Fanfare and Feelings: The Effect of Heroic Music on Thoughts
The fanfares of “heroic” music are nearly inseparable from the movie industry that relies upon them. As Marvel and DC Studios endlessly spit out epic upon epic into movie theaters, superheroes and their associated tunes continue to play an undeniable role in popular culture. However, the constant media presence of these figures has allowed their power to surpass fictional battlefields and enter into our heads. To this day, heroes in the media act as role models and representations of contemporary social problems, and have formed deep associations in our consciousness; I even set my alarm during high school as the Marvel fanfare so I could live each and every day as Captain Steve Rogers would. With this specific instance in mind, I have grown interested in the effects of heroic culture on the way we think. What power do heroes, and more specifically the music that accompanies their deeds, have on our thoughts?
In the current study by Koelsch et al., the effects of heroic music on the content of “mind-wandering thoughts” were evaluated in an experimental setting. Mind-wandering, or “zoning out,” is an all-too-familiar phenomenon where our thoughts drift from our ongoing tasks to something unrelated, typically without conscious recognition of the switch. We spend a large amount of our time in this thinking state, whether we find ourselves daydreaming from boredom or getting distracted from supposedly important responsibilities. More impactful, however, is that other studies have shown these periods to be fairly impactful on our subsequent affect; negative thoughts during mind-wandering often feed into a negative mood, and positive thoughts feed into positive mood. Mind-wandering even stands to hold clinical relevance, being related to rumination in depression and pathological anxiety. The thought content of our mind-wandering is easily influenced by music, with sad music often promoting sadder mind-wandering than happy music. These findings are nothing short of impressive and help to generate more questions: namely, if “happy” and “sad” music are associated with specific thoughts during mind-wandering, what might be the response for individuals who zone out while listening to something different, such as “heroic” music?
To evaluate mind-wandering across genre, participants were advised to relax in a comfortable chair while listening to different musical excerpts: “sad” and “heroic” musical pieces at “slow”, “medium”, and “fast” tempos, with examples of such heroic songs including “Heroic March” by the Spirit of America Ensemble, while sad music included Holst’s “Venus.” Whether or not a participant first listened to sad or heroic music was alternated between individuals to reduce unique findings that might result from listening to one genre before the other; likewise, instrumentation and volume was kept similar across songs. Before the trials began, participants were instructed to complete a brief questionnaire to assess their baseline positive and negative emotional state. Then, following six trials of two-minute musical excerpts, participants completed intermittent questionnaires evaluating different aspects of cognition: valence, or content, of thoughts, arousal, confidence, and motivation. Additionally, participants finished each trial by freely writing down what they had been thinking about during the trial and repeating the same baseline questionnaire. These items allowed for the researchers to draw conclusions involving the effects of the musical treatments on emotional state and whether or not the wandering thoughts themselves mediated such effect.
As expected, heroic music helped participants feel more positive, motivated, and courageous, whereas sad music seemed to cause opposite effects. Furthermore, the content of thoughts that participants experienced while mind-wandering differed between between the music types; heroic music generated more positive, arousing, motivational, and constructive thoughts, while sad music led to thoughts that were more neutral, calming, and demotivating. These results were found to be consistent even when considering physiological arousal, demonstrating the unique effects music can have on both mode of thought, whether active or mind-wandering, and thought content in a relaxed setting. With this precedent established, much more investigation might be done into additional musical settings, such as spiritual hymns, whimsical scherzos, or even dramatic operas.
Reflecting back on heroes in culture, I am pushed to think about what actually mediates the positive thoughts associated with listening to heroic music. Particularly as it is contrasted in trials to “sad” music, what makes heroic or “empowering” music different than, for example, “happy” music with a fast tempo? I am curious as to what criteria individuals might use to discriminate between heroic and happy music (brassy instrumentation, characteristic melodic progressions, etc.) and if they are likely to do so without prompting. Would the effects of happy music and heroic music be more similar, or differ in a specific affective component such as motivation or confidence? Also, considering heroic music has become as notable in the media as the movies in which they appear, how does recognition of a certain hero’s motif affect such discrimination with happy music or other “generic” heroic tunes?
To this point, I am reminded of a particular scene from ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, where one of the fictional physicians cites a study to claim standing in a “superhero” stance improves performance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdNDa-cUrtM). Similar to the role of heroic music in affecting our thoughts and behavior, this action is intended to empower the individual. Lacking a rolling subtitle with APA citations, I was drawn to investigate the causes for such effects. In one review, the specifics of the “superhero” stance is pushed aside in favor of discussion of general “open” stances that allow the participant to take up large amounts of space. The effects of such stances included increased perception of power, risk-taking behavior and salivary testosterone. Would the “superhero” stance further increase these measures because of cognitive associations with superheroes? And how would these stances generate different outcomes in different cultures, particularly ones without such media saturation?
As Koelsch et al. discussed, their results bring to light the importance of investigating the effects of music on cognition and consequent behavior. The results, while demonstrating the ability of different music types to modify positive and negative affect, call into question the effects of pre-established cognitive associations on how music may be perceived by individuals, and the consequent effects that relationship may hold on thoughts and affect. What would the effect of heroic music be on individuals should heroes become less abundant or glorified in media? How do our preconceived feelings and thoughts, including preferences, on different musical types cause us to react differently to their presentation? Such associations renders the cognitive outcomes of music difficult to isolate. Further research into the effects of music on cognition remain worthwhile for their ability to explain to us the powers of our own minds.
References
Koelsch, S., Bashevkin, T., Kristensen, J., Tvedt, J., & Jentschke, S. (2019). Heroic music stimulates empowering thoughts during mind-wandering. Scientific reports, 9(1), 1–10.
Killingsworth, M. A., & Gilbert, D. T. (2010). A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science, 330(6006), 932–932.
Rosenberg, R. (2011, July 14). Why you may want to stand like a superhero. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-superheroes/201107/why-you-may-want-stand-superhero.
