What Happened to the Baby Mozart Craze?
This is a subject near and dear to my heart. I first discovered music psychology research when I took an undergraduate psychology research methods course and had the opportunity to design a project for the rat research laboratory. (No rodents were harmed over the course of the experiments! I am an animal lover so I would never do anything to intentionally harm any living creature.)
My team researched the Mozart effect in Long-Evans rats and, as a result of that project, I fell in love with the entire research process and became fascinated with the whole idea of the Mozart effect. Now, you might be wondering, “What exactly is the Mozart effect?” Let me tell you…
The Baby Mozart Craze
The turn of the 21st century survived a pop cultural sensation known as the Baby Mozart craze. Parents everywhere rushed to buy the CD’s and DVD’s because they were led to believe that plopping their children down in front of a television playing Baby Mozart would turn them into Baby Einsteins.
When researchers debunked this myth that music would make infants smarter, all those cherished CD’s and DVD’s found their way into the donation pile and left parents wondering, “How did I fall for that gimmick?”
But, as is the case with every myth, this phenomenon began in truth. In the early…
