It’s hard to find a human being who doesn’t enjoy music. We have this interesting connection to music, and it seems to be part of us. What is interesting is that music can be leveraged to influence our moods. I assume many of us intuitively know this, as we see athletes listening to music to get into the zone before games, or when we listen to certain genre music to match our mood.
What is pretty cool about our connection to music is that we can use music to change our mood or enhance our mood. There is not a universal genre of music or song that will work for everyone but it’s a fun thing to experiment with.
For example, at night when I know I need to be vigilant in my work and focus but my motivation is low I look to music for help. I know if I can just get started, just get through the first 10-15 minutes, I will find a grove and get over that initial barrier.
So I started a little routine that consists of listening to a 3 song playlist that I created to match the mood I was trying to create. My after-hours work requires focused cognitive engagement. Specifically, the work I do at night is not checking the box kind of work, it is pour your mind and soul into it type of work. So I needed to tap into the right persona and I used music to help trigger the switch. My current playlist consists of…
- Still D.R.E – Dr. Dre
- Heart of the city – Jay Z
- Gone – Kanye West
The routine consists of going to my office. Putting on the playlist and letting myself calibrate accordingly. Each time I calibrate quicker and quicker. Now, there will come a time where I will naturally rotate the songs out and may replace them with a different genre, or a mixed genre. What matters is that I developed a routine that leveraged music to trigger my mind into a different space.
Why is this interesting?
An interesting aspect of music is that it can affect the way we see and perceive our environments, by a means of Perceptual Expectation. There was a group of scientists that developed a study to test this theory of Perceptual Expectation (Jolij, 2011). They asked participants to make two playlists, one that was a “Sad” playlist and one that was a “happy” playlist. Participants had complete autonomy on the songs they included in each playlist. Researchers then asked the participants to listen to one of the playlists, look at pictures of individuals, and describe the faces as happy, sad, or somewhere in-between. Interestingly enough, individuals who listed to a happy playlist identified more happy faces, and vise versa (individuals who listened to a sad playlist, identified more sad faces). In addition, individuals who listed to either of the playlists saw happy (or sad) faces, even when the faces were neutral.
We now know that music can influence what we see and influence our perspective of the world (Jolij, 2011). It has the magical power to affect the way we perceive our environments. Music can enchant us to the point where we see things that are not there, a phenomenon discussed above as Perceptual Expectation, when we hear something, our brain has an expectation to see something similar (Jolij, 2011). Our brain in a way pairs tones with visuals.
For me, this has simply made something I enjoy, listening to music, a tool for production, a tool for motivation, and a tool to help me enhance my mood.
Music Psychology Takeaways
Music can change your mood
Music can affect the way you see/perceive your environment
Music can create a perceptual expectation – when you hear something through your ears your brain will expect to see something similar, through your eyes (Jolij, 2011).
References:
Jolij, J. & Meurs, M. (2011). Music Alter Visual Perception. PLos ONE 6(4): e188861. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0018861
