Why does music that evokes feelings of sorrow and melancholy continue to attract listeners worldwide? This enigma forms the basis of a recent scientific study published in the journal PLOS ONE, which suggests that the sadness itself, contrary to previous beliefs, might be a source of enjoyment for listeners. The research challenges the long-held view that the pleasure derived from sad music is only due to indirect effects.
The allure of sad music has long been a puzzle in both psychological and musicological research. “The topic is interesting because enjoyment of negative emotion seems so psychologically contradictory: Why would you like something that you know will make you sad?” said study author Emery Schubert, a professor at UNSW Sydney and co-founder of the Empirical Musicology Laboratory.
The traditional consensus had been that the pleasure derived from such music was indirect — a byproduct of other, more complex emotional or cognitive processes. This view aligns with philosophical and psychological theories stretching back to Aristotle’s concept of catharsis, which posits that exposure to art-induced emotions helps to purge negative feelings and restore emotional balance.
Yet, the precise mechanics of how sadness evoked by music could lead to pleasure remained inadequately explained. Contemporary theories suggested that while sadness itself wasn’t directly enjoyable, it triggered other intermediary emotions such as feeling moved or nostalgic, which in turn were pleasurable. These theories proposed that such intermediary states mediated the enjoyment of sad music, thus resolving the apparent paradox of deriving pleasure from a negative emotion.
“Previous research has suggested that the paradox of enjoying negative emotion that is loved (e.g. listening to sad, loved music) is that there is an intermediate step, a so-called ‘mediator,’ that links the negative emotion to the pleasure,” Schubert explained.
“For example, a prominent theory is that sad music is enjoyed not because it is sad, but because the sadness is a result of feeling ‘moved’. Being ‘moved’ is considered by many as containing a mix of both positive and negative emotions. And so the paradox can be explained this way. One does not enjoy the sadness, they are enjoying the feeling of being moved.”
However, a significant portion of listeners consistently report direct enjoyment of the sadness in music, which these existing theories struggle to explain. This observation prompted Schubert to consider an alternative perspective — perhaps sadness in music could be enjoyable in its own right, without needing to invoke any mediators. This is referred to as the Direct Effect Hypothesis, which posits that the sadness evoked by music is itself a source of pleasure.
The study included a sample of 103 participants (mostly undergraduate music students) who were randomly assigned to either a sadness condition or a moving condition (the control condition).
In the sadness condition, participants were asked to select and listen to music that they personally found both enjoyable and sad. They were then required to describe and rate their emotional experiences, focusing specifically on the sadness evoked by the music and how it contributed to their enjoyment.
The key experimental manipulation involved participants imagining the music without its sad elements and predicting how this would affect their enjoyment. This process aimed to isolate and measure the direct impact of sadness on enjoyment.
The moving condition mirrored the sadness condition in structure and method but with a critical difference in the emotional focus. Instead of sadness, participants in this condition focused on the emotion of being moved.
Approximately 83% of participants were able to engage with this hypothetical scenario effectively.
“Conventional approaches to data collection in such studies involve actual response to experimenter selected music,” Schubert told PsyPost. “The surprising aspect of the new study is that by changing the method of data collection (imaging favorite music with sadness removed from favorite music), something that seems really hard to do (‘remove sadness, and only sadness’) could be achieved by the participants. That is, the participants were able to perform the mental simulation successfully according to the participants’ own reports.”
When participants imagined the selected musical pieces without their sad components, a significant majority reported that their enjoyment would decrease. This result suggests that sadness is not merely a tolerable byproduct of listening to music but can be an intrinsic source of the pleasure experienced.
“Overall, the participants who took part in the study indicated that removal of sadness reduces enjoyment,” Schubert explained. “This was taken as evidence that it is the sadness itself in the music that people enjoy. No mediator is needed. Indeed, when a control group was asked to perform the same task with a piece of moving music, they indicated that the sadness, and not just being moved, was implicated in the pleasure that the music generated.”
To explore potential mediators that might influence the enjoyment of sad music, the researchers also asked participants to rate various emotional descriptors that could mediate the relationship between sadness and enjoyment. These data were used to test the traditional Indirect Effect Hypothesis alongside the Direct Effect Hypothesis.
Many participants reported high levels of being moved and nostalgia, which also correlated with enjoyment. However, these emotions did not overshadow the direct pleasure derived from sadness, indicating that while indirect effects exist, they do not fully explain the phenomenon.
While the study provides compelling insights, it has limitations. The participant group, being mostly music students, might not represent the general population. Additionally, the experimental setup — relying on participants’ ability to introspect accurately about their feelings — may affect the reliability of the findings. Future research could explore more diverse populations and employ different methodologies, such as physiological measurements, to confirm and expand upon these findings.
Regarding the long-term goals for this research, Schubert said he hopes “to better understand the fascinating, varied, positive experiences we can have through listening to an innocuous signal called music.”
The study, “Liking music with and without sadness: Testing the direct effect hypothesis of pleasurable negative emotion,” was published April 10, 2024.