Intentional | Audio Identity Blog

I’m currently deep-diving on the subject of music and mood, and came across this over at PsyBlog—a recent study detailing the seven most common ways that music influences mood:

1. Entertainment - the most fundamental level music provides stimulation. It lifts the mood before going out, it passes the time while doing the washing up, it accompanies travelling, reading and surfing the web.
2. Revival - Music revitalises in the morning and calms in the evening.
3. Strong sensation - Music can provide deep, thrilling emotional experiences, particularly while performing.
4. Diversion - Music distracts the mind from unpleasant thoughts which can easily fill the silence.
5. Discharge - Music matching deep moods can release emotions: purging and cleansing.
6. Mental work - Music encourages daydreaming, sliding into old memories, exploring the past.
7. Solace - Shared emotion, shared experience, a connection to someone lost.

While there are countless studies on the role of music and sound influencing mood, I thought this was an easy, usable overview of the role of music in our lives. Fine and dandy, but what really got my attention was the discussion of music playing a role in helping us better process our own lives:

Many of Saarikallio and Erkkila’s findings chime with previous research. For example, distraction is considered one of the most effective strategies for regulating mood. Music has also been strongly connected with reflective states. These tend to allow us greater understanding of our emotions.

One of the few negative connections Saarikallio and Erkkila consider is that sad music might promote rumination. Rumination is the constant examination of emotional state which, ironically, can lead to less clarity. On the contrary, however, Saarikallio and Erkkila found that music increased the understanding of feelings, an effect not associated with rumination.

Now. Just for shits and giggles, let’s step back and consider the massive testing lab that is your company’s call center or your business’s retail store. Zillions of people calling, visiting you, ready to buy, and zillions of them impacted by music in the ways described above.

It’s not quite as simple as Pavlov’s dog, but clearly there’s a cause-and-effect relationship at work. Let’s hope the CMOs and COOs — the primary decision-makers in these scenarios — have enough good sense to understand that.