Heavy metal and aggressiveness Can music make us violent?

Punk, metal, hard rock... are genres that we almost automatically associate with aggressiveness and the tension.

However, a recently published article in the magazine Frontiers in Human Neuroscience suggests that, far from transforming all their listeners into raging beasts, these musical genres could help them regulate their emotions and promote the appearance of emotions and moods positive.

Bring violence on guitars

Extreme rock-derived music ticks all the boxes for bad press - a young audience and strange aesthetics, often politically incorrect lyrics and cultural references that seem to come out of Game of Thrones. But it is possible that what most characterizes this type of music is its energetic spirit, the bursts of aggressiveness that is reflected both in the instruments and in the voice of the vocalists and, many times, also in the lyrics of the songs.

In previous articles we already talked about the relationship between musical tastes and intelligence. In addition, we also echoed a study that related musical preferences to personality.

As has happened with the video game, a large part of public opinion and media opinion leaders has tended to condemn and stigmatize extreme music for depictions of violence to which it is often associated. It seems almost obvious that listening to aggressive music inoculates aggressiveness in people, and yet practically scientific evidence in this regard.

Instead, yes there are studies that point in the opposite direction. According to some research, music is not used to induce extreme emotional states, but rather which is usually used to regulate emotions and restore a certain emotional balance to the organism.

The article published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience reinforces this last hypothesis. The research team that wrote it had set out to know if these regulatory effects of music were also applicable to extreme genres such as metal, characterized by frenetic drum beats and a singing style that often turns into screaming heartbreaking.

How was the experiment done?

The researchers used a sample of 39 people, men and women between the ages of 18 and 34. fond of some genre of extreme music (metal in all its forms, punk, hardcore punk, screamo, etc.). Specifically, the participants had to be in the habit of listening to one or more of these genres for at least 50% of the time they spent listening to music on a daily basis.

All the participants in the experiment went through the so-called "anger interview", a 16-minute interview that was intended to induce a state of anger in the experimental subject through the memory of concrete situations capable of awakening feelings of anger or outrage. Right after this experience, some of these people spent 10 minutes listening to music of their choice (they brought their music players with them). In this way, the researchers ensured that the people in the group of volunteers who had to listen to music would choose pieces of music that they would normally listen to when angry. For their part, those who did not have to listen to anything waited for 10 minutes.

The researchers focused on testing the effects that this little musical session had on the emotions of the volunteers. To do this, before, during and after the 10 musical minutes, these people were subjected to various instruments for measuring moods. Specifically, they used the heart rate reading and the application of various questionnaires on subjective psychological states.

Results

The results show how the levels of hostility and anger decreased during listening to extreme music in the the same degree to which these emotions were reduced in people who waited in silence, away from their communication devices. Audio. This could be explained by the regulating effect of the music or also by the passage of 10 minutes. What's more, the group of people who went through the 10 minutes of extreme music tended to feel greater relaxation and well-being.

This means that extreme music not only did not produce any feelings of anger, but it did not accentuate the slight annoyance that people felt when turning on the playback devices of Audio.

Broadly, this research shows how fans of metal and other similar genres listen to this type of music during episodes of anger, perhaps to regulate emotionally, and that this type of music does not translate into a maintenance of these moods negatives.

Bibliographic references:

• Saarikallio, S. and Eerkkilä (2007). The role of music in adolescents' mood regulation. Psychology of Music, 35 (1), pp. 88 - 109.

• Sharman, L. and Dingle, G. TO. (2015). Extreme metal music and anger processing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, consulted in http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00272/full#B2