Psychology of Heavy Metal Music.

[Beorn]

Psychology of Heavy Metal Music

Effects on Mood Aggression, Suicide, Drug Use and Intelligence


The majority of research into the emotional and behavioral effects of popular music has focused on heavy metal, though a few studies have also included rock and grunge music. Overall, the popular belief that listening to certain musical styles causes a variety of behavioral problems is not supported.

Emotional Response

While a number of researchers have associated heavy metal music with depression or anger, these effects do not occur when heavy metal is the listener’s musical preference. A study of more than 1,000 gifted students aged 11-18 found that heavy metal music is used for cathartic release and to dissipate negative emotions, particularly among those with low self-esteem.

Grunge Music Effects

A study of the effects of different types of music found that after listening to grunge music, subjects reported increases in fatigue, tension, sadness and hostility, as well as decreased mental clarity, vigor, relaxation and compassion. However, grunge was likely not the musical preference of these subjects—a study of grunge fans may have produced different results.

Aggression

Some studies have found that individuals become more hostile, aggressive or angry after listening to heavy metal music, whereas others have found no aggressive response. Some researchers have even found that subjects who were angry to begin with become happier, calmer and more relaxed after listening to heavy metal when it is their preferred musical genre.

Suicide

Although the suicide rate is higher among rock and heavy metal fans (particularly the latter), a study of students with psychiatric disorders who were also heavy metal fans actually showed improved mood after listening to their music of choice. Other studies of depressed students have found similar results, suggesting that students may use this music to help treat their depression rather than becoming depressed as a result of listening to it.

Academic Performance

Some studies have found that adolescents of both genders who listen to heavy metal tend to have lower grades in school, but this is likely due to aspects of personality or environment (such as high stress) rather than any direct effects of the music itself.

Intelligence

Interestingly, college students whose musical preferences are alternative, rock or heavy metal actually obtain higher IQ test scores on average, particularly on questions where abstraction is required. Some studies have also found high intelligence among adolescent heavy metal listeners.

Risk Taking

Those who prefer rock or heavy metal music are more inclined to be reckless sensation seekers who take risks. This is a personality type rather than a direct effect of the music—sensation seekers have less reactive nervous systems and so it takes more intense stimuli to generate a sensation of happiness or excitement.
Risk takers are more likely to commit crimes because they are not as anxious about the consequences. This is not caused by the music however; the risk taker prefers more energetic music and more dangerous pastimes as a result of innate personality and physiology.

Drug Use

Studies regarding a link between heavy metal music and drug use have generated mixed results. One study found that teenagers who listened to heavy metal were more inclined to use drugs, though they were not more likely to use them excessively or become addicted. Other researchers have found no link between music preference and drug use or drug-related values. Overall, use of alcohol and/or drugs by parents has the greatest influence on adolescent drug use.

Attitudes Toward Women

A study of undergraduate men found that exposure to sexually violent heavy metal music increased the tendency to stereotype sex roles and hold more negative perceptions of women. However, this was likely the result of the sexually violent content rather than the heavy metal music itself.

Effect on Animals

A student named David Merrill subjected mice to the music of a heavy metal band called Anthrax 24-hours a day to discover how it would affect their ability to learn new things, but instead of completing Merrill’s maze, the heavy metal mice all killed one another.
In a subsequent experiment in which the mice listened to heavy metal music for 10 hours each day, they did not become homicidal, but they did grow worse at solving the maze than they had been when they first encountered it. But research indicates that reactions to music are shaped by whether or not it is the genre of choice, and it's highly unlikely that if the mice had a musical preference at all, it would have been Anthrax.

Effect on Plants

Dorothy Retallack tested the effects of various types of music on plants. She found that playing classic rock artists such as Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and Vanilla Fudge caused the plants to grow in an unhealthy way, bend away from the speakers and die young. However, if we assume that plants can have musical preferences, it's possible that classic rock was not their music of choice.

Further Information

For more information on music psychology, please see The Psychology of Classical Music, The Psychology of Music and Rap Music's Psychological Effects.
References:

• Becknell, M.E.; Firmin, M.W.; Hwang, C.; Fleetwood, D.M.; Tate, K.L.; & Schwab, G.D. (2008). "Effects of listening to heavy metal music on college women: A pilot study." College Student Journal, 42(1), 24-35.
• Kemper, K. J., & Danhauer, S. C. (2005). “Music as therapy.” Southern Medical Journal , 98(3), 282-288.
• Lawrence, J.S., & Joyner, D.J. (1991). “The effects of sexually violent rock music on males' acceptance of violence against women.” Psychology of Women Quarterly, 15(1), 49-63.
• McNamara, L., & Ballard, M.E. (1999). “Resting arousal, sensation seeking, and music preference” [HTML Version]. Genetic, Social & General Psychology Monographs, 125(3).
• Robertson, D. (2000). “About Positive Music.” Dovesong.com.
• Scheel, K.R., & Westefeld, J.S. (1999). “Heavy metal music and adolescent suicidality: An empirical investigation [HTML Version]. Adolescence, 34(134).
• The Schiller Institute. (17 February 1998). "Towards a new renaissance in classical education."
• ScienceDaily.com. (22 March 2007). “Gifted students beat the blues with heavy metal.”
• Wanamaker, C.E., & Reznikoff, M. (1989). "Effects of aggressive and nonaggressive rock songs on projective and structured tests." Journal of Psychology, 123(6), 561.

Source

[Psychonaut]

Interestingly, college students whose musical preferences are alternative, rock or heavy metal actually obtain higher IQ test scores on average, particularly on questions where abstraction is required. Some studies have also found high intelligence among adolescent heavy metal listeners.

I'm not sure if it's quite fair to paint all listeners of Metal with the same brush. It's been my experience that it's a very different sort of person who enjoys Thrash than one who enjoys Progressive Avant-Garde Metal.

[Euroblood]

There are a variety of different metal cliques and all of them have a completely different atmosphere. Go to a thrash metal concert, and then go into a death metal concert, some elements might overlap with people there, but generally it will be a different climate.

Being a huge black metal fan myself, I suppose there are certain "stereotypes" that I fall into, but I doubt that the music I listen to, or what anyone else listens to, can dissect their personality very well.

I'd have to take a closer look at those experiments mentioned, as they seem a bit general. I'd like to know what the controls and confounding factors were. I think that they may play an important part of the outcome.

[Jägerstaffel]

I agree with Euroblood and Psychonaut to a degree but I have to admit; I'm a folk/black/death metaller (will be til I die) and I tend to fit the cliches in some circumstances. Not only that, my closest friends and those who understood me the most have been metallers as well.

I guess my point is sometimes stereotypes have a basis in reality and thank the gods for that, because it identifies us as a group.

Although those experiments sound like BS.

It's pretty awesome that heavy metal made the mice kill each other.

[Absinthe]

A study of more than 1,000 gifted students aged 11-18 found that heavy metal music is used for cathartic release and to dissipate negative emotions, particularly among those with low self-esteem

That explains a lot in my case...I had a lousy childhood, I started listening to heavy metal at a very young age (10) and I find ways to let out my anger and frustration through music, I searched through deeper meanings of complex lyrics, I learned english this way, and altogether I became very resilient and eventually thrived

If I had been listening to greek pop-folk music, I would have undoubtedly become a junkie and killed myself

[Eldritch]

Oh great, another one of these. I thought we'd already moved past that.

These so-called studies seem to come periodically, I guess because metal music is such an easy, immediate target. (NP: 1349: Hellfire)

I don't want to glorify that mass-murderer (not to mention idiot) Pekka-Eric Auvinen, but there's a point in final message: "don't blame the music I listen to, the books I read, the films I watch, the computer games I play. Blame only me. And look at yourself in the mirror while you're at it."

Instead of really trying to understand what's wrong with our society, these people prefer to blast houseplants with Led Zeppelin records.