At least a certain type of music. As for example, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In Eric Felten's article, "Why Dictators Hate to See Us Moved by Music," there appears this extraordinary paragraph:
There's no doubt that music affects us—perhaps in surprising ways. A new study published in a journal called The Arts in Psychotherapy tested which was more effective in treating mild depression, reclining on a sofa talking to a psychiatrist or simply listening to Bach, Corelli and Mozart. Few of the patients involved (who were drawn from a clinic in Oaxaca, Mexico) were initially interested in spending any time with old Wolfgang Amadeus, but in the end they not only came to enjoy the experience, but benefited from it. The overwhelming majority of the patients listening to classical music reported feeling better two months into the therapy. Not even half of those getting traditional tell-me-about-that psychotherapy saw any improvement.
He says further:
In an effort to explain these results, the researchers surmised that listening, at least to music with structure and challenging complexity, facilitates "brain development and/or plasticity." It might have helped, in treating depression, that the patients were given a cheerful earful: Bach's "Italian Concerto," as opposed to, say, Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" or the doleful "Dido's Lament" by Henry Purcell.
Just how directly can music manipulate our emotions, and even our actions? The website of the science magazine Miller-McCune has been gathering up recent research attempting to demonstrate that music is instrumental. There is a French study just out from the journal Psychology of Music showing that jeunes femmes are more willing to give out their phone numbers after listening to romantic tunes. The young ladies exposed to "neutral" compositions were less open to propositions.
This follows on a study done last year showing that men buy more roses when a florist pipes in love songs. Also from France comes a study published in the International Journal of Hospitality Management suggesting that if a restaurant plays an empathetic soundtrack stacked with "pro-social" ditties customers tend to tip better.
These represent a modern behavioral-science version of John Dryden's bold declaration, "What passion cannot Music raise and quell!" All of which suggests we would be wise to be wary of music, sucker bait that it is.
But if music is such an effective tool for manipulating people, why isn't it wholeheartedly embraced by the tyrants in Tehran? [more . . .]