“where Words Fail, Music Speaks”: Emotion Regulation Strategies Using Music When Experiencing Sadness

Past literature has suggested that individuals use the emotion regulation strategies of catharsis, emotional support, understanding emotions, and mood congruency when deciding to listen to sad music when feeling sad (Friedman et al., 2012; Garrido & Schubert, 2013; Sedikides, 1992; Taylor & Friedman, 2015; van Goethem & Sloboda, 2011). This thesis sought to confirm this by comparing these four strategies to revival, another emotion regulation strategy that uses happy music instead of sad music. The final sample of participants consisted of 122 undergraduate and graduate students at a Midwestern university. Participants completed questionnaires designed to measure how they typically regulate their emotions by listening to music, why they typically choose to listen to sad music, and a measure of current sadness before watching a sad film clip. After this clip, participants rated their feelings of sadness again and were randomly assigned one of the five emotion regulation strategies to use when selecting a song of their choice to listen to. After listening to music, participants completed additional questionnaires used to measure current sadness for a final time, their reasons for selecting their song of choice, and their satisfaction with their song choice. External raters were also utilized to rate the emotionality, arousal, and speed of the participant selected songs. Results indicated that all participants, regardless of emotion regulation strategy used, experienced significant decreases in feelings of sadness after listening to their songs of choice. There were no significant differences in how satisfied participants were with their song choices. Based on ratings provided by the external raters, song choices differed in that songs chosen by participants in the catharsis, emotional support, understanding emotions, and mood congruency conditions were rated as significantly sadder, calmer, and slower than songs chosen by participants in the revival condition. These results suggest that catharsis, emotional support, understanding emotions, and mood congruency are emotion regulation strategies that are used when experiencing feelings of sadness and a decision is made to listen to sad music. Future research would benefit from examining these emotion regulation strategies in other sadness-inducing situations and identifying any differences in their success

The effect of discrete vs. continuous-valued ratings on reputation and ranking systems

When users rate objects, a sophisticated algorithm that takes into account ability or reputation may produce a fairer or more accurate aggregation of ratings than the straightforward arithmetic average. Recently a number of authors have proposed different co-determination algorithms where estimates of user and object reputation are refined iteratively together, permitting accurate measures of both to be derived directly from the rating data. However, simulations demonstrating these methods' efficacy assumed a continuum of rating values, consistent with typical physical modelling practice, whereas in most actual rating systems only a limited range of discrete values (such as a 5-star system) is employed. We perform a comparative test of several co-determination algorithms with different scales of discrete ratings and show that this seemingly minor modification in fact has a significant impact on algorithms' performance. Paradoxically, where rating resolution is low, increased noise in users' ratings may even improve the overall performance of the system.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Community Violence and Youth: Affect, Behavior, Substance Use, and Academics

Community violence is recognized as a major public health problem (WHO, World Report on Violence and Health,2002) that Americans increasingly understand has adverse implications beyond inner-cities. However, the majority of research on chronic community violence exposure focuses on ethnic minority, impoverished, and/or crime-ridden communities while treatment and prevention focuses on the perpetrators of the violence, not on the youth who are its direct or indirect victims. School-based treatment and preventive interventions are needed for children at elevated risk for exposure to community violence. In preparation, a longitudinal, community epidemiological study, The Multiple Opportunities to Reach Excellence (MORE) Project, is being fielded to address some of the methodological weaknesses presented in previous studies. This study was designed to better understand the impact of children’s chronic exposure to community violence on their emotional, behavioral, substance use, and academic functioning with an overarching goal to identify malleable risk and protective factors which can be targeted in preventive and intervention programs. This paper describes the MORE Project, its conceptual underpinnings, goals, and methodology, as well as implications for treatment and preventive interventions and future research

Regulating Sadness: Response-Independent and Response-Dependent Benefits of Listening to Music

Listening to music is a common method of regulating unpleasant emotions such as sadness, but music listening has not been compared to prototypical interpersonal emotion-regulation strategies. We examined music’s response-independent benefits (i.e., benefits that do not require a response from another person) and response-dependent benefits (i.e., benefits that do require a response from another person) and compared those to other regulation strategies such as talking to a friend and asking someone for advice. College students (N = 353) completed an online survey in which they rated their likelihood of using eight different strategies to regulate sadness and the benefits of using each strategy. Repeated-measures ANOVAs revealed listening to music was the most likely strategy used when sad. Moreover, listening to music provided the most response-independent benefits of any strategy we examined, including talking to a friend and asking someone for advice. Talking to a friend provided more interpersonal support than listening to music did, but listening to music did not provide any less of a shared experience than talking to a friend or asking someone for advice. These findings suggest that listening to music shares much in common with interpersonal emotion-regulation strategies such as talking with other people when sad

Children's social/emotional characteristics at entry to school: implications for school nurses

Children entering school need to build healthy peer relationships; school, however, is the central place for bullying. School nurses have a growing focus on providing care for students with social, emotional and behavioural problems. We examined the relational development of children at school entry in regard to aggression and empathy, showing that teacher-reported aggression decreased between Pre-primary and Year One, while empathy increased between Year One and Year Two classes. No gender difference was found in teacher-reported total, or covert aggression. Understanding how development of empathy can be supported in children at school entry is important, thereby supporting development of pro-social behaviour and decreasing bullying. School nurses must understand the importance of surrounding children with safety in relationships as they begin school

Community Health and Socioeconomic Issues Surrounding Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations

A consensus of the Workgroup on Community and Socioeconomic Issues was that improving and sustaining healthy rural communities depends on integrating socioeconomic development and environmental protection. The workgroup agreed that the World Health Organization’s definition of health, “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity,” applies to rural communities. These principles are embodied in the following main points agreed upon by this workgroup. Healthy rural communities ensure a) the physical and mental health of individuals, b) financial security for individuals and the greater community, c) social well-being, d ) social and environmental justice, and e) political equity and access. This workgroup evaluated impacts of the proliferation of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) on sustaining the health of rural communities. Recommended policy changes include a more stringent process for issuing permits for CAFOs, considering bonding for manure storage basins, limiting animal density per watershed, enhancing local control, and mandating environmental impact statements

Altered hepatic transport of immunoglobulin A in mice lacking the J chain

We have created J chain knockout mice to define the physiologic role of the J chain in immunoglobulin synthesis and transport. The J chain is covalently associated with pentameric immunoglobulin (Ig) M and dimeric IgA and is also expressed in most IgG-secreting cells. J chain-deficient mice have normal serum IgM and IgG levels but markedly elevated serum IgA. Although polymeric IgA was present in the mutant mice, a larger proportion of their serum IgA was monomeric than was found in wild-type mouse serum. Bile and fecal IgA levels were decreased in J chain-deficient mice compared with wild-type mice, suggesting inefficient transport of J chain-deficient IgA by hepatic polymeric immunoglobulin receptors (pIgR). The pIgR-mediated transport of serum-derived IgA from wild-type and mutant mice was assessed in Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells transfected with the pIgR. These studies revealed selective transport by pIgR-expressing MDCK cells of wild-type IgA but not J chain-deficient IgA. We conclude that although the J chain is not required for IgA dimerization, it does affect the efficiency of polymerization or have a role in maintaining IgA dimer stability. Furthermore, the J chain is essential for efficient hepatic pIgR transport of IgA