The Arts in Psychotherapy 40 (2013) 201–205 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect The Arts in Psychotherapy The effects of sedative and stimulative music on stress reduction depend on music preference Jun Jiang a , Linshu Zhou b , Daphne Rickson c , Cunmei Jiang a,∗ a Music College, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China b Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China c New Zealand School of Music, Wellington, New Zealand article info Keywords: Music preference Sedative music Stimulative music Stress reduction Tension and state-anxiety levels abstract To examine the effects of sedative and stimulative music and music preference on stress reduction when participants are exposed to a stressor, 144 female music education students performed a stressful, mental arithmetic test. After the stress was induced successfully, participants were randomly assigned to four experimental groups. They listened to preferred sedative music, preferred stimulative music, unpreferred sedative music, and unpreferred stimulative music, respectively. Tension and state-anxiety levels were obtained after listening to music. The results revealed that participants who listened to sedative music showed significantly lower tension and state-anxiety levels than did those who listened to stimulative music when music was unpreferred. However, there was no significant difference of tension and state- anxiety levels between listening to sedative music and stimulative music when music was preferred. These findings demonstrate that the effects of sedative and stimulative music on stress reduction depend on music preference. Our study has important implications for the practice of clinical music therapy since it provides strong support for the use of preferred music when working to reduce patient stress. © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Introduction It is well known that stress is considered to be a causal factor in many physical and psychological illnesses. Excessive or prolonged stress can lead to many kinds of emotional disorders and psycho- somatic diseases, such as anxiety disorders, heart disease and high blood pressure. Stress reduction has therefore been considered one of the major goals of music therapy (Elliott, Polman, & McGregor, 2011). There is virtual consensus that music, like language, has the abil- ity not only to convey or express emotions (e.g., Collier, 2007; Juslin & Laukka, 2004; Vieillard et al., 2008), but also to influence emo- tions (e.g., Hunter, Schellenberg, & Schimmack, 2010; Khalfa, Roy, Rainville, Dalla Bella, & Peretz, 2008; Koelsch, Fritz, Cramon, Müller, & Friederici, 2006; Lundqvist, Carlsson, Hilmersson, & Juslin, 2009; Pereira et al., 2011; Trost, Ethofer, Zentner, & Vuilleumier, 2012). Numerous studies have shown that listening to music can be an effective means of alleviating tension and anxiety. On the other hand, not all music is appropriate for stress reduction (Chafin, Roy, Gerin, & Christenfeld, 2004; Yehuda, 2011). The selection of music is therefore an important consideration for music therapists (Elliott ∗ Corresponding author at: Music College, Shanghai Normal University, 100 East, Guilin Road, Shanghai 200234, China. Tel.: +86 21 64322990; fax: +86 21 64322935. E-mail addresses: cunmeijiang@126.com, cunmeijiang@shnu.edu.cn (C. Jiang). et al., 2011; Pelletier, 2004). Interest in the use of music for stress reduction has grown in the past few decades and research which provides evidence to support this practice is needed. Some studies compare the effects of different music genres on stress reduction, and suggest that classical music has higher effects on stress reduction compared to non-classical music such as hard rock music and heavy metal music (e.g., Burns et al., 2002; Labbe, Schmidt, Babin, & Pharr, 2007). Atonal music makes participants feel significantly less relaxed than romantic music and stimulating classical music (Stratton & Zalanowski, 1984), while no significant differences were found between classical, jazz and pop music in reducing the levels of relaxation and state-anxiety (Chafin et al., 2004). Music has also been classified as sedative and stimulative in terms of level of arousal. Stimulative music is commonly charac- terized by fast tempos, loud volume, and rhythmic patterns, while sedative music is slow, soft, with little rhythmic activity (Iwanaga, Ikeda, & Iwaki, 1996; Pellitteri, 2009; Radocy & Boyle, 2003). Listen- ing to sedative music and sitting in silence can reduce tension more than listening to noise or stimulative music (Hasegawa, Uozumi, & Ono, 2003; Iwanaga, Kobayashi, & Kawasaki, 2005; Lingham & Theorell, 2009; Sandstrom & Russo, 2010). Similarly, participants who listened to sedative music reported lower state-anxiety level than those who listened to noise and sitting in silence (Hasegawa et al., 2003; Knight & Rickard, 2001; Moradipanah, Mohammadi, & Mohammadil, 2009), although Stratton and Zalanowski (1984) 0197-4556/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aip.2013.02.002