How Do Song Lyrics Affect Your Brain?
Hundreds of studies have shown that words powerfully influence thinking, behavior, and mood, and much of it occurs without conscious awareness. Favorite songs are listened to over and over hundreds or thousands of times so it makes good sense to speculate that music lyrics may have a profound impact on the listener’s perception of the world, other people, and which emotions are experienced as well as the frequency of those emotions.
In psychology, researchers are beginning to grasp the significance of the workings of the mind beyond the conscious experience. Conscious awareness is merely the jumping off point when exploring the mind. There is now considerable agreement among neuroscientists that most cognitive processing takes place outside of conscious awareness. Roughly 90-95% of mental activity occurs outside conscious awareness. Much of this back officeactivity is automatic and emotional. Much of this activity is taking place just below the level of our awareness.
Despite the lack of awareness, subconscious activity has a tremendous impact on how the world is perceived through the senses, day-to-day behaviors, emotions felt and satisfaction with life. For example, numerous studies have been done on the phenomenon known as priming. Priming is when a person is exposed to certain stimulus, such as words, lyrics, or surroundings, and their subconscious mind is activated. Once activated, the person tends to act in ways that are consistent with the stimulus without awareness of why they are behaving in that manner. Priming has been shown to influence behavior in dramatic ways. Let me explain these types of studies by way of example.
One experiment had a group of people simply read a list of words where some of the words had to do with stereotypes of elderly people, such as retirement,Florida,and bald. Sure enough, participants who were primed with elderly-related words instantly began acting consistent with the elderly stereotype. They walked more slowly down the hallway, they walked with their shoulders slightly more hunched over, and their short-term memory became worse than the control group. Merely reading the list with words related to old age led to forgetfulness and other behavioral changes.
The frightening thing about these experiments is that the group given the words related to elderly stereotypes could not remember any words about the elderly in the original list of words. So they were influenced by the words and then forgot all about what it was that influenced them. All of this groundwork brings me to the latest research, which came out June 25, 2009, demonstrating that song lyrics prime behavior as well. When asked to fill in the missing song lyrics for different songs, participants behaviors and attitudes changed in startling ways.
Donald Saucier at Kansas State University found that when people filled in the lyrics for patriotic songs, such as The Star-Spangled Banner, they became more close-minded, prejudiced and less empathetic. They did not put themselves in the shoes of another person to view the world through different eyes. What’s more, when folks filled in lyrics to songs such as The Itsy Bitsy Spider, they became more pro-social, reporting more accepting attitudes towards other people and more empathy. The hypothesis is that this is due to the strong association most people have with such childhood songs to happiness or contentment in their own childhood.
In conclusion, musical lyrics have an impact on attitudes towards others, emotions felt and how frequently they are experienced, and how the world is perceived. Given the research, it makes sense to closely look at the lyrics of the songs you listen to frequently. They may be impacting you more than you ever realized.