Attitudes toward sad music are related to both preferential and contextual strategies

Music-related sadness and its paradoxical pleasurable aspects have puzzled researchers for decades. Previous studies have highlighted the positive effects of listening to sad music and the listening strategies that focus on mood-regulation. The present study explored people’s attitudes toward sad music by focusing on a representative sample of the Finnish population. Three hundred and fifty-eight participants rated their agreement with 30 statements concerning attitudes toward sad music. The ratings were subjected to factor analysis, resulting in 6 factors explaining 51% of the variance (RMSEA = 0.049). The factors were labeled Avoidance, Autobiographical, Revival, Appreciation, Intersubjective, and Amplification, and they were divided into 2 broad headings, preferential and contextual attitudes toward sad music. Contextual attitudes seemed to be ambiguous in terms of valence, whereas the preferential attitudes were more clearly identified in terms of positive/negative polarity. The results of the survey suggest that listening to sad music elicits a wide variety of responses that are not fully revealed in previous studies

The Relationship Between Elevation, Connectedness, and Compassionate Love in Meaningful Films

Expanding on the research of meaningful entertainment media and its effects, this study investigated the relationship between experiences related to elevation responses to film. Whereas research thus far has focused primarily on portrayals of altruism to elicit elevation, the results of this study show that portrayals of connectedness, love, and kindness in meaningful films are also able to elicit feelings of elevation. Moreover, elevation mediated the relationship between meaningful films and feelings of connectedness towards the transcendent, close others and toward one’s family; compassionate love towards close others; and compassionate motivation to love and be good to humanity. The study demonstrates the potential of meaningful films to increase experiences of connectedness to the transcendent, which ultimately can enhance our concern about the well-being of others, and motivation to be more compassionate even to strangers. Implications for the scholarship of positive media psychology are discussed

Being Moved by Unfamiliar Sad Music Is Associated with High Empathy

The paradox of enjoying listening to music that evokes sadness is yet to be fully understood. Unlike prior studies that have explored potential explanations related to lyrics, memories, and mood regulation, we investigated the types of emotions induced by unfamiliar, instrumental sad music, and whether these responses are consistently associated with certain individual difference variables. One hundred and two participants were drawn from a representative sample to minimize self-selection bias. The results suggest that the emotional responses induced by unfamiliar sad music could be characterized in terms of three underlying factors: Relaxing sadness, Moving sadness, and Nervous sadness. Relaxing sadness was characterized by felt and perceived peacefulness and positive valence. Moving sadness captured an intense experience that involved feelings of sadness and being moved. Nervous sadness was associated with felt anxiety, perceived scariness and negative valence. These interpretations were supported by indirect measures of felt emotion. Experiences of Moving sadness were strongly associated with high trait empathy and emotional contagion, but not with other previously suggested traits such as absorption or nostalgia-proneness. Relaxing sadness and Nervous sadness were not significantly predicted by any of the individual difference variables. The findings are interpreted within a theoretical framework of embodied emotions

Watching Online Videos At Work: The Role of Positive and Meaningful Affect for Recovery Experiences and Well-Being at the Workplace

This study extends research on the relationship between hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment and its potential for recovery experiences and aspects of well-being (e.g., Rieger, Reinecke, Frischlich, & Bente, 2014). With the broad notion of what hedonic and eudaimonic media can entail, this research focused on unique affective experiences—namely, positive affect—and an expanded concept of meaningful affect (including elevation and gratitude). An online experiment with 148 full-time employees in the United States was conducted to investigate the unique role of positive and meaningful affect eliciting YouTube videos (compared to neutral control video) on recovery experiences and vitality and work satisfaction in the work context. A path model suggests that meaningful videos predicted mastery recovery experiences, whereas positive affect predicted psychological detachment and relaxation experiences. In addition, mastery recovery experiences predicted vitality, whereas relaxation experiences predicted satisfaction with work, indicating a unique potential of the consumption of meaningful and positive affect inducing YouTube videos at work for workplace well-being

More Than Stories With Buttons: Narrative, Mechanics, and Context as Determinants of Player Experience in Digital Games

Recent research has attempted to describe meaningful experiences with entertainment media that go beyond hedonic enjoyment. Most of this research focuses on noninteractive media, such as film and television. When applied to digital games, however, such research needs to account for not only the content of the medium, but also the unique dimensions of digital games that distinguish them from noninteractive media. Experiences with digital games are shaped by the game mechanics that define the users' interaction with game content, as well as by the opportunities for social interaction that many games offer. We argue that the complex interplay of these dimensions (narrative, mechanics, and context) facilitates or inhibits meaningful user experiences in ways that are unique to digital games

The role of cognitive and affective challenge in entertainment experience

Recent approaches in entertainment research highlight the distinction between hedonic (pleasure-seeking) and eudaimonic (truth-seeking) entertainment experiences. However, insights into the underlying processes that give rise to these different types of entertainment experiences are still scarce. This study examines the assumption that individuals’ entertainment experience varies by the level of cognitive and affective challenge posed by the media content. We tested this assumption in a 2 × 2 experiment in which we examined the effects of cognitive and affective challenge on individuals’ entertainment experience (fun, suspense, and appreciation). Cognitive and affective challenges resulted in stronger appreciation of the movie, affective challenges resulted in heightened suspense, whereas the absence of both cognitive and affective challenges fostered the experience of fun. These results further the theoretical understanding of hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment in that they support the idea that fun is linked to recreation, whereas appreciation is linked to cognitive challenge and personal growth

The Tragic Story of Ian McEwan’s ‘Atonement’ and the Theory of the Grotesque

Using Ian McEwan’s ‘Atonement’ as a case study, this paper analyses the theory of the grotesque as a potential aid to answering the longstanding question ‘Why do we enjoy tragedies?’ Like the conflicting two-pronged emotional responses that tragic works can elicit, the grotesque describes a particular hybrid visual art style that emphasises conflicting motifs which are held in tension. McEwan’s writing contains a number of grotesque features, and provokes something in the reader that resembles those responses to grotesque works. An analysis of ‘Atonement’ through this framework provides a springboard for examining what both the tragic and grotesque forms (and McEwan’s novel) might communicate about one’s access to truth, whether that be in literature or in lived experience. This approach further suggests a way of understanding our reaction to the shocking conclusion to ‘Atonement – one of its most grotesque features – and offers perspectives upon the magnetism of tragic narratives

Figuring out what they feel : Exposure to eudaimonic narrative fiction is related to mentalizing ability

Being exposed to narrative fiction may provide us with practice in dealing with social interactions and thereby enhance our ability to engage in mentalizing (understanding other people’s mental states). The current study uses a confirmatory Bayesian approach to assess the relationship between mentalizing and both the self-reported frequency of exposure to narrative fiction across media (books, films, and TV series) and the particular types of fiction that are consumed (eudaimonic vs. hedonic). This study focuses on this relationship in children and adolescents, because they are still developing their social abilities. Exposure to narrative fiction may thus be particularly important in providing input on how to interpret other people’s mental states for this age group. In our study, we find no evidence for a simple relationship between overall frequency of narrative fiction exposure and mentalizing ability in this age group. However, exposure to eudaimonic narrative fiction is consistently positively related to mentalizing and, for some media types and aspects of mentalizing, more strongly so than exposure to hedonic narrative fiction. No evidence was obtained to suggest that there are any differential effects related to the medium of the narrative fiction exposure (written vs. visual).acceptedVersio

An Integrative Terror Management Theory Perspective on Media Effects: A Model and 12 Hypotheses for Research

This paper is designed to stimulate theory-driven research on the implications of Terror Management Theory (TMT) for a host of intriguing media phenomena. The paper synthesizes previous research, presents a model of TMT influences, and suggests 12 hypotheses for study in diverse areas, notably, media entertainment, news, advertising, fear appeals, and social media. A terror management perspective, with its emphasis on the novel, counterintuitive ways individuals keep death at bay, can extend knowledge in different areas of the field, illuminate understanding of media influences, and generate a host of studies that chart new pathways for comprehension of contemporary communication