The Impact of Musical Lyrics on the Lives of Graduate Counseling Students

Abstract

This study surveyed 28 graduate students in counseling on the meaning of lyrical music in their lives in a CACREP accredited program at an independent, southeastern university. Results showed that some songs were more popular or better remembered than others. It also showed that while some lyrics are personally meaningful and others convey important messages, a number of lyrics are just relaxing, joyful, and entertaining without a deeper level of significance to them.     

The past makes the present meaningful: nostalgia as an existential resource

The present research tested the proposition that nostalgia serves an existential function by bolstering a sense of meaning in life. Study 1 found that nostalgia was positively associated with a sense of meaning in life. Study 2 experimentally demonstrated that nostalgia increases a sense of meaning in life. In both studies, the link between nostalgia and increased meaning in life was mediated by feelings of social connectedness. Study 3 evidenced that threatened meaning increases nostalgia. Study 4 illustrated that nostalgia, in turn, reduces defensiveness following a meaning threat. Finally, Studies 5 and 6 showed that nostalgia disrupts the link between meaning deficits and compromised psychological well-being. Collectively, these findings indicate that the provision of existential meaning is a pivotal function of nostalgia.     

Nostalgia,reflection, brooding: Psychological benefits and autobiographical memory functions

We sought to clarify the psychological profile of experimentally induced nostalgia, compared to two other modes of thinking about one’s past—reflection and brooding—also experimentally induced. We tested both British and Chinese participants. Our main hypothesis was that nostalgia’s profile is more positive in terms of six psychological benefits and seven autobiographical memory functions. The results were consistent with the hypothesis. In regard to psychological benefits, nostalgia (vs. reflection and brooding) increased positive affect, self-esteem, self-continuity, social connectedness, and meaning in life. Furthermore, nostalgia increased optimism relative to brooding (but not reflection). In regard to autobiographical memory functions, nostalgia (vs. reflection and brooding) led to higher boredom reduction, conversation, intimacy maintenance, and death preparation, as well as lower bitterness revival. Nostalgia also elevated teach/inform relative to brooding (but not reflection). The findings were similar for British and Chinese participants.     

怀旧与亲社会行为的关系:一个有中介的调节模型

本研究考察了怀旧影响亲社会行为的心理机制及其边界条件。研究1对500名大学生进行问卷调查。研究2以127名大学生为研究对象,使用实验法操纵怀旧（VS.非怀旧）,两个分研究得到了一致的结果：（1）生命意义在怀旧与亲社会行为之间起部分中介作用;（2）心理需要满足调节了怀旧对亲社会行为的影响。该研究丰富了怀旧和亲社会行为的文献,并对心理咨询行业具有一定实践指导意义。     

A trip down memory lane: Antecedents and outcomes of ad‐evoked nostalgia on Facebook

Integrating the theories of nostalgia and consumer‐brand relationships, this study developed and tested a theoretical model for understanding ad‐evoked nostalgia within the context of Facebook. Online survey data (n = 395) were collected using Amazon MTurk to disentangle the relationships between antecedents, ad‐evoked nostalgia, and outcomes. An analysis of the structural model revealed that the need to belong and nostalgia proneness had positive, direct effects on ad‐evoked nostalgia, which subsequently affected self‐brand connections and brand engagement behaviors on Facebook. Facebook use intensity was not found to influence ad‐evoked nostalgia. Theoretical and managerial implications, along with future research directions, were discussed.     

Sociality and intergenerational transfer of older adults’ nostalgia

Interest in nostalgia has blossomed, yet its nature in older adulthood and potential for intergenerational transfer to younger adults has remained neglected. In Experiment 1, we focused on the content of older adults’ nostalgic (vs. ordinary) recollections and asked whether older adults’ nostalgia could be transferred to younger adults. We showed that nostalgia expressed in older adults’ narratives was positively associated with nostalgia reported by young-adult readers. In Experiment 2, undergraduates read a nostalgic or ordinary narrative written by an older adult. Then they rated their own nostalgia as well as their perceived social connectedness, self-continuity, and meaning in life. Exposure to older adults’ nostalgic (vs. ordinary) narratives promoted concurrent nostalgia among young adults, along with associated psychological benefits (social connectedness, self-continuity, meaning). The findings illustrate the potential for intergenerational transfer of nostalgia through written narratives, and attest to the universality of nostalgic themes across younger and older adults.     

The power of the past: Nostalgia as a meaning-making resource

In three experiments we tested whether nostalgia bolsters meaning in life relative to two other modes of autobiographical thought: imagining a desired future experience and recalling a positive past experience. In Experiment 1 participants thought about a nostalgic or desired future experience and then completed a presence of meaning scale. Thinking about a nostalgic (compared to desired future) experience increased perceived presence of meaning. In Experiment 2 we examined whether nostalgia can additionally reduce the search for meaning. Participants thought about a nostalgic, desired future or recent positive experience, and then completed a search for meaning scale. Nostalgia, relative to both comparison conditions, decreased the search for meaning. Finally we tested whether, by virtue of its capacity to increase meaning, nostalgia can mitigate threats to meaning. In Experiment 3 participants were exposed to either absurd or representational art, under the guise that they would later have to interpret its meaning, and then thought about either a nostalgic or a recent positive experience. Meaning was subsequently measured. The absurd art interpretation condition decreased the perceived presence of meaning but nostalgic reflection attenuated this effect.     

How nostalgia infuses life with meaning: From social connectedness to self-continuity

Nostalgia increases meaning in life (MIL), but how so? In four experiments—using varied operationalizations of nostalgia, diverse populations, and complementary methodologies—we identified a serial process. We hypothesized and found, in Experiment 1, that self-continuity boosts MIL. We hypothesized and found, in Experiment 2, that nostalgia increases MIL through self-continuity. Finally, we hypothesized and found, in Experiments 3–4, that nostalgia fosters social connectedness, which plausibly heightens self-continuity, which in turn strengthens MIL. The findings clarify an intricate pathway through which nostalgia renders life more meaningful.     

The power of the past: nostalgia as a meaning-making resource

In three experiments we tested whether nostalgia bolsters meaning in life relative to two other modes of autobiographical thought: imagining a desired future experience and recalling a positive past experience. In Experiment 1 participants thought about a nostalgic or desired future experience and then completed a presence of meaning scale. Thinking about a nostalgic (compared to desired future) experience increased perceived presence of meaning. In Experiment 2 we examined whether nostalgia can additionally reduce the search for meaning. Participants thought about a nostalgic, desired future or recent positive experience, and then completed a search for meaning scale. Nostalgia, relative to both comparison conditions, decreased the search for meaning. Finally we tested whether, by virtue of its capacity to increase meaning, nostalgia can mitigate threats to meaning. In Experiment 3 participants were exposed to either absurd or representational art, under the guise that they would later have to interpret its meaning, and then thought about either a nostalgic or a recent positive experience. Meaning was subsequently measured. The absurd art interpretation condition decreased the perceived presence of meaning but nostalgic reflection attenuated this effect.     

Nostalgia motivates pursuit of important goals by increasing meaning in life

This research focused on existential and motivational implications of the emotion of nostalgia. Nostalgia (relative to control) increased meaning in life, which, in turn, galvanised intentions to pursue one's most important goal (Experiment 1) and to pursue one's most important, but not least important, goal (Experiment 2). The basic pattern held in two cultures (British and Danish) independently of positive affect. This is the first evidence that nostalgia has specific motivational consequences (i.e., pursuit of more, but not less, important goals) and transmits these consequences via meaning in life. Also, this is the first evidence that meaning is associated with specific motivational consequences. Discussion considers the relevance of the findings for the emotion and motivation literatures.     

The effect of auditory versus visual violent media exposure on aggressive behaviour: The role of song lyrics, video clips and musical tone

Five decades of research have shown clear links between exposure to violent visual media and subsequent aggression, however there has been little research that directly compares the effects of exposure to violent visual versus auditory media, or which has experimentally tested the effect of violent song lyrics with musical ‘tone’ held constant. In the current study 194 participants heard music either with or without lyrics, and with or without a violent music video, and were then given the chance to aggress using the hot sauce paradigm. Musical tone was held constant across groups, and a fifth (control) group had no media exposure at all. Experimental groups, on average, were significantly more aggressive than controls. The strongest effect was elicited by exposure to violent lyrics, regardless of whether violent imagery accompanied the music, and regardless of various person-based characteristics. Implications for theories of media violence and models of aggression are discussed.     

You can't always get what you want: educational attainment, agency, and choice

Using educational attainment to indicate socioeconomic status, the authors examined models of agency and effects of choice among European American adults of different educational backgrounds in 3 studies. Whereas college-educated (BA) participants and their preferred cultural products (i.e., rock music lyrics) emphasized expressing uniqueness, controlling environments, and influencing others, less educated (HS) participants and their preferred cultural products (i.e., country music lyrics) emphasized maintaining integrity, adjusting selves, and resisting influence. Reflecting these models of agency, HS and BA participants differently responded to choice in dissonance and reactance paradigms: BA participants liked chosen objects more than unchosen objects, but choice did not affect HS participants' preferences. Results suggest that HS and BA models of agency qualitatively differ, despite overlap between HS and BA worlds.     

Nostalgic recollections of high and low narcissists

Two functions of nostalgia are consistently documented in the literature: self-positivity and social connectedness. These reflect agency and communion, respectively. Such dimensions are polarized no more than in narcissists, who are high in agency and low in communion. In three studies we tested whether high and low narcissists differ in the content of nostalgic recollections, whether they become nostalgic about different objects, and whether nostalgia serves different functions for them. High (versus low) narcissists made more agentic references in their narratives and manifested nostalgic proclivity toward agentic objects. Furthermore, nostalgia served a self-positivity function, but not a social connectedness function, for high (versus low) narcissists. Findings highlight the relevance of personality—narcissism, in particular—for the experience of nostalgia.     

Music and aggression: the impact of sexual-aggressive song lyrics on aggression-related thoughts, emotions, and behavior toward the same and the opposite sex

Three studies examined the impact of sexual-aggressive song lyrics on aggressive thoughts, emotions, and behavior toward the same and the opposite sex. In Study 1, the authors directly manipulated whether male or female participants listened to misogynous or neutral song lyrics and measured actual aggressive behavior. Male participants who were exposed to misogynous song lyrics administered more hot chili sauce to a female than to a male confederate. Study 2 shed some light on the underlying psychological processes: Male participants who heard misogynous song lyrics recalled more negative attributes of women and reported more feelings of vengeance than when they heard neutral song lyrics. In addition, men-hating song lyrics had a similar effect on aggression-related responses of female participants toward men. Finally, Study 3 replicated the findings of the previous two studies with an alternative measure of aggressive behavior as well as a more subtle measure of aggressive cognitions. The results are discussed in the framework of the General Aggression Model.     

A Retrospective Survey of Childhood Experiences

The present study introduces a balanced survey of a range of behavioral and emotional experiences to assess impressions of a person’s childhood. Ninety-one undergraduates and 70 of their parents rated exposure to positive and negative social and solitary experiences. The survey demonstrated acceptable internal consistency and 4-week test–retest reliability, and scores correlated with Zimbardo’s Time Perspective Inventory of temporally based beliefs and values, Batcho’s inventory of personal nostalgia, and Holbrook’s measure of historical nostalgia. Correlations with time perspective and nostalgia inventories suggest that favorable impressions of childhood are associated with benefits such as social connectedness, personal continuity, and health-promoting behaviors and adverse impressions with less adaptive impacts such as unsatisfactory relationships, discontinuity, and distress. Ratings of social experiences were correlated more closely with childhood happiness than were solitary experiences. The Childhood Survey shows promise as a tool to expand the exploration of childhood experiences beyond adverse events to encompass components that comprise a happy childhood.     

Introduction: Special Issue on Positive Psychology and Adult Development

An adult seems to articulate surprisingly similar meaning themes and similar processes about relationships in several widely disparate domains of behavior, domains of both non-pathological and pathological types. Whether the person is consciously describing early relationships with parental figures, unconsciously acting them out in current relationships, experiencing relationships with God or the Transcendent, or acting on the basis of relational delusions during psychotic episodes, his or his experienced relational reality seems to be filtered through a single, coherent, personally unique spiritual, existential, and epistemological relational lens. Conflicts may involve other relational meanings, but may be conflicts because of the existence of that dominant lens. Two parts of that dominant lens system, specifically the part relating the person’s concept of God to the other parts of the system and the part relating the specifics of psychotic breaks and spiritual emergence to other parts of the system, are seldom discussed. Both understanding the person’s dominant relational lens and the implications of that person’s using the lens to see reality, and sharing that knowledge with the individual (if he or he has stabilized to some degree) can help the troubled or disoriented individual. That person can gradually give a more adaptive meaning to consistent distortions in the many areas of meaning and behavior attached to relationships, and even to very skewed behavior such as hallucinations and delusions during psychotic breaks. Distortions during experiences of spiritual emergence also can be made clearer to the disturbed client if the therapist has a better understanding of the person’s overall coherent relational meaning system and its implications, and can translate the language of that system into spiritually transformative terms. A case is summarized and discussed as an example of these ideas. Then, two theories are described. A useful theory of human-felt connection and a cognitive developmental theory of Postformal Complex Thought have been developed by the author and described in earlier publications. These two theories help make sense of the multiple but coherent themes, cognitive dimensions of theme genesis and change, and the nature of the relational lenses used. Suggestions about interventions in the person’s system of coherently distorted relational themes, suggestions based on the two theories, are discussed. The recommendation is made that all therapists become fluent in the languages of, and especially the connections among, all of the relational areas named in the title of this paper that are part of the coherent relational theme.     

A blast from the past: The terror management function of nostalgia

According to terror management theory, people turn to meaning-providing structures to cope with the knowledge of inevitable mortality. Recent theory and research suggest that nostalgia is a meaning-providing resource and thus may serve such an existential function. The current research tests and supports this idea. In Experiments 1 and 2, nostalgia proneness was measured and mortality salience manipulated. In Experiment 1, when mortality was salient, the more prone to nostalgia participants were, the more they perceived life to be meaningful. In Experiment 2, when mortality was salient, the more prone to nostalgia participants were, the less death thoughts were accessible. In Experiment 3, nostalgia and mortality salience were manipulated. It was found that nostalgia buffered the effects of mortality salience on death-thought accessibility.     

权力感知对怀旧偏好的影响机制

作者考察了权力感知对消费者怀旧偏好的影响及其心理机制。通过3个实验, 作者发现低权力者比高权力者更加偏好怀旧产品或怀旧品牌, 而寻找生活意义的动机在该影响过程中起中介作用。具体而言, 权力的缺失导致个体认为自己的生活缺乏意义, 进而激发出寻找生活意义的动机。由于怀旧可以通过回忆有意义的事件和提供社会支持两条途径来帮助个体重拾生活意义, 因此低权力的消费者倾向于进行怀旧消费。这一研究发现进一步丰富了现有的权力和怀旧文献, 并对怀旧营销的设计具有重要的实践指导意义。     

Remarks on Compositionality and Weak Axiomatic Theories of Truth

The paper draws attention to an important, but apparently neglected distinction relating to axiomatic theories of truth, viz. the distinction between weakly and strongly truth-compositional theories of truth. The paper argues that the distinction might be helpful in classifying weak axiomatic theories of truth and examines some of them with respect to it.