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Violent Lyrics Lead to Hostile Thoughts
May 6, 2003 - A song with violent lyrics, whether it's set to the tune of rock or rap, may promote violence by increasing aggressive and hostile thoughts in mind of the listener. A new study of college students found surges in aggression-related thoughts and emotions were directly related to the violent content of the music they had just listened to.
Researchers say the findings contradict the notion that violence in music provides an outlet or catharsis for violent thoughts or feelings.
The study, which appears in the May issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, compared the effects of seven songs with violent lyrics to eight nonviolent songs among a group of more than 500 college students over a series of five experiments. The students listened to the songs and then were given a series of psychological tests to measure aggressive thoughts and feelings.
To rule out factors not related to the content of the lyrics, each of the violent and non-violent songs were sung by the same artists and in the same musical style in three of the experiments. Other experiments compared the differences in reactions elicited by violent songs with humorous lyrics versus those with non-humorous lyrics to see if humor played a role in triggering aggressive thoughts.
The study found that songs with violent lyrics consistently increased aggressive feelings and thoughts, regardless of musical style or the use of humor. Researchers say the violence in the music prompted feelings of hostility without provocation or threat, which could later lead to violent behavior.
"Aggressive thoughts can influence perceptions of ongoing social interactions, coloring them with an aggressive tint," says researcher Craig A. Anderson, PhD of Iowa State University, in a news release. "Such aggression-biased interpretations can, in turn, instigate a more aggressive response - verbal or physical -- than would have been emitted in a nonbiased state, thus provoking an aggressive escalatory spiral of antisocial exchanges."
The study found the increase in aggression due to violent lyrics was apparent in three different ways. Violent songs led to more aggressive interpretation of ambiguously aggressive words, such as stick or rock, and increased the speed at which people read these types of words as aggressive. In addition, after listening to a song with violent lyrics, the students were more likely to complete word fragments to form aggressive words, such as creating "hit" from "h_t."
Researchers say this study looked only at the precursors of violence and aggression rather than actual violent behavior, and more research is needed to look at the long-term effects of violence in music. They say these changes may only be temporary and might also be tempered by listening to a variety of music.
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