Article
Musical Tasks and Energy Arousal
Journal of Music Therapy
(2018)
Abstract
Background: Music is widely recognized as a motivating stimulus.
Investigators have examined the use of music to improve a variety of
motivation-related outcomes; however, these studies have focused primarily
on passive music listening rather than active participation in musical
activities.
Objective: To examine the influence of participation in musical tasks and
unique participant characteristics on energetic arousal.
Methods: We used a one-way Welch’s ANOVA to examine the influence
of musical participation (i.e., a non-musical control and four different
musical task conditions) upon energetic arousal. In addition, ancillary
analyses of participant characteristics including personality, age, gender,
sleep, musical training, caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol revealed their possible
influence upon pretest and posttest energetic arousal scores.
Results: Musical participation yielded a significant relationship with
energetic arousal, F(4, 55.62) = 44.38, p = .000, estimated ω2 = 0.60.
Games-Howell post hoc pairwise comparisons revealed statistically
significant differences between five conditions. Descriptive statistics
revealed expected differences between introverts’ and extraverts’ energetic
arousal scores at the pretest, F(1, 115) = 6.80, p = .010, partial
η2= .06; however, mean differences failed to reach significance at the
posttest following musical task participation. No other measured participant
characteristics yielded meaningful results.
Conclusions: Passive tasks (i.e., listening to a story or song) were
related to decreased energetic arousal, while active musical tasks
(i.e., singing, rhythm tapping, and keyboard playing) were related to
increased energetic arousal. Musical task participation appeared to have
a differential effect for individuals with certain personality traits (i.e.,
extroverts and introverts).
Keywords
- Musical Tasks,
- Energetic Arousal,
- Optimal Arousal,
- Personality
Disciplines
Publication Date
2018
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/jmt/thx020
Citation Information
Hayoung A. Lim and Angela Watson. "Musical Tasks and Energy Arousal" Journal of Music Therapy Vol. 55 (2018) p. 109 - 131 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/angela-watson/9/