Effects of Listening to Heavy Metal Music on College Women: A Pilot Study

Authors

Milton E. Becknell, Cedarville UniversityFollow
Michael W. Firmin, Cedarville UniversityFollow
Hwang Chi-en, Cedarville UniversityFollow
David M. Fleetwood
Kristie L. Tate
Gregory D. Schwab

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-2008

Journal Title

College Student Journal

Volume

42

Issue

1

First Page

24

Last Page

35

Abstract

College students are typically very identified with popular music and spend many hours listening to their music of preference. To investigate the effects of heavy metal music, we compared the responses of 18 female undergraduate college students to a baseline silence condition (A) and a heavy metal music condition (B). Dependent measures included: heart rate, body temperature, electrodermal activity (sweating), and facial muscle tension (frontalis and masseter muscles). Results indicated that exposure to heavy metal music was associated with physiological reactivity but significant differences between the silence and music conditions were limited to the masseter muscles during initial exposure to the music condition. There were also significant differences between the first and second music conditions for both masseter and frontalis muscles. Both these findings have important implications for college students, especially the potentially unhealthy effects that appear to be associated with heavy metal music in some listeners.

Keywords

Music, heavy metal, college women

Recommended Citation

Becknell, M., Firmin, M., Hwang, C., Fleetwood, D., Tate, K., & Schwab, G., (2008). Measuring the physiological effects of heavy metal music using electromyographic biofeedback: A pilot study. College Student Journal, 42, 24-35.