Feeling Good from Sad Music across Countries

In the Kama Muta Lab at the University of Oslo I’m leading research to identify the reason(s) of why sad music can make us feel positive, comforted, and calm.

Project status: Members of our lab have done a first step in this direction with the following research: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01176
We have a new manuscript on the way expanding the insights in Finland by Germany and France, and a larger study running focusing on Arabic cultures, namely, Lebanon and Turkey.

Goal: Already having found considerable differences between countries in how people feel positive from listening to sad music, we plan to further advance this research paradigm to several more diverse countries, especially outside of Europe. We search for collaborators with expertise in this type of research to co-pilot further studies in new countries.

Funding: There is no funding and I’d be excited to co-develop a fellowship or grant proposal.

Time commitement: Medium. As we are interested in conceptual replications in different countries, study design and analytic framework are very much set but can, of course, be expanded by interesting additions. Most work will go into the translation and data collection.