Songs as Death Reminders and Tranquilizers: Deliberate and Natural Music Therapy under the Threat of Death
 

Author:

Dr. Ehud Bodner

Abstract:
Four experiments were designed in order to study the role of songs as death reminders or tranquilizers through utilization of the Terror Management Theory (TMT). TMT describes how people’s need to manage the fear of death is reflected in their social behavior and in their reactions toward those who preserve or violate their cultural worldview. Application of TMT to songs yielded three main arguments: 1) Our intense social reaction to songs is motivated by our psychological tendency to defend ourselves against mortality; 2) This tendency will manifest itself in our reactions to songs of sub-cultures that support or violate our cultural worldviews; 3) Songs can function as social death reminders.
In Study 1, Russian immigrants, under mortality salience and non-salience conditions, listened to five songs of Russian origin, expressed their opinions about the songs, judged the severity of 20 social transgressions (worldview violations), and recommended punishments. Study 2 replicated Study 1, with the exception that the songs represented for the Russian immigrants, a primitive musical culture. In study 3, religious and secular undergraduates, under mortality salience and non-salience conditions, were asked to judge the likeability of five religious songs. In study 4, participants were asked to complete a word completion task in order to measure the accessibility of death-related words after listening to a memorial song or a sad song. Overall, findings indicate that attitudes towards songs can decrease the impact of mortality-salience on worldview validation and can also be influenced by a mortality-salience manipulation. Songs can also function as a social death reminder stimulus.
The findings are discussed in light of two different life threatening contexts: a. the uniting and tranquilizing function of religious songs on evacuees and evacuators during the disengagement from the Gaza strip; b. the work of music therapists with terminally ill patients.

Keywords:

songs, death, terror management theory, cultures

Biographical Details:

Dr. Ehud Bodner is a Clinical and medical psychologist. He is a member in the Israel Psychological Association and in the Israeli Society of Hypnosis. He was formerly the head of the research branch of the department of mental health in the Israeli Army (IDF). Today he is a lecturer in Bar-Ilan University's music therapy program (MA), and in the interdisciplinary department of Social Science. His fields of research are: cognitive psychology, psychology of music, music and emotions, psychopathology in cognitive perspective.