Effects of familiar and unfamiliar asynchronous music on treadmill walking endurance

To assess effects of familiarity of music on treadmill endurance, 15 female undergraduates in sports science performed an incremental treadmill walking task on three separate occasions while listening to Familiar Music, Unfamiliar Music, and White Noise. A repeated-measures analysis of variance indicated that participants walked for significantly longer when accompanied by Familiar and Unfamiliar Music in comparison to White Noise (p<.01). Although participants rated Familiar Music as significantly more motivating than Unfamiliar music (p<.05), no significant differences were found between the two music conditions for treadmill endurance. Heart rates did not appear to be influenced by music during treadmill walking or on completion of the task.     

The impact of thin models in music videos on adolescent girls' body dissatisfaction

Music videos are a particularly influential, new form of mass media for adolescents, which include the depiction of scantily clad female models whose bodies epitomise the ultra-thin sociocultural ideal for young women. The present study is the first exposure experiment that examines the impact of thin models in music videos on the body dissatisfaction of 16–19-year-old adolescent girls (n = 87). First, participants completed measures of positive and negative affect, body image, and self-esteem. Under the guise of a memory experiment, they then either watched three music videos, listened to three songs (from the videos), or learned a list of words. Affect and body image were assessed afterwards. In contrast to the music listening and word-learning conditions, girls who watched the music videos reported significantly elevated scores on an adaptation of the Body Image States Scale after exposure, indicating increased body dissatisfaction. Self-esteem was not found to be a significant moderator of this relationship. Implications and future research are discussed.     

THE INFLUENCE OF MISOGYNOUS RAP MUSIC ON SEXUAL AGGRESSION AGAINST WOMEN

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of cognitive distortions concerning women on sexually aggressive behavior in the laboratory. Twenty-seven men listened to misogynous rap music and 27 men listened to neutral rap music. Participants then viewed neutral, sexual-violent, and assaultive film vignettes and chose one of the vignettes to show to a female confederate. Among the participants in the misogynous music condition, 30% showed the assaultive vignette and 70% showed the neutral vignette. In the neutral condition, 7% showed the sexual-violent or assaultive vignette and 93% showed the neutral vignette. Participants who showed the sexual-violent or assaultive stimuli reported that the confederate was more upset and uncomfortable in viewing these stimuli than did participants who showed the neutral vignette. These findings suggest that misogynous music facilitates sexually aggressive behavior and support the relationship between cognitive distortions and sexual aggression.     

Effects of minimal exercise and cognitive behavior modification on adherence, emotion change, self-image, and physical change in obese women

The present investigation tested a 12-wk. treatment protocol which employed low intensity cardiovascular and resistance exercise as well as cognitive-behavior modification on 13 obese, previously sedentary women. Separate analyses were conducted on program maintenance, emotional change, and physiological change. Although self motivation was lower in the treatment group than in the control group (n=35), measures of exercise maintenance were significantly higher. Analyses within the treatment group only indicated significant improvements in measures of State Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Fatigue, Tension, and Vigor, also Health Evaluation, Body Area Satisfaction, and heightened Overweight Preoccupation, over the 12 weeks. Their feelings after individual bouts of exercise indicated significantly increased Positive Engagement, Revitalization, and Tranquility, and reduced Physical Exhaustion. Maximum volume of oxygen uptake (VO2max) significantly increased (2nd to 10th percentile), but not resting heart rate. No significant correlation was found between cardiorespiratory change and change in scores on depression and anxiety. No significant association was found between physiological change and change in body image. Preliminary evaluation of the minimal exercise treatment was given. The need to replicate findings with larger and different samples was emphasized.     

Precompetitive anxiety and affective state of climbers in indoor climbing competition

The purpose of this study was to measure the precompetitive anxiety and affective states of climbers, particularly with regard to sex and types of competition. 37 men (M=25.9, SD=3.8 yr.) and 10 women (M=25.9, SD=4.2 yr.), climbers who enrolled in Indoor Sport Climbing Competition, voluntarily participated in two different types of competition-speed and difficulty indoor climbing. The Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule were administered to all climbers just before the competition. The Sport Competition Anxiety Test was also administered to control competitive trait anxiety. Multivariate analysis of covariance yielded a significant interaction of sex and type of competition for affective state (Hotelling T2=0.21; F2,33=3.43, p<.05). Follow-up univariate analysis indicated that the mean Negative Affect score of women climbers before the difficulty competition was higher than mean Negative Affect scores of men before both speed and difficulty competitions and also the mean for women climbers before the speed competition (F1,34 = 6.15, p <.05). The results partially supported the hypothesis of differences in negative affect by sex and types of competition.     

Cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia in alcohol dependent patients: a randomized controlled pilot trial

In a randomized controlled trial, we evaluated the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral treatment for insomnia to improve sleep and daytime symptoms, and to reduce relapse in recovering alcohol dependent (AD) participants. Seventeen abstinent AD patients with insomnia (6 women, mean age 46.2 ± 10.1 years) were randomized to 8 sessions of cognitive-behavioral treatment for insomnia for AD (CBTI-AD, n = 9) or to a behavioral placebo treatment (BPT, n = 8). Subjective measures of sleep, daytime consequences of insomnia and AD, alcohol use, and treatment fidelity were collected at baseline and post-treatment. Diary-rated sleep efficiency and wake after sleep onset, and daytime ratings of General Fatigue on the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory improved more in the CBTI-AD compared to the BPT group. In addition, more subjects were classified as treatment responders following CBTI-AD. No group differences were found in the number of participants who relapsed to any drinking or who relapsed to heavy drinking. The findings suggest that cognitive-behavioral insomnia therapy benefits subjective sleep and daytime symptoms in recovering AD participants with insomnia more than placebo. The benefits of treating insomnia on drinking outcomes are less apparent.     

Can music with prosocial lyrics heal the working world? A field intervention in a call center

Music with lyrics about helping is shown to reduce aggression in the laboratory. This paper tests whether the prosocial lyric effect generalizes to reducing customer aggression in the workplace. A field experiment involved changing the hold music played to customers of a call center. The results of a 3 week study suggested that music significantly affected customers, but not in the way suggested by previous laboratory experiments; compared with days when instrumental background music was played, caller anger and employee exhaustion were lower on days when callers were played popular music with neutral, but not prosocial, lyrics. The findings suggest that music influences customer aggression, but that the prosocial lyric effect may not generalize from the laboratory to the call center.     

Music Use in Exercise: A Questionnaire Study

Although there is much research looking at music’s effects on sport and exercise performance, little is known about exercisers’ own application of music during workouts. An online questionnaire exploring its relationship with gender, formal music training, personality and 5K performance was completed by 282 regularly exercising participants (159 women, 116 men, 6 undisclosed, M_age =37.68, SD = 10.16). Women were more likely to use music during exercise than men (p = .011), and to synchronize to the beat (p = .002), and women’s preferences were spread over a range of pop, rock, and dance music, whereas men’s were focused on rock-related styles. Being open to new experiences was associated with preferring rock, metal, and indie music (p = .042) and those who intentionally synchronised their movements were more open to new experiences than non-synchronizers (p = .003), although a minority of participants synchronised intentionally. Most gym users listened to their own music in the gym rather than music played by the facility. These findings provide new insights into exercise music use, challenging assumptions that formal music training affects how music is applied in exercise, and that synchronization to the beat is the “norm” for exercisers listening to music.     

What's happening on Music Television? A gender role content analysis

This study analyzed 40 Music Television (MTV) music videos across gender role based content categories. Videos were rated at 30-second intervals by four trained raters using a consensus model. Results included the following: (a) men appeared nearly twice as often as women; (b) men engaged in significantly more aggressive and dominant behavior; (c) women engaged in significantly more implicitly sexual and subservient behavior; and (d) women were more frequently the object of explicit, implicit, and aggressive sexual advances. Overall, MTV video content primarily included implicit sexuality, objectification, dominance, and implicit aggression. Implications of these findings with respect to sex role stereotyping and the development of negative attitudes toward women were discussed.     

THE INFLUENCE OF SEXUALLY VIOLENT RAP MUSIC ON ATTITUDES OF MEN WITH LITTLE PRIOR EXPOSURE

This article is among the first to focus on commercially available, sexually violent rap music, so-called "gangsta" rap (GR) and its influence on attitudes toward women. Collegiate males with little experience with GR were exposed to GR music, lyrics, both, or neither. Thus the effect of GR music and lyrics were isolated from each other and from acculturation to GR. Collapsing across all attitude measures, neither lyrics alone nor lyrics with music resulted in significantly more negative attitudes toward women than music-only or no-treatment control conditions. Participants in the lyrics conditions had significantly greater adversarial sexual beliefs than no-lyrics participants, however.     

The anxiolytic effect of aqua aerobics in elderly women

This study examined the anxiolytic (anxiety reducing) effects of exercise for elderly women engaging in a single bout of aqua aerobics. Volunteers (N=29) completed questionnaires immediately before and after participating in an aqua aerobics class. The average age of participants was 66.4 yr. A brief form of Spielberger's State Anxiety Inventory and a questionnaire on demographic items were administered prior to engagement in exercise, and the brief form of the State Anxiety Inventory was administered again immediately after the exercise session. There was a significant difference on a t test between participants' ratings of anxiety before exercise (M = 16.8) compared to after exercise (M= 13.9); participants' ratings of state anxiety were somewhat lower after exercising. Weaknesses of the present study and suggestions for research are presented.     

Clinical application of medical resonance therapy music in high-risk pregnancies

Music is an ancient method for healing. In the year 550 B.C., Pythagoras from Greece developed a concept for the use of music in medicine, esteeming music higher than many other medical treatments. The Medical Resonance Therapy Music (MRT-Music) of the German classical composer and musicologist Peter Huebner is built on this concept of Pythagorean music medicine. Its therapeutic effect may be best explained by the natural phenomenon of resonance between the harmony laws of the microcosm of music and the biological laws of the body. Results received after application of MRT-Music indicate multiple positive effects on the organism of pregnant women both with a healthy pregnancy as with a pathologic one, reducing the rate of premature births very effectively. Furthermore, MRT-Music came out to be an effective method in the complex therapy of late gestoses and a nearly irreplaceable method for preoperative preparation of pregnant woman for caesarean section. It demonstrated a powerful anti-stress effect and allowd to reduce the amount of administered pain-killers to pregnant women by the factor 1.5 to 2.0 thus reducing the negative pharmacological load to the foetus. It furthermore reduced labour time and shortened hospital stay. It helped to create optimal conditions for the course of pregnancy and heightened pain sensitivity threshold by means of improving the functional, hormonal, and psycho-emotional conditions of pregnant and lying-in women. Thus, the labour process became more natural, the delivery non-traumatic, and motherhood more happy and safe.     

Influence of music on Wingate Anaerobic Test performance

While several studies have investigated the effects of music on cardiovascular endurance performance and perceived exertion during exercise of moderate intensity, few studies have investigated such effects on supramaximal exercise bouts. The purpose of the present study was to assess whether music affects performance on the Wingate Anaerobic Test. Each of the 12 men and 3 women were required to report to the laboratory on two occasions, once for tests in the music condition and once for tests in the nonmusic condition. Conditions were randomly ordered. All music selections were set at the same tempo. On each test day subjects performed a series of three Wingate Anaerobic Tests with 30-sec. rests in between. On Test 3 subjects were asked to continue pedaling until fatigued. Mean Power Output, Maximum Power Output, Minimum Power Output, and Fatigue Index were compared between conditions for each test using a repeated-measures analysis of variance. Time to fatigue on Trial 3 compared by analysis of variance gave no significant differences between conditions for any measures.     

Effects of fasting on visual flicker fusion

Two experiments are reported which investigated the effects of fasting on visual flicker fusion (VFF). In Exp. 1 the VFF of 40 undergraduate students, 20 men and 20 women, whose mean age was 22.5 yr., was measured in nonfasting conditions 1 to 2 weeks before and in fasting conditions during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. In Exp. 2 the VFF of a comparable group of 15 men and 15 women, whose mean age was 23.2 yr., was measured in a different month in both fasting and nonfasting conditions. Subjects were assigned randomly to these two conditions. Analysis shows that fasting reduced VFF significantly in both experiments. This finding indicates that fasting is likely to reduce perceptual sensitivity. The results were explained in terms of fatigue and physical exhaustion effects produced by fasting.     

Sex Differences in Relationships between Verbal Fluency and Personality

The Thurstone Verbal Fluency Test, Vandenberg Mental Rotation Test, and NEO-FFI personality test were administered to 182 university participants (126 female, 56 male). The men scored higher than the women on the spatial test, and the women scored higher than the men for the verbal fluency test, as reported by others. Women reported more extraversion and agreeableness than men. Extraversion was correlated with verbal fluency for both sexes. For the men, verbal fluency was also positively associated with agreeableness, and for the women, verbal fluency was associated with openness and conscientiousness. No relationships between personality and spatial ability were found. Thus, the relationships between cognitive variables and personality factors differed between the sexes. These findings are discussed in terms of the common frontal neural substrate of verbal fluency and these aspects of personality, as well as the inherently social nature of language as a communication tool.     

Clinical application of Medical Resonance Therapy Music in high-risk pregnancies.

Music is an ancient method for healing. In the year 550 B.C., Pythagoras from Greece developed a concept for the use of music in medicine, esteeming music higher than many other medical treatments. The Medical Resonance Therapy Music (MRT-Music) of the German classical composer and musicologist Peter Huebner is built on this concept of Pythagorean music medicine. Its therapeutic effect may be best explained by the natural phenomenon of resonance between the harmony laws of the microcosm of music and the biological laws of the body. Results received after application of MRT-Music indicate multiple positive effects on the organism of pregnant women both with a healthy pregnancy as with a pathologic one, reducing the rate of premature births very effectively. Furthermore, MRT-Music came out to be an effective method in the complex therapy of late gestoses and a nearly irreplaceable method for preoperative preparation of pregnant woman for caesarean section. It demonstrated a powerful anti-stress effect and allowed to reduce the amount of administered pain-killers to pregnant women by the factor 1.5 to 2.0, thus reducing the negative pharmacological load to the foetus. It furthermore reduced labour time and shortened hospital stay. It helped to create optimal conditions for the course of pregnancy and heightened pain sensitivity threshold by means of improving the functional, hormonal, and psycho-emotional conditions of pregnant and lying-in women. Thus, the labour process became more natural, the delivery non-traumatic, and motherhood more happy and safe.     

Adopting the Objectifying Gaze: Exposure to Sexually Objectifying Music Videos and Subsequent Gazing Behavior

We investigated the effects of exposure to sexually objectifying music videos on viewers’ subsequent gazing behavior. We exposed participants (N = 129; 68 women, 61 men) to music videos either high in sexual objectification or low in sexual objectification. Next, we measured participants’ eye movements as they viewed photographs of 36 women models with various body shapes (i.e., ideal size model, plus size model) and degree of dress (i.e., fully dressed, scantily dressed, partially clad). Results indicated that sexually objectifying music videos influenced participants’ objectifying gaze upon photographs of women with an ideal size, but not plus size, body shape. Interestingly, that effect neither differed among men and women nor depended upon the models’ degree of dress. Altogether, once primed with sexually objectifying imagery, participants looked at women’s sexual body parts more than they looked at women’s faces.     

Anxiety in Kuwaiti and American college students

Samples of Kuwaiti (n=646) and American (n=320) undergraduates responded to the Kuwait University Anxiety Scale in Arabic and English, respectively. Differences by sex were significant, with women having a higher mean anxiety score than men and by country with Kuwaiti women having a higher anxiety score than American women.     

Adult attachment and forgiveness in Taiwanese college students

The purpose of this study was to assess the associations between measures of adult attachment and forgiveness in college students in Taiwan. Participants (203 women and 82 men; M age = 19.6 yr., SD = 1.2) completed measures of adult attachment dimensions (Adult Attachment Scale), State Forgiveness (Forgiveness Scale), and Trait Forgiveness (Forgiveness Likelihood Scale). Pearson correlations and regression results indicated ratings on three dimensions of adult attachment, Dependence, Anxiety, and Closeness, were significantly related to State Forgiveness, and all but scores on Dependence were significantly related to scores on Trait Forgiveness. Only ratings of Anxiety and Closeness significantly predicted those on State and Trait Forgiveness. The findings provided partial support for using attachment theory to understand the construct of forgiveness.     

Simultaneous multiple stressors in the environment: physiological stress reactions, performance, and stress evaluation

Interactive effects of two environmental stressors when simultaneous ly present, i.e., noise and crowding, were analyzed. Four experimental conditions with two intensities of stress for each stressor (high versus low) were created. The stressors were concurrently introduced in laboratory conditions and their effects analyzed using several methodological approaches. More intense and negative effects were expected when the two highest intensities of noise and crowding concurred. 40 people (20 men and 20 women) participated in a study with a 2 x 2 factorial design. Analysis showed an increase in the measures of hemodynamic, endocrine, and neuroendocrine values of participants after being exposed simultaneously to noise and crowding. Similarly, their performance on complex tasks decreased, and they reported a subjective increase in stress. Capacity to cope was indicated by a statistically significant lower mean on the Dimension of Stress scale, tolerance of frustration during the multiple stress condition.