The Effects Of Music Type, Music Preference And Familiarity On Stress Reduction

Music is considered as an effective means for stress reduction. It is proved that music could alleviate people's tension and anxiety and increase relaxation (Chen 2003; Knight & Rickard,2001; Lai et al.,2008; Pelletier,2004). However, not all music is appropriate after stress (Chafin, Roy, Gerin, & Christenfeld,2004). Many factors have an influence on music reducing stress, but music type, music preference and familiarity were more explored by previous studies. Nevertheless, the results still remain uncertain.Two experiments were conducted to explore the effects of music type, music preference and familiarity on stress reduction.Experiment 1 examined the effects of music type and music preference on psychological responses to stress under stress condition. To this aim,140 female college students from conservatory of music were selected the current study. They were divided into four experimental groups. These four groups listened to preferred sedative music, preferred excitative music, unpreferred sedative music, and unpreferred excitative music, respectively. Prior to music listening, the levels of tension and states of anxiety for the participants before and after presentation of the mental arithmetic task were measured respectively to examine if stress was triggered successfully. The participants in the four groups then listened to the music, and the level of tension and state anxiety were obtained again after listening to music. The results revealed that, when the participants were under stress condition, listening to preferred music had better effect on stress reduction than listening to unpreferred music. There were significantly negative correlations between music preference and tension and anxiety. Furthermore, at the unpreferred music condition, listening to sedative music presented a better effect on reducing tension and anxiety than listening to excitative music, whereas no effect on stress reduction for music type at the preferred music level.Experiment 2, based on Experiment 1, used 96 female college students from conservatory of music to further examine the effects of familiarity on stress reduction. Half of participants listened to preferred familiar music, while the other half listened to preferred unfamiliar music. The findings found that the preferred familiar music and the preferred unfamiliar music had similar effect on stress reduction.Last, after data of the two experiments were integrated, we explored the effects of music type, music preference and familiarity on stress reduction by using the stepwise multiple regressions. The findings indicated that the level of tension and state anxiety were quite well predicted by the solo music preference.The above results imply that the crucial factor affecting psychological responses to stress may be music preference but not music type and familiarity.