Does Listening to Alternative Music Make You More Likely to Use Drugs?
“Gods Gonna Cut You Down”- Marilyn Manson.
How do you feel after listening to this song? Angry? Or calming? It is disturbing and upsetting to know that two students performed a school shooting while listening to this type of music. Yet, does this actually make you think this genre of music would have violent implications or make you want to use drugs? Is this a special scenario, or could this be a common feeling when listening to this type of music?
Have you ever specifically chosen emotional music because you were either in a sad or angry mood? Music has been found to help regulate emotions, allowing one to release their emotions, instead of holding them in. This helps validate one’s current thoughts and feelings. This has many researchers question if “emotional music” (emo music), music that expresses reactions normally associated with tragic events, may lead to acts of violence, suicide, or correlate with drug addiction or depression. Many studies have rejected the idea that listening to intense music correlates with suicide, but studies have found an association between music and suicide vulnerability. It was also found that those who were more likely to have intense emotional responses to rock or heavy metal music were more likely to perform high risk behaviors such as drunk driving, drug use, and vandalism.
Specifically looking at drugs, some studies have found that those who prefer heavy metal music were more likely to use substances such as tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis compared to those who had other musical preferences, such as classical and jazz music. However, how large is the association between listening to rebellious or intense music and performing antisocial behaviors? As many researchers have reviewed previous literature, there are also some recent papers who have looked at specific antisocial behaviors in association with music preference.
Research on Alternative Music and Drug Use:
Researchers Pimentel, Milfont, Gouveia, Vione, and Monterio (2018) looked at the association between preference for alternative music genres (heavy metal, rock, post-punk, and reggae) and attitudes of drug use. As seen through many news articles, there is a heavy association between drug use and rock and pop music when looking at the death of multiple artists (i.e. Elvis, Whitney Houston, Juice Wrld). Many studies had previously studied these direct associations with drug use, but current researchers were scared of bias since those who fill out the questionnaires may be sensitive to being honest and may under report their current drug use. So researchers looked specifically at participant’s overall attitudes towards drugs in relation to their preferences for unconventional music genres. Looking specifically at attitudes, previous research has shown that those who are more likely to use drugs are more likely to have values consistent with openness to experience. Looking at personal values, excitement values are when people experience emotion and pleasure when approaching adventures and extreme situations. Normative values are when people follow tradition and follow regular order and social norms. Pimentel et al., hypothesized that those who scored higher for excitement values would be more likely to have positive attitudes and associations with drugs when listening to alternative music genes, whereas those with normative values would buffer their link between listening to alternative music and drug use beliefs.
To test this effect, Pimentel et al., used a convenience sample at a public university. They received 269 undergraduate participants who were mainly accounting and psychology majors and were mostly females (65.8%). Research assistants entered classrooms and asked participants to fill out a questionnaire that used scales form three different surveys about participants music preference (Alternative Music Scale), attitudes about drugs (Attitudes toward Drugs Use Scales), and their human values (Basic Values Survey).
Results found that those who had positive preferences for alternative music also had positive attitudes toward drug use. However, excitement values did not moderate the alternative music and drug link hypothesis, but normative values did seem to buffer one’s attitude towards drugs even if they prefer to listen to alternative music. Basically, even though there is an association between liking alternative music and having positive attitudes about drug use, having normative values may be a protective factor. Those who have normative values may be less likely to have positive associations with drugs.
This particular research is interesting to consider because it takes a different approach than most research studies referenced earlier. Rather than just looking at associations between musical preferences and antisocial behaviors, this paper looks at moderating effects which show why only some specific people are affected by alternative music in a negative way. Of course, not everyone who listens to alternative music will be more likely to use drugs, think about suicide, or perform other antisocial behaviors. Instead, there are other factors that may influence this association. For example, if one is raised in a religious family, they may like explicit alternative music, but because of their family values, may be less likely to use drugs. However, if there’s no one stopping them from using drugs and they like to listen to alternative music, then that individual may be more motivated to use drugs.
Limitations on This Research:
As noted, the sample they used was a convenience sample and had a majority of undergraduate female participants. This could have biased researchers results, since males may have a different result when listening to alternative music. This article only looked at attitudes of drug use, not actual drug use which may have led to different results. Attitude is an interesting way to measure drug use, but it is not as accurate as the actual use of drugs. It also makes sense that those who had excitement values would be more likely to be open to the use of drugs compared to normative values, even if they don’t use drugs. Are there other moderating or mediating factors between those who may use or abuse drugs and liking specific styles of music? Future research should look at rehab centers and see if those patients like specific genres of music. Lastly, since these students were all in undergraduate school, would these risky behaviors be linked throughout development? Would drug use becomes less common as one ages? Future studies should look at ages beyond undergraduate students.
Should We Assume that Drug Use Is Highly Associated with Musical Preference?
When thinking about music and risky behaviors, it makes sense that alternative music may lead to more risky behaviors since alternative music tends to have explicit messages. However, I believe that you should not casually link the music that one listens to, to the performance of specific risky and antisocial behaviors. Instead there has to be other correlations such as mental health status and emotional vulnerability. When I am sad I love to listen to “I need to be alone” by Girl in Red.
Even though the lyrics are sad, this doesn’t necessarily mean that I have a mental health disorder or want to induce myself in depressive behaviors such as drinking alcohol. Music helps many people regulate their emotions, so it is important for people to be mindful of associations between alternative music and risky behaviors. However, one should know that there are a lot more factors such as values and social support that may also lead to the use of drugs and performance of other risky behaviors besides ones music preference.
References
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Girl in Red. “I need to be alone”. SoundCloud, 2019, https://soundcloud.com/lyfsuxx/i-need-to-be-alone
Girl in Red — I need to be alone. [David Dean Burkhart] (2019, March 13). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1QSViYzWYY
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