ABSTRACT

Rooted in the rich soil of positive psychology, scholarship on the uses and effects of self-transcendent media content that elicits other-oriented emotions has flourished in the past few years, covering a full range of media content such as movies, online videos, social media posts, and news stories. The current research aimed to gain a better understanding of the positive consequences of consuming self-transcendent media with a particular focus on music – a medium that is frequently identified as inspiring. Specifically, two studies were conducted to examine the degree to which self-transcendent music (manifested as awe-eliciting music) can boost listeners’ activated positive affect and prosociality relative both to the natural baseline condition (Study 1) and to amusing/hedonic condition (Study 2). Results show that while awe-eliciting music did not directly contribute to increases of well-being variables compared to amusing music, inspiration was a crucial mediator through which awe-eliciting music exerted influences on participants’ perceptions of meaning in life and universality. Results are reflected in the broader context of positive media psychology, and implications for music’s potential to inspire are discussed in detail.

摘要

植根于积极心理学的肥沃土壤，关于引发他人情感的自我超越媒体内容的用途和效果的学术研究在过去几年蓬勃发展，涵盖电影、网络视频、社交媒体等全方位媒体内容。媒体帖子和新闻报道。目前的研究旨在更好地了解消费自我超越媒体的积极后果，特别关注音乐——一种经常被认为是鼓舞人心的媒体。具体而言，进行了两项研究以检查相对于自然基线条件（研究 1）和有趣/享乐条件而言，自我超越的音乐（表现为令人敬畏的音乐）可以在多大程度上提高听众的积极积极情绪和亲社会性（研究 2）。结果表明，虽然与有趣的音乐相比，令人敬畏的音乐并没有直接促进幸福感变量的增加，但灵感是一个关键的中介，通过它，令人敬畏的音乐对参与者对生活意义和普遍性的看法产生影响。结果反映在积极媒体心理学的更广泛背景中，并详细讨论了对音乐激发潜力的影响。