Use of music and media to regulate emotion

One of the key aspects of music is its ability to inspire emotion in us. Appropriate selection of music can be used in experiments to help manipulate our emotional state and in our day-to-day life we can use music to help get us into a desired emotional state. Are there patterns for the use of music to regulate emotions though? Are some uses of music to regulate emotions more effective than others and do they always have the intended effect? Greeenwood and Long (2009) identify how our mood and our ability to regulate emotions can influence the specific media we use for emotional regulation. It appears that there are three broad categories for media usage: being in a positive mood, being in a negative mood, and feeling bored. In both positive and negative moods music was most frequently used whereas when bored people are more likely to turn to television. In terms of emotional regulation strategy music use is correlated with both positive strategies (e.g. reflecting on events) and negative strategies (e.g. rumination) whereas television use was only associated with poor emotional regulation approaches. Miranda and Claes (2009) also indicate that music can be used as a facilitator of both positive and negative regulation approaches. In a study looking at the relation between adolescent music use, peer affiliation, and depression, they indicate that levels of depression are linked with use of emotional regulation through music. Their results indicate that problem-oriented coping (e.g. reappraisal of situation) through music listening is associated with lower levels of depression in females. In contrast, using music to avoid the situation is associated with higher levels of female depression. Greenwood & Long suggest that future research could 'examine what kinds of music selections in negative moods have emotion-regulatory utility and what kinds sustain or exacerbate ruminative thinking'. Miranda and Claes indicate distinctions between five major music clusters that peer networks seem to relate to, one that they examine in detail is the Metal music group. Metal music has previously been linked with depression in adolescents, and can occasionally crop up in the news as a thing for parents to worry about. Given this, it could be seen as a strong candidate as a genre for maladaptive emotional regulation use. Miranda and Claes report that those in the Metal with peers rated as having high levels of depression are likely to have higher levels of depression themselves. However, those with peers of low levels of depression Metal music preference did not predict depression. They further indicate that peer depression moderates the link between Metal music and female depression and that there is no moderating effect by the above mentioned maladaptive coping. Music can be used as both an adaptive and maladaptive means of regulating emotions. As the behaviours noted (e.g. re-appraisal, rumination) are well known as adaptive and maladaptive emotional regulation methods, there are no surprises to see that using music to facilitate them changes little. Experimental manipulation of mood could be used to better understand why people seek out particular media for emotional regulation. Awareness of how we use music and media to regulate our emotion could help us identify our personal maladaptive and adaptive strategies.