Changing positive and negative affects through music experiences: a study with university students.

BACKGROUND: Currently, there are few empirical studies that demonstrate the effects of music on specific emotions, especially in the educational context. For this reason, this study was carried out to examine the impact of music to identify affective changes after exposure to three musical stimuli. METHODS: The participants were 71 university students engaged in a music education course and none of them were musicians. Changes in the affective state of non-musical student teachers were studied after listening to three pieces of music. An inter-subject repeated measures ANOVA test was carried out using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) to measure their affective state. RESULTS: The results revealed that: (i) the three musical experiences were beneficial in increasing positive affects and reducing negative affects, with significant differences between the interaction of Music Experiences × Moment (pre-post); (ii) listening to Mahler's sad fifth symphony reduced more negative affects than the other experimental conditions; (iii) performing the blues had the highest positive effects. CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide applied keys aspects for music education and research, as they show empirical evidence on how music can modify specific affects of personal experience.

The Effect of Corrective Feedback in Basic Cognitive Tasks: A Study in Early Childhood.

The aim of this study was to examine the effect of trial-by-trial corrective feedback in a go-no-go task for children. A sample of 40 preschool students, divided into 4- and 5-year-olds, participated in the study, as well as a group of 20 university students. All the groups performed the task in a counterbalanced design of blocks with and without corrective feedback. Reaction time and accuracy rate were measured as dependent variables. Moreover, reaction time was also analyzed through an ex-Gaussian fit. Children were slightly more accurate and slower under the presence of corrective feedback, suggesting a more conservative pattern. University students were faster, but corrective feedback did not reach the statistical level. Regarding reaction time components, a reduction of the distribution tails, depicted by the τ parameter, was found for both groups under the corrective feedback condition. This suggests that parameterization of reaction time can be considered as a strategy for a more detailed analysis to examine the effect of corrective feedback, even at early ages. In this way, corrective feedback depicted beneficial effects in the τ parameter at early ages, suggesting its use in basic cognitive tasks based on go-no-go but not for older groups.

The Moderation Effects of Comparative Thinking Between Gratitude and Negative Affect During the COVID-19 Outbreak.

The aim of this research was to examine the moderation effects of comparative thinking (CT) across the relationship between gratitude and affect during the COVID-19 outbreak. To this purpose, multiple regression as well as moderation analyses were carried out. Age and sex were also addressed as variables of interest as described in previous literature. A sample of 306 north Americans was recruited by crowdsourcing platform ProA to obtain a representative sample based on age and gender. The participants filled in a questionnaire based on comparative thinking in relation to the emotional experience experienced before and during the COVID-19 outbreak, positive and negative affect schedule for positive and negative affect, as well as Gratitude Questionnaire - Six Items Form scores for gratitude. The main results of the current study related to the COVID-19 outbreak can be listed as follows: (i) no differences between CT groups in the gratitude trait, but differences in positive and negative affect did occur; (ii) regression models that included age, gratitude, and affect variables predicted negative and positive affects but gender did not reach the statistical level; (iii) two moderation models predicted affect from gratitude, with the CT variable moderating this effect; this moderation effect was also statistically significant in predicting negative affect but it was not statistically significant in predicting positive affect. These results might be of interest for training programs in applied levels and theoretical models of gratitude.

Effects of the Educational Use of Music on 3- to 12-Year-Old Children's Emotional Development: A Systematic Review.

Interest in the study of emotions in education has grown in recent years. Some of our modern challenges, such as constantly adapting to new scenarios or the need for team work have justified the introduction of emotional competence into educational systems, while diverse studies confirm the relationship between music and emotional intelligence, so that the former could be used as a tool to develop the latter. The aim of this work was to examine the evidence for positive effects of music on the emotions of 3- to 12-year-old children, to which end a systematic review was carried out. Two reviewers independently evaluated 424 studies that were identified in MEDLINE, Psycinfo, and CINAHL databases, in order to determine whether they met the stated inclusion criteria. A total of 26 articles were selected for review. The results suggest several beneficial effects of music on children's development, such as greater emotional intelligence, academic performance, and prosocial skills. It can therefore be concluded that music should be used in school settings, not only as an important subject in itself, but also as an educational tool within other subjects.

Psychometric Properties of the Indebtedness Scale (IS-R) in Spanish University Students.

The importance of trait indebtedness in the context of the study of gratitude has been growing in recent years, since both constructs form complex dynamics in response to the reception of a gift. In this work, the disposition to feel indebtedness is studied, through analysis of convergence and divergence, exploratory, and confirmatory analysis in the Spanish population, with the most used measurement instrument, i.e. The Revised Indebtedness Scale, IS-R. This scale depicted a four factor solution interrelated with a high consistency of content, which allows their labeling and describing. To do this, two samples of university students were selected; one of the sample sizes had 229 participants and the other 200 participants. Results also indicated good internal consistency described as follows: Debt for material aspects (α = 0.81), Self-sufficiency and discomfort in receiving help (α = 0.82), Moral self-demand in the reception of help (α = 0.83) and Debt in the receipt of gifts (α = 0.75). Furthermore, it was suggested that the relationships between gratitude and indebtedness are complex: on the one hand, all the indebtedness factors are inversely correlated with gratitude, such as the GQ5, although only Self-sufficiency and discomfort in receiving help and Debt in the receipt of gifts are such to a significant extent. However, the Interpersonal Gratitude scale of the G-20 depicted low correlations only with the Self-sufficiency and discomfort. The results are discussed in relation to the need for conceptual definition of the constructs in Positive Psychology.

Testing Motivational Theories in Music Education: The Role of Effort and Gratitude.

Acquiring musical skills requires sustained effort over long periods of time. This work aims to explore the variables involved in sustaining motivation in music students, including perceptions about one's own skills, satisfaction with achievements, effort, the importance of music in one's life, and perception of the sacrifice made. Two models were developed in which the variable of gratitude was included to integrate positive psychology into the motivational area of music education. The first predicts effort, while the second predicts gratitude. The models were tested using a sample of 84 music students. Both models were fitted using Bayesian analysis techniques to examine the relationship between variables and showed adequate goodness of fit. These models emphasize the role of cognition and motivation in music education and, more precisely, the relationship between effort and gratitude.