison of psychology and music students. Research Studies in Music Education, 36, 179–198.
51.
JuslinP. N.LaukkaP. (2003). Communication of emotions in vocal expression and music performance: Different channels, same code?Psychological Bulletin, 129, 770–814.
52.
JuslinP. N.LiljeströmS.LaukkaP.VästfjällD.LundqvistL. O. (2011). Emotional reactions to music in a nationally representative sample of Swedish adults: Prevalence and causal influences. Musicae Scientiae, 15, 174–207.
53.
JuslinP. N.LindströmE. (2010). Musical expression of emotions: Modelling listeners’ judgements of composed and performed features. Music Analysis, 29, 334–364.
54.
JuslinP. N.VästfjällD. (2008). Emotional responses to music: The need to consider underlying mechanisms. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31, 559–575.
55.
KhalfaS.RoyM.RainvilleP.Dalla BellaS.PeretzI. (2008). Role of tempo entrainment in psychophysiological differentiation of happy and sad music?International Journal of Psychophysiology, 68, 17–26.
56.
KivyP. (1990). Music alone: Philosophical reflections on the purely musical experience. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
57.
KoelschS.FritzT.CramonY. V.MüllerK.FriedericiA. D. (2006). Investigating emotion with music: An fMRI study. Human Brain Mapping, 27, 239–250.
58.
KoelschS.GunterT. C.ZyssetS.LohmannG.FriedericiA. D. (2002). Bach speaks: A cortical “language-network” serves the processing of music. Neuroimage, 17, 956–966.
59.
KonečniV. J. (2008a). Does music induce emotion? A theoretical and methodological analysis. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 2, 115–129.
60.
KonečniV. J. (2008b). A skeptical position on “musical emotions” and an alternative proposal. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31, 582–584.
61.
KreutzG.OttU.TeichmannD.OsawaP.VaitlD. (2008). Using music to induce emotions: Influences of musical preference and absorption. Psychology of Music, 36, 101–126.
62.
KreutzG.SchubertE.MitchellL. A. (2008). Cognitive styles of music listening. Music Perception, 26, 57–73.
63.
LadinigO.SchellenbergE. G. (2012). Liking unfamiliar music: Effects of felt emotion and individual differences. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 6, 146–154.
64.
LarsenJ. T.StastnyB. J. (2011). It’s a bittersweet symphony: Simultaneously mixed emotional responses to music with conflicting cues. Emotion, 11, 1469–1473.
65.
LaukkaP. (2007). Uses of music and psychological well-being among the elderly. Journal of Happiness Studies, 8, 215–241.
66.
LaukkaP.EerolaT.ThingujamN. S.YamasakiT.BellerG. (2013). Universal and culture-specific factors in the recognition and performance of musical affect expressions. Emotion, 13, 434–449.
67.
LaukkaP.JuslinP. N. (2007). Similar patterns of age-related differences in emotion recognition from speech and music. Motivation and Emotion, 31, 182–191.
68.
LaukkaP.QuickL. (2013). Emotional and motivational uses of music in sports and exercise: A questionnaire study among athletes. Psychology of Music, 41, 198–215.
69.
LazarusR. S. (1982). Thoughts on the relations between emotion and cognition. American Psychologist, 37, 1019–1024.
70.
LiljeströmS.JuslinP. N.VästfjällD. (2013). Experimental evidence of the roles of music choice, social context, and listener personality in emotional reactions to music. Psychology of Music, 41, 579–599.
71.
LimaC. F.CastroS. L. (2011). Emotion recognition in music changes across the adult life span. Cognition and Emotion, 25, 585–598.
72.
LonsdaleA. J.NorthA. C. (2011). Why do we listen to music? A uses and gratifications analysis. British Journal of Psychology, 102, 108–134.
73.
MaessB.KoelschS.GunterT. C.FriedericiA. D. (2001). Musical syntax is processed in Broca’s area: An MEG study. Nature Neuroscience, 4, 540–545.
74.
Mas-HerreroE.ZatorreR. J.Rodriguez-FornellsA.Marco-PallarésJ. (2014). Dissociation between musical and monetary reward responses in specific musical anhedonia. Current Biology, 24, 699–704.
75.
McCraeR. R. (2007). Aesthetic chills as a universal marker of openness to experience. Motivation and Emotion, 31, 5–11.
76.
MenonV.LevitinD. J. (2005). The rewards of music listening: Response and physiological connectivity of the mesolimbic system. Neuroimage, 28, 175–184.
77.
MeyerL. B. (1956). Emotion and meaning in music. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
78.
MikuttaC. A.MaissenG.AltorferA.StrikW.KoenigT. (2014). Professional musicians listen differently to music. Neuroscience, 268, 102–111.
79.
MirandaD.ClaesM. (2008). Personality traits, music preferences and depression in adolescence. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 14, 277–298.
80.
MitterschiffthalerM. T.FuC. H.DaltonJ. A.AndrewC. M.WilliamsS. C. (2007). A functional MRI study of happy and sad affective states induced by classical music. Human Brain Mapping, 28, 1150–1162.
81.
Molnar-SzakacsI.OveryK. (2006). Music and mirror neurons: From motion to ‘e’motion. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 1, 235–241.
82.
NakamuraJ.CsikszentmihalyiM. (2002). The concept of flow. In SnyderC. R.LopezS. J. (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology (pp. 89–105). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
83.
NakataT.TrehubS. E. (2004). Infants’ responsiveness to maternal speech and singing. Infant Behavior and Development, 27, 455–464.
84.
PankseppJ. (1995). The emotional sources of “chills” induced by music. Music Perception, 13, 171–207.
85.
ParkM.GutyrchikE.BaoY.ZaytsevaY.CarlP.WelkerL.MeindlT. (2014). Differences between musicians and non-musicians in neuro-affective processing of sadness and fear expressed in music. Neuroscience Letters, 566, 120–124.
86.
PearsonJ. L.DollingerS. J. (2004). Music preference correlates of Jungian types. Personality and Individual Differences, 36, 1005–1008.
87.
PereiraC. S.TeixeiraJ.FigueiredoP.XavierJ.CastroS. L.BratticoE. (2011). Music and emotions in the brain: Familiarity matters. PLoS One, 6(11) e27241. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0027241
88.
PeretzI.GaudreauD.BonnelA. M. (1998). Exposure effects on music preference and recognition. Memory & Cognition, 26, 884–902.
89.
RentfrowP. J.GoslingS. D. (2003). The do re mi’s of everyday life: The structure and personality correlates of music preferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 1236–1256.
90.
RickardN. S. (2004). Intense emotional responses to music: A test of the physiological arousal hypothesis. Psychology of Music, 32, 371–388.
91.
RizzolattiG.SinigagliaC. (2010). The functional role of the parieto-frontal mirror circuit: Interpretations and misinterpretations. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11, 264–274.
92.
RussellJ. A. (1980). A circumplex model of affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 1161–1178.
93.
RussellJ. A.CarrollJ. M. (1999). On the bipolarity of positive and negative affect. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 3–30.
94.
SaarikallioS.ErkkiläJ. (2007). The role of music in adolescents’ mood regulation. Psychology of Music, 35, 88–109.
95.
SalimpoorV. N.BenovoyM.LarcherK.DagherA.ZatorreR. J. (2011). Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music. Nature Neuroscience, 14, 257–262.
96.
SalimpoorV. N.BenovoyM.LongoG.CooperstockJ. R.ZatorreR. J. (2009). The rewarding aspects of music listening are related to degree of emotional arousal. PloS One, 4(10), e7487. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0007487
97.
SalimpoorV. N.van den BoschI.KovacevicN.McIntoshA. R.DagherA.ZatorreR. J. (2013). Interactions between the nucleus accumbens and auditory cortices predict music reward value. Science, 340, 216–219.
98.
SandstromG. M.RussoF. A. (2013). Absorption in music: Development of a scale to identify individuals with strong emotional responses to music. Psychology of Music, 41, 216–228.
99.
SchellenbergE. G. (2008). The role of exposure in emotional responses to music. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31, 594–595.
100.
SchellenbergE. G.CorrigallK. A.LadinigO.HuronD. (2012). Changing the tune: Listeners like music that expresses a contrasting emotion. Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 574. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00574
101.
SchellenbergE. G.PeretzI.VieillardS. (2008). Liking for happy-and sad-sounding music: Effects of exposure. Cognition and Emotion, 22, 218–237.
102.
SchererK. R. (2004). Which emotions can be induced by music? What are the underlying mechanisms? And how can we measure them?Journal of New Music Research, 33, 239–251.
103.
SchubertE. (1996). Enjoyment of negative emotions in music: An associative network explanation. Psychology of Music, 24, 18–28.
104.
SchubertE. (2007). The influence of emotion, locus of emotion and familiarity upon preference in music. Psychology of Music, 35, 499–515.
105.
SchubertE. (2013). Loved music can make a listener feel negative emotions. Musicae Scientiae, 17, 11–26.
106.
SchubertE.HargreavesD. J.NorthA. C. (2014). A dynamically minimalist cognitive explanation of musical preference: Is familiarity everything?Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 38. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00038
ShifrissR.BodnerE.PalgiY. (2014). When you’re down and troubled: Views on the regulatory power of music. Psychology of Music. Advance online publication. doi:10.1177/0305735614540360
109.
SilviaP. J.NusbaumE. C. (2011). On personality and piloerection: Individual differences in aesthetic chills and other unusual aesthetic experiences. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 5, 208–214.
110.
SleighM. J.McElroyJ. (2014). The effect of music listening versus written reframing on mood management. Music Perception, 31, 303–315.
111.
SlobodaJ. A. (1991). Music structure and emotional response: Some empirical findings. Psychology of Music, 19, 110–120.
112.
StachóL.SaarikallioS.van ZijlA.HuotilainenM.ToiviainenP. (2013). Perception of emotional content in musical performances by 3–7-year-old children. Musicae Scientiae, 17, 495–512.
113.
SzpunarK. K.SchellenbergE. G.PlinerP. (2004). Liking and memory for musical stimuli as a function of exposure. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30, 370–381.
114.
TaylorC. L.FriedmanR. S. (2014). Sad mood and music: Does the self-relevance of the mood-eliciting stimulus moderate song preference?Media Psychology. Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/15213269.2013.826589.
115.
Ter BogtT. F.MulderJ.RaaijmakersQ. A.GabhainnS. N. (2010). Moved by music: A typology of music listeners. Psychology of Music, 39, 147–163.
116.
ThomaM. V.La MarcaR.BrönnimannR.FinkelL.EhlertU.NaterU. M. (2013). The effect of music on the human stress response. PLoS ONE, 8(8), e70156. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0070156
117.
ThompsonW. F.SchellenbergE. G.HusainG. (2001). Arousal, mood, and the Mozart effect. Psychological Science, 12, 248–251.
118.
TrehubS. E. (2003). The developmental origins of musicality. Nature Neuroscience, 6, 669–673.
119.
TsaiC. G.ChenR. S.TsaiT. S. (2014). The arousing and cathartic effects of popular heartbreak songs as revealed in the physiological responses of listeners. Musicae Scientiae, 18, 410–422.
120.
Van den BoschI.SalimpoorV. N.ZatorreR. J. (2013). Familiarity mediates the relationship between emotional arousal and pleasure during music listening. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7, 534. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00534
121.
Van den TolA. J.EdwardsJ. (2014). Listening to sad music in adverse situations: How music selection strategies relate to self-regulatory goals, listening effects, and mood enhancement. Psychology of Music. Advance online publication. doi:10.1177/0305735613517410
122.
VieillardS.GiletA. L. (2013). Age-related differences in affective responses to and memory for emotions conveyed by music: A cross-sectional study. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 711. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00711
123.
VuoskoskiJ. K.ThompsonW. F.McIlwainD.EerolaT. (2012). Who enjoys listening to sad music and why?Music Perception, 29, 311–317.
124.
WalkerR. (1996). Open peer commentary: Can we understand the music of another culture?Psychology of Music, 24, 103–114.
125.
WalworthD. D. (2003). The effect of preferred music genre selection versus preferred song selection on experimentally induced anxiety levels. Journal of Music Therapy, 40, 2–14.
126.
WilhelmK.GillisI.SchubertE.WhittleE. L. (2013). On a blue note: Depressed peoples’ reasons for listening to music. Music and Medicine, 5, 76–83.
127.
WitvlietC. V.VranaS. R. (2007). Play it again Sam: Repeated exposure to emotionally evocative music polarises liking and smiling responses, and influences other affective reports, facial EMG, and heart rate. Cognition and Emotion, 21, 3–25.
128.
WongP. C.ChanA. H.RoyA.MargulisE. H. (2011). The bimusical brain is not two monomusical brains in one: Evidence from musical affective processing. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23, 4082–4093.
129.
WongP. C.RoyA. K.MargulisE. H. (2009). Bimusicalism: The implicit dual enculturation of cognitive and affective systems. Music Perception, 27, 81–88.
130.
ZajoncR. B. (1968). Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9, 1–27.
131.
ZajoncR. B. (1980). Feeling and thinking: Preferences need no inferences. American Psychologist, 35, 151–175.
132.
ZentnerM.GrandjeanD.SchererK. R. (2008). Emotions evoked by the sound of music: Characterization, classification, and measurement. Emotion, 8, 494–521.