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Study: Violent music boosts aggressive thoughts
Monday, May 5, 2003 Posted: 2:38 AM EDT (0638 GMT)
LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Violent lyrics in songs increase aggression-related thoughts and emotions and could indirectly create a more hostile social environment, a study released on Sunday by a U.S. psychology association found.
The Washington, D.C.-based American Psychological Association (APA) released the study, resulting from five experiments involving over 500 college students, in the May issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
The violent songs increased feelings of hostility without provocation or threat, according to the study. It said the effect was not the result of differences in musical style, specific performing artist or arousal properties of the songs.
Even the humorous violent songs increased aggressive thoughts, the study said.
The group said the study contradicts a popular notion that listening to angry, violent music actually serves as a positive catharsis for people.
The music industry came under criticism from lawmakers in October for failing to use more descriptive parental advisory labels that specify whether the music contains sex, violence or strong language.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has said that current CD labels give parents enough information without violating the right to free expression.
The RIAA is the trade group for the world's five big labels, including AOL Time Warner Inc., EMI Group Plc, Bertelsmann AG, Vivendi Universal's Universal Music and Sony Corp.
In response to pressure from Tipper Gore, the wife of former Vice President Al Gore, the industry agreed in 1985 to put labels on records that contain explicit sex or violence. At the time, artists said the labels were government-sponsored censorship.
Rock and stick
During the APA's five experiments, conducted by researchers from Iowa State University and the Texas Department of Human Services examined the effects of seven violent songs by seven artists and eight nonviolent songs by seven artists.
After listening, students were given various psychological tasks to measure aggressive thoughts and feelings, including asking the participants to classify words that have both aggressive and nonaggressive meanings, like rock and stick.
Results of the experiments showed that violent songs led to more aggressive interpretations of ambiguously aggressive words and increased the relative speed with which people read aggressive versus nonaggressive words.
"Such aggression-biased interpretations can, in turn, instigate a more aggressive response, verbal or physical, than would have been emitted in a nonbiased state, thus provoking an aggressive escalatory spiral of antisocial exchanges," said researcher Craig Anderson, in a statement.
While researchers said repeated exposure to violent lyrics could indirectly create a more hostile social environment, they said it was possible the effects of violent songs may last only a fairly short time.
Study: Violent music boosts aggressive thoughts
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