The Effects of Relaxing and Energizing Piano Music on Anxiety when Academically Stressed

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the type of piano music played affects participants’ anxiety levels during a mildly stressful event in an academic setting. For this experiment, relaxing piano music is compared with energizing piano music to investigate which music type has the greatest effect on decreasing symptoms of state anxiety. These two conditions will be compared to a control group of no music. My hypotheses are: 1) Those in the music conditions will have lower anxiety scores at the end of the experiment than those in the control condition; 2) Those in the music conditions will have a smaller increase in pre-post state anxiety scores than those in the control condition, 3) There will an interaction between trait anxiety and music condition on state anxiety scores so that those who are high in trait anxiety and in the control condition will have the highest post-test state anxiety scores; and 4) There will be negative associations between the post-state anxiety scores and participants’ perceptions of how helpful the music was, and how frequently they listen to music when stressed. I do not expect significant differences between the two music conditions on any of the dependent measures.