Browsing by Author "Mertsch, Dane Jordan"

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    The effects of listening to music on positive affect and negative affect, after acute stress exposure.
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Mertsch, Dane Jordan; Jordan, Dane
    In today’s world, the negative effects from daily acute stressors have become more and more of a concern impacting the general health and well-being of individuals across the world. The aim of the current study was to see whether listening to music had an effect on positive affect and negative affect, after acute stress exposure. Previous literature has shown that there is a mixture of findings within the research, with some research studies finding evidence suggesting listening to music may help with stress recovery; however, other research studies have found evidence suggesting it may be too soon to conclude that listening to music helps with stress recovery due to the non-significant results. A quantitative longitudinal experiment with elements of between and within groups design was conducted to investigate whether listening to music would increase positive affect and decrease negative affect, following acute stress exposure. Participants underwent a stress induction task and were randomly assigned to one of the three listening conditions (self-selected music group, researcher-selected music group, and an ambient sound group). Participants self-reported positive affect and negative affect levels were recorded after both the stressor task (time 1) and the listening condition (time 2). Two mixed model ANOVAs were run to see whether listening to music increased participants positive affect and decreased their negative affect, after acute stress exposure. The results from the mixed-model ANOVAs were non significant indicating insufficient evidence to support this hypothesis. Further research on this important topic is required in order to help clarify the current conflicting results found in the literature.