The Impacts of Background Music on the Effects of Loving-Kindness Meditation on Positive Emotions.
Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) March 4, 2024 Quan Tang, Jing Han, Xianglong Zeng 3 citations
Adding background music to loving-kindness meditation can increase low-arousal and pro-social positive emotions without making the practice harder. In a five-day intervention, 200 participants were randomly assigned to six groups that experienced meditation with music containing only harmony, music with both harmony and melody, or no music on different days. Music boosted low-arousal and pro-social positive emotions compared to silence, but there was no difference between the two types of music. Music did not affect difficulties such as lack of concentration or lack of pro-social attitudes. Practice over days influenced medium-arousal positive emotions and concentration difficulty, though results varied across groups.