As I write this article, I’m listening to the Black Eyed Peas’ new song, “I Gotta Feeling,” which begins with the lyrics:
“I must feel that tonight is going to be a good night,
tonight is going to be a good night,
Tonight is going to be a good night, a good night.”
The song makes me feel optimistic, energizes me, and gives me hope. This begs the question, How do music lyrics direct the mind to receive and interpret information?
Words can influence behavior unintentionally
Hundreds of studies have shown that words powerfully influence thinking, behavior, and mood, many of which occur without conscious awareness. Favorite songs are listened to over and over hundreds or thousands of times, so it is reasonable to speculate that the lyrics of the music may have a profound effect on the listener’s perception of the world, other people, and the feelings experienced as well as the frequency of those feelings.
Most of the mind operates outside of conscious awareness
In psychology, researchers are beginning to understand the importance of the mind’s actions outside of conscious experience. Mindful awareness is just a starting point when exploring the mind. There is now great agreement among neuroscientists that most cognitive processes take place outside of conscious awareness. Approximately 90-95% of mental activity occurs outside of conscious awareness. Much of this “back office” activity is automatic and emotional. Much of this activity is performed directly below our level of awareness.
Unconscious activity affects daily behavior
Despite the lack of awareness, Unconscious activity has an enormous impact on how we perceive the world through our senses, everyday behaviors, the emotions we feel, and our satisfaction with life. For example, many studies have been done on the phenomenon known as priming. Priming occurs when a person is exposed to a specific stimulus, such as surrounding words, words, or objects, and their subconscious mind is activated. Once activated, the person tends to act in ways that are compatible with the stimulus without realizing why they are acting that way. Primer has been shown to influence behavior in exciting ways.
An example of simplicity of an introductory psychological study
Let me explain these types of studies with an example. Imagine that you volunteer for the following experiment: You are given four jumbled sentences by a researcher who tells you to come and get them when you have finished (so that the sentences are meaningful). There is one extra word in every sentence that you don’t need to use. For example, you might be presented with something like… “Her interruption usually bothers her.” As the subject, you can translate that mess into something meaningful like… “They usually interrupt her” or “Usually annoy her.” After a few minutes, you finish the four-sentence ordering task and go down the hallway to find the researcher. You find her but she’s in the middle of a conversation with a stranger and doesn’t care about you. What do you do? For those people who have broken down sentences with one word in each sentence related to rude behaviour, such as ‘rash’, ‘aggressive’, ‘annoying’ and ‘intrusive’, you are more likely to interrupt the researcher within two minutes and say, ‘Hey, I’m done. What’s next?’
Primer can make people ruder or more submissive
On the other hand, if you decipher sentences in which the rude word is swapped for a polite word like “respect,” “nice,” or “polite,” you’ll probably be sitting there passively for up to 10 minutes Until the researcher finishes her speech. And you will have no idea what influenced you to be so docile.
Primer can make people act older and more forgetful
These experiences have been repeated over and over. In one experiment, a group of people read a list of words where some of the words related to stereotypes of older people, such as “retirement,” “Florida,” and “bald.” Sure enough, participants who had been ‘equipped’ with elderly-related words immediately began behaving in accordance with the elderly stereotype. They walked more slowly in the hallway, walked with their shoulders hunched a bit more, and their short-term memory got worse than the control group. merely reading The list of words related to aging led to forgetfulness and other behavioral changes. The scary thing about these experiments was that the group gave out the words related to elderly stereotypes I can’t remember any words About the elderly in the original word list. So they were affected by the words and then forgot all about what affected them. All of this ground work brings me to the most recent research, released June 25, 2009, which shows that song lyrics are also primary behavior. When the participants were asked to fill in the missing lyrics for different songs, the participants’ behaviors and attitudes changed in startling ways.
Patriotic songs make people like-minded and more prejudiced
Donald Sussier of Kansas State University found that when people fill in the lyrics of patriotic songs, such as “The Star-Spangled Banner,” they become more closed-minded, prejudiced, and less empathetic. They didn’t put themselves in someone else’s shoes to look at the world with different eyes.
Children’s songs lead to more acceptance and empathy
Furthermore, when people filled in lyrics for songs like The Itsy Bitsy Spider, they became more pro-social, reporting more accepting attitudes toward others and more empathy. The hypothesis is that this is due to the strong association most people have with childhood songs with the happiness or contentment of their childhood. In conclusion, musical lyrics have an effect on attitudes towards others, the emotions you feel, how frequently you experience them, and how the world is perceived. Given the research, it makes sense to take a closer look at the lyrics of the songs you listen to the most. They may affect you more than you ever realized.
To this end, I have created a list of over 600 songs that support and increase pro-social behaviors based on the latest positive psychology findings freely available at www.guidetoself.com in the Articles section.