Abstract
Background
Self‐selected music is consistently found to be the strongest predictor for successful music listening interventions in pain management contexts, but the specific cognitive mechanisms that mediate these effects are currently unknown.
Objectives
The aim of this study was to isolate the role of cognitive agency on pain tolerance in music listening interventions, independently from parallel effects related to enjoyment. Additionally the study examines the role of intramusical features, and individual attributes related to musical engagement.Methods Fifty‐two participants completed a repeated measures experiment which involved listening to six different pieces of music while completing the cold pressor task. Cognitive agency was operationalised by giving participants different degrees of perceived control over the music selection, when in fact it was pre‐determined by the experimenter.
Results
A generalised linear mixed model was used to analyse the impact of perceived choice and intramusical features on pain tolerance measured in terms of duration on the cold pressor task, pain intensity and pain unpleasantness. Increased levels of perceived choice predicted increases in pain tolerance when enjoyment was accounted for. Individual levels of trait empathy and sophisticated emotional engagement with music also contributed to the effects. Intramusical features did not predict increases in pain tolerance.
Conclusions
This study demonstrates that the reason self‐selected music is particularly effective in reducing pain is related to the act of making a choice over the music itself. This study provides support for the cognitive vitality model and emphasises the importance of giving people as much control as possible in music interventions.
from Wiley: European Journal of Pain: Table of Contents https://ift.tt/3x1Lvk3
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment