Journal of Environmental Psychology (1996) 16, 55–64 0272-4944/96/010055+ 10$18.00/0  1996 Academic Press Limited ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY Journal of THE EFFECTS OF MUSIC ON RESPONSES TO A DINING AREA ADRIAN C. NORTH AND DAVID J. HARGREAVES Music Research Group, Department of Psychology, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, U.K. Abstract This study investigated the effects of music on responses to a specific listening environment. A stall offering advice on welfare issues was set up in a university cafeteria. A loudspeaker situated by the stall played four different types of music, which varied in their complexity and style, and the design also included a silent control condition. Two hundred and eighty-five subjects completed a questionnaire concerning their liking for the atmosphere in the cafeteria, how happy they would be to return to the cafeteria, their likelihood of visiting the advice stall and their liking for the music. Several behavioural measures were employed, although only a measure of the number of people visiting the stall yielded a sample of sufficient size for statistical analysis. The results indicated that responses to the listening environment were predictably associated with responses to the music, and these effects are considered in terms of the style and complexity of the music employed.  1996 Academic Press Limited Introduction the arousal-evoking qualities of the situation in determining a specific response to the experimental setting. In one study, for example (Konecni, 1975), Konecni (1982) criticized research on the psychology of music for failing to account for how ‘listening to subjects were either insulted or treated neutrally by an accomplice on entering the experiment, before music has become fully imbedded in the stream of daily life’ (p. 500). This remains the case despite the being exposed to melodies that varied in their arou- sal-evoking qualities. Both of these manipulations pervasive nature of music in modern society, in that even the most everyday activities, such as driving, affected the number of fake electric shocks that subjects then apparently administered to the shopping, watching television, eating a meal or doing housework, have come to be frequently accomplice, such that subjects who had been insulted and exposed to highly arousing music accompanied by music. However, research has yet to consider the effects of these musical stimuli on administered the most ‘electric shocks’. A number of studies by other researchers have our responses to the music listening situation. The present study investigates whether responses to a also examined the effects of music on specific responses to the listening situation. For example, naturalistic environment vary with responses to the music played therein and whether this effect can be Ramos (1993) reported that manipulations of the musical style played to callers to a telephone predicted on the basis of specific musical charac- teristics. advisory service while they waited for their call to be answered influenced the number of people who Perhaps the best-known research on the inter- action between music and the environment is that disconnected their call prematurely. Stratton and Zalanowski (1984) found that soothing music, as conducted by Konecni and his coworkers in a series of laboratory experiments (see review by Konecni, opposed to stimulating or no music, led to an increased level of verbalization in a discussion 1982). These demonstrated that the arousal-evok- ing qualities of a musical stimulus interacted with group. Areni and Kim (1993) demonstrated that 55