A self-regulatory perspective on people's decision to engage in listening to self-selected sad music when feeling sad

This thesis documents the results of a PhD research project which focuses on investigating the underlying psychological processes that can explain adults’ motivations for listening to self-identified sad music when feeling sad. Even though people do often listen to sad music when feelings sad, surprisingly little research has been conducted to investigate the psychological processes that can explain this behaviour or the effects of deciding to listen to sad music when feeling sad. The research presented in the current thesis sought to fill this void Following an introduction to the topic and methods (Chapter 1) and a review of relevant and recent literature (Chapter 2), three chapters (Chapter 3; Chapter 4; Chapter 5) detail the results of a systematic empirical study on people’s sad music listening behaviour, their rationally for engaging in this behaviour and the self-reported effects of this behaviour. Then a discussion chapter (Chapter 6) is included in which al the findings are summarized and discussed. In the discussion chapter, limitations of the empirical studies will additionally be discussed and recommendations will be made for future research. Overall, the research presented in the current thesis indicates that listening to self-identified sad music when feeling sad provides adults with a variety of functions. It also is shown that self-identified sad music can be selected by a variety of selection strategies. It is shown that in order to understand why people listen to certain music one should take into account personal and situational factors as these determine the specific goals and aims people have. Moreover, in order to understand why people listen to certain music one should also take into account what specific functions this music can provide.