Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2024
Publication Title
Psychology of Music
Keywords
music listening, emotion regulation, factor analysis, qualitative, negative emotions
Abstract
People use music to regulate their emotions in a variety of ways. Whereas some of these strategies are conceptually and empirically distinct from one another, other strategies are not wholly distinguishable. We examined the distinctiveness among strategies used to regulate emotions via music listening. College students (N = 274) completed an online questionnaire with closed-ended and open-ended items designed to measure their use of music to regulate emotions and other music and emotion-related measures. Confirmatory factor analyses suggested that some of the strategies in Saarikallio’s taxonomy are not completely distinct from one another, yet correlations between these strategies and other functions of music listening and absorption in music suggested a fair amount of empirical similarity among most of these functions. Qualitative analysis suggested that, in addition to strategies described by Saarikallio, people use music to remember, to feel calm, and to match their mood. This mixed-methods research therefore suggests that both constricting and expanding prior taxonomies of strategies to regulate emotions via music could be warranted.
Funding Source
This article was published Open Access thanks to a transformative agreement between Milner Library and Sage Journals.
Recommended Citation
Kahn, J. H., Enevold, K. C., Feltner-Williams, D., & Ladd, K. (2024). Using music to feel better: Are different emotion-regulation strategies truly distinct? Psychology of Music. https://doi.org/10.1177/03057356241258959
DOI
10.1177/03057356241258959
Comments
First published in Psychology of Music (2024). https://doi.org/10.1177/03057356241258959.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).