THE POWER OF MUSIC IN

DECISION-MAKING SITUATIONS
Julia Hosch
CONSEQUENTIALIST THEORY OF
ECONOMICS
Immediate Emotions

Decision Behavior Expected Outcomes Expected Emotions

External Forces

Rick & Loewenstein, 2012

IMMEDIATE/INTEGRAL V EXPECTED
 Immediate/Integral: emotions that one feels in
the moment; felt because of environmental
factors, affect, or in anticipation of expected
emotions
 Expected: emotions that one predicts that he or
she will feel after an emotional event (can be
negative or positive)

 Loewenstein, 2012
INTEGRAL EMOTIONS ON DECISION-
MAKING
 Integral emotions influence risky decision making
 Arousal affects risk attitudes, but does not affect risk
perception.
 “Somatic Markers”: affective ‘tags’ attached to sensory
images, ‘marking’ each image with an emotional
association
 Reduce the number of options under consideration, making
decision-making process more efficient (Thompson, 2009,
123)
 Willingness to insure against a variety of risk
 Sunshine amounts  economic gain or loss in a given year
(Hirshliefer and Shumway, 2007)
ARIELY STUDY: INDUCED INTEGRAL AFFECT
LASTS LONGER THAN ORIGINALLY ANTICIPATED

 “Given that people do not realize that they are

being influenced by the incidental emotional
state, decisions based on a fleeting incidental
emotion can become the basis for future decisions
and hence outlive the original cause for the
behavior itself.”
ARIELY: INDUCING INTEGRAL EMOTIONS
 Can the impact of incidental emotions last longer than
the emotion itself via inferences on a previous affect-
based decision?
 1. Incidental emotion manipulation

 2. First ultimatum game (targeted participants are the

receivers of an unfair offer)
 3. Emotion mitigation

 4. Second ultimatum game (targeted participants are

the proposers)
 5. Dictator Game (targeted participants are proposers)
ARIELY: RESULTS
 First Ultimatum: 40% happy participants kept
the bargain, 73% angry participants rejected
 Second ultimatum: Angry proposers made fairer
offers to happy participants.
 Dictator game: Proposers were less fair (as per
rules of the game), but they were still more likely
to keep a smaller sum than the happy proposers.
RELATIONSHIP WITH MUSIC?
 Effects of music: either cognitivist or emotivist (+
ATT)
 Cognitive: perceived emotion
 Emotivist: actually feeling emotion
 ATT (Aesthetic Trinity Theory): profound responses
to music include awe, being moved, and thrills
(Konečni, 2005)
 Music on a scale: arousal and valence (as
discussed in group 1’s presentation)—these are
integral emotions perceived in the moment
ADAPTING ARIELY’S STUDY
 Method
 1. Incidental Emotion Manipulation:
 Survey college students for background information.
 Half listen to music primed to be uncomfortable and harsh
at a fairly fast tempo—Group 1
 Ex: Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Schoenberg, Berg,
Webern
 Half listen to smooth classical music—Group 2

 2. First Ultimatum Game

 3. Work on someone else’s thesis—some sort of
down time
 4. Second Ultimatum Game: Group 2 is the
instigator
 5. Dictator Game
HYPOTHESES
 H1: Listening to music has been shown to have
an impact on decision-making. The reason that
this is the case may be that the effect that music
has temporary mood can also affect judgment.
 H2: Listening to music has been shown to have
an impact on decision-making. However, this is
due to other factors other than emotional
manipulation due to music.
IMPORTANCE/FUTURE RESEARCH
 If the results are the same as Ariely’s study, then
this tells us that emotions created by music
listening at least behave similarly to incidental
emotions. It also shows that people do in fact feel
the impact of music whether they are focused on
it or not.
 Marketing

 Practice Habits

 Training for a new task