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"Sing Me A Sad Song And Make Me Feel Better": Exploring Rewards Related To Liking Familiar Sad Music, John D. Hogue

Theses and Dissertations

Hogue (2013) tested some of Levinson's (1997) theoretical ideas about why people like listening to songs that make them sad. Particularly, Hogue tested Levinson's ideas of communion, mediation, savoring feeling, and how absorption interacted with the songs to affect communion and the emotion. Hogue, however, did not use musical stimuli that were familiar to the participants, which is a precursor to Levinson's (1997) theory. This thesis retested Levinson's theory comparing familiar songs against unfamiliar songs and songs from another participant.

Data were collected from 82 participants. Each participant provided songs that induced happiness and songs that induced sadness. Participants listened …