Sex differences in emotional and psychophysiological responses to musical stimuli
Introduction
Previous studies of differences between men and women in emotional expression and experience have shown somewhat conflicting results. Whereas some studies show that men and women differ with regards to displaying specific emotions, others failed to find such differences. The same is true for studies investigating sex differences in emotional experience, with only a small number of studies looking at sex differences with regards to psychophysiological underpinnings of emotional responses (Bradley et al., 2001, Kring and Gordon, 1998). A recent study has shown that women are more reactive to unpleasant events than men in their electrodermal response (Kring and Gordon, 1998). Another study demonstrated that women are more defensively reactive to unpleasant pictures in comparison to men, showing a greater facial electromyographic reaction and higher heart rates. However, no significant differences have been found for electrodermal activity and startle response (Bradley et al., 2001). As can be seen from these two studies, results regarding sex differences do not entirely point to the same direction. Thus, a great deal of more work is needed to elucidate the psychophysiological mechanisms that underlie emotional differences in men and women.
There is a wide array of different stimuli used in studies examining emotional processes. Mostly, pictures (Bradley et al., 2001) and films (Kring and Gordon, 1998) are used. However, emotional responses can be evoked by a multitude of different stimuli, which affect different channels and sensory systems. It is therefore astonishing that only a few studies have used acoustical stimuli to evoke emotional reactions. Music, for example, is a highly potent stimulus, capable of inducing a variety of emotions. Recent studies have therefore attempted to use music as a stimulus to induce a variety of emotional states (Gendolla and Kruesken, 2001, Gomez and Danuser, 2004, Khalfa et al., 2002), based on the notion that musical emotions are not fundamentally different from other emotions. Consequently, emotions that are elicited by music can also be differentiated on a dimensional level by placing them on the arousal–valence dimensions (Krumhansl, 1997, Nyklicek et al., 1997).
Research on the psychological and physiological effects of music has primarily focused on music styles that induce positive emotions and physiological relaxation (high valence–low arousal). This combination has profound effects on physiological and psychological processes. In a study by Allen and Blascovich, surgeons had to select music pieces that should help them to relax during surgery. The self-selected music significantly attenuated autonomic parameters (cardiac responses, hemodynamic measures, electrodermal responses) during surgery (Allen and Blascovich, 1994). Similar results have been obtained by a number of additional studies (Burns et al., 1999, Knight and Rickard, 2001, Macht et al., 2000). On the other hand, music commonly considered arousing such as hip hop, techno music, and heavy metal, is known to exert arousal in physiological systems and does not commonly induce positive feelings (high arousal–low valence). In a study by Gerra et al. (1998), for example, the influence of techno music on a variety of physiological variables was examined. Listening to techno music resulted in significant increases in heart rate, norepinephrine, cortisol, and adrenocorticotropic hormone.
These and other studies show that music is a powerful tool to elicit psychophysiological reactions in experimental subjects (for a review see Bartlett, 1996). However, the reported studies fail to address differences between men and women with regards to emotional and physiological reactions to musical stimuli. Furthermore, most often only one or a small number of physiological parameters are investigated, an approach that does not take into account the multi-faceted physiological reaction patterns that might be observed while listening to musical stimuli. Therefore, in the present study, we set out to investigate whether differences between men and women may be found with regards to psychological and physiological response patterns to musical stimuli using a variety of physiological parameters. To that end, we exposed men and women to two musical stimuli that are known to elicit mood changes as well as psychophysiological changes. In line with current knowledge about sex differences in emotional responses, we hypothesized that women react more sensitively than men in terms of both psychological and physiological parameters to an aversive and arousing musical stimulus in contrast to a positive and relaxing music stimulus.
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Participants
Fifty-three volunteers (26 males, 27 females) took part in the experiments (for subject characteristics, see Table 1). The sample size was determined by using a priori statistical power analysis (power: .80, alpha: .05, effect size f2: .35) with the software G-Power (Buchner et al., 1998). All participants were recruited via advertisement in a class on psychophysiological methods for students in their 5th to 9th semester at the University of Zurich. All participants were drug-free, and all were
Subject characteristics
A total of 53 subjects (26 males, 27 females) participated in the study on a voluntary basis. Since the aim of this study is to examine sex differences, subject characteristics are presented for men and women (see Table 1). Evaluation of the PSS indicated that men and women in this sample did not differ with regards to perceived stress during the month before they took part in the experiments. With regards to the SRS, women were significantly more sensitive to stress-related situations, and
Discussion
Music is a powerful emotion-eliciting stimulus, as a number of studies have repeatedly shown. In our study, we were able to show that evoked emotions accompany specific physiological response patterns in a variety of biological variables. However, as our results indicate, men and women in this sample do not show the same reactivity patterns; while women displayed heightened responses to an arousing and unpleasant stimulus, men did not.
The primary aim of our study was the evaluation of possible
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their gratitude to all participants of the study. Furthermore, the help of Dr. Beate Ditzen and Dr. Andreas Schwerdtfeger in the preparation of the manuscript is gratefully acknowledged. UMN acknowledges the financial support of the Swiss National Science Foundation.
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