In this report, we research to develop a deeper understanding of the causes behind our emotional responses so that we can learn beneficial strategies for coping with them appropriately. Previous studies show that emotional responses have been found to vary from person to person and reflect involvement in the various daily activities of an individual, such as exposure to the news and listening to music, and can even predict something yet to occur. In our first (correlational) study, we tested the strength of these relationships by examining naturalistic daily changes in their variables longitudinally over a two-week period. We measured exposure to news by rating personal relevance to daily news exposure and induced mood, rated moods after exposure to music, rated uncertainty of each given day, and emotional response levels using a modified version of the Profile Of Mood States (SUM-POMS) scale. Data pooled across participants in our correlational study demonstrated significant correlations of increased emotional response with personal connection to music, personal relevance to news, and to confidence levels in daily events. Based on the strength of the correlation found between personal connection to music and emotional response, we then conducted an experimental study to test for a causal relationship between these two variables. Over a two-week period, we randomly assigned participants each day to either purposefully listen to music that they felt a personal connection to or to listen to no music and measured their emotional response. The results of our experimental study established a causal role of personal connection to music on emotional response. A possible practical application of these findings could be that when feeling overwhelmed by uncertainty and the negative news, listening to music with personal meaning can help us to have more positive emotional responses, and in turn boost our overall mood and sense of well-being.
