Effects of perceived aesthetic context of sad songs on approach-avoidance tendencies towards these songs

Most people try to avoid the negative emotion, sadness, and situations or events that reveal this emotion. Interestingly, most people also report enjoyment from sad music songs which generate sadness. This contradictory situation is seen as a paradox from researchers. Theories are developed to explain this paradox, and one of them is Schubert's Parallel Processes Hypothesis. According to Schubert, a single emotion such as sadness can be conceptualized according to its creation of subjective feelings as well as its attraction-aversion action tendencies. So, if a music song is listened for aesthetic context, action tendency would be attraction, even if it results with a negative emotion. In contrast, if the song is not listened for aesthetic context, the action tendency would be aversion. The aim of this study is to test Schubert's Parallel Processes Hypothesis. To this aim, part of 124 undergraduate students from Uludag University are subjected to a context which they get no cognitive load and focus solely on the chosen music songs. Another part of the students are subjected to a context which they listen chosen music songs at the same time with 2-back tasks that would make difficult for them to focus on the songs and get any aesthetic experience. The mood changes of participants are measured with PANAS. Perception of aesthetics is measured with EDBSÖ. Results of the chi-square analysis on action tendencies supported Schubert's Parallel Processes Theory.