Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-9prln Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-07T23:46:05.376Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Emotional granularity and the musical enjoyment of sadness itself

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2017

Nathaniel F. Barrett ,
Jay Schulkin  and
Javier Bernacer
Nathaniel F. Barrett
Affiliation:
Institute for Culture and Society, University of Navarra, Pamplona 31009, Spain. nbarrett@unav.es jbernacer@unav.es http://www.unav.edu/web/instituto-cultura-y-sociedad/mente-y-cerebro
Jay Schulkin
Affiliation:
Department of Neuroscience, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057. jjs54@georgetown.edu http://neuro.georgetown.edu/
Javier Bernacer
Affiliation:
Institute for Culture and Society, University of Navarra, Pamplona 31009, Spain. nbarrett@unav.es jbernacer@unav.es http://www.unav.edu/web/instituto-cultura-y-sociedad/mente-y-cerebro
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We contest the claim that musically induced sadness cannot be enjoyable in itself. This possibility is supported by closer attention to a musical experience as well as cases of affective reversal, such as the “hedonic flip” of painful feelings. We propose that the affective reversal of sadness in music is due to the high granularity of musically induced emotion.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 40 , 2017 , e351
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Aydede, M. (2014) How to unify theories of sensory pleasure: An adverbialist proposal. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 5:119–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, L. F., Gross, J., Christensen, T. C. & Benvenuto, M. (2001) Knowing what you're feeling and knowing what to do about it: Mapping the relation between emotion differentiation and emotion regulation. Cognition and Emotion 15:713–24.Google Scholar
Barrett, N. F. & Schulkin, J. (under review). A neurodynamic perspective on musical enjoyment: The role of emotional granularity.Google Scholar
Gabrielsson, A. (2011) Strong experiences with music, trans. Bradbury, R.. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Glucklich, A. (2001) Sacred pain: Hurting the body for the sake of the soul. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Grahek, N. (2007) Feeling in pain and being in pain, 2nd edition. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Juslin, P. N. (2013) From everyday emotions to aesthetic emotions: Towards a unified theory of musical emotions. Physics of Life Reviews 10(3):235–66. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2013.05.008.Google Scholar
Kashdan, T. B., Barrett, L. F. & McKnight, P. E. (2015) Unpacking emotion differentiation: Transforming unpleasant experience by perceiving distinctions in negativity. Current Directions in Psychological Science 24:10–16.Google Scholar
Lee, J. Y., Lindquist, K. A. & Nam, C. S. (2017) Emotional granularity effects on event-related brain potentials during affective picture processing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 11:133.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leknes, S., Berna, C., Lee, M. C., Snyder, G. D., Biele, G. & Tracey, I. (2013) The importance of context: When relative relief renders pain pleasant. Pain 154(3):402–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leknes, S. & Tracy, I. (2008) A common neurobiology for pain and pleasure. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9:314–20.Google Scholar
Lindquist, K. A. & Barrett, L. F. (2008) Emotional complexity. In: Handbook of emotions, 3rd edition, ed. Lewis, M., Haviland-Jones, J. M. & Barrett, L. F., pp. 513–30. Guilford.Google Scholar
Lindquist, K. A., Satpute, A. B., Wager, T. D., Weber, J. & Barrett, L. F. (2016) The brain basis of positive and negative affect: Evidence from a meta-analysis of the human neuroimaging literature. Cerebral Cortex 26:1910–22.Google Scholar
Sachs, M. E., Damasio, A. & Habibi, A. (2015) The pleasures of sad music: A systematic review. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 9:404. Available at: http://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00404.Google Scholar
Smidt, K. E. & Suvak, M. K. (2015) A brief, but nuanced, review of emotional granularity and emotion differentiation research. Current Opinion in Psychology 3:48–51. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.02.007.Google Scholar
Taruffi, L. & Koelsch, S. (2014) The paradox of music-evoked sadness: An online survey. PLoS ONE 9(10):e110490. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0110490.Google Scholar
Vuoskoski, J. K. & Eerola, T. (2017) The pleasure evoked by sad music is mediated by feelings of being moved. Frontiers in Psychology 8:439. Available at: http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00439.Google Scholar
Vuoskoski, J. K., Thompson, W. F., McIlwain, D. & Eerola, T. (2012) Who enjoys listening to sad music and why? Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal 29(3):311–17.Google Scholar