Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T21:39:27.876Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Explaining the enjoyment of negative emotions evoked by the arts: The need to consider empathy and other underlying mechanisms of emotion induction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2017

Jonna K. Vuoskoski  and
Tuomas Eerola
Jonna K. Vuoskoski
Affiliation:
Faculty of Music, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 1DB, United Kingdom. [email protected]://users.ox.ac.uk/~musf0093/ Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä 40014, Finland.
Tuomas Eerola
Affiliation:
Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä 40014, Finland. Department of Music, Durham University, Durham DH1 3RL, United Kingdom. [email protected]://community.dur.ac.uk/tuomas.eerola/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Any model aiming to explain the enjoyment of negative emotions in the context of the arts should consider how works of art are able to induce emotional responses in the first place. For instance, research on empathy and the arts suggests that the psychological processes that mediate the enjoyment of sadness and horror may be fundamentally different.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 40 , 2017 , e378
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Clarke, E., DeNora, T. & Vuoskoski, J. (2015) Music, empathy and cultural understanding. Physics of Life Reviews 15:61–88.Google Scholar
Eerola, T., Vuoskoski, J. & Kautiainen, H. (2016) Being moved by unfamiliar sad music is associated with high empathy. Frontiers in Psychology 7:1176. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01176.Google Scholar
Green, M. C., Brock, T. C. & Kaufman, G. F. (2004) Understanding media enjoyment: The role of transportation into narrative worlds. Communication Theory 14(4):311–27.Google Scholar
Levinson, J. (2006) Musical expressiveness as hearability-as-expression. In: Contemporary debates in aesthetics and the philosophy of art, ed. Kieran, M. , pp. 192–206. Blackwell.Google Scholar
Miu, A. C. & Balteş, F. R. (2012) Empathy manipulation impacts music-induced emotions: A psychophysiological study on opera. PLoS ONE 7(1):e30618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Molnar-Szakacs, I. & Overy, K. (2006) Music and mirror neurons: From motion to ‘e'motion. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 1(3):235–41.Google Scholar
Sparks, G. G. (1991) The relationship between distress and delight in males' and females' reactions to frightening films. Human Communication Research 17(4):625–37. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.1991.tb00247.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tal-Or, N. & Cohen, J. (2010) Understanding audience involvement: Conceptualizing and manipulating identification and transportation. Poetics 38(4):402–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tamborini, R., Stiff, J. & Heidel, C. (1990) Reacting to graphic horror. A model of empathy and emotional behavior. Communication Research 17(5):616–40. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/009365090017005003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vuoskoski, J. K. & Eerola, T. (2015) Extramusical information contributes to emotions induced by music. Psychology of Music 43(2):262–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vuoskoski, J. K. & Eerola, T. (2017) The pleasure evoked by sad music is mediated by feelings of being moved. Frontiers in Psychology 8:439. Available at: http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00439.Google Scholar
Vuoskoski, J. K., Thompson, W. F., McIlwain, D. & Eerola, T. (2012) Who enjoys listening to sad music and why? Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal 29(3):311–17.Google Scholar
Wassiliwizky, E., Wagner, V., Jacobsen, T. & Menninghaus, W. (2015) Art-elicited chills indicate states of being moved. Psychology of Aesthetics Creativity and the Arts 9(4):405–16. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000023.Google Scholar
Zickfeld, J. H., Schubert, T. W., Seibt, B. & Fiske, A. P. (2017) Empathic concern is part of a more general communal emotion. Frontiers in Psychology 8:723. Available at: http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00723.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed