Genre of music and lyrical content: Expectation effects

This study was designed to examine whether people's expectations differ reg arding how music lyrics affect individual behavior as a function of music g enre. Because legislative attention and media publicity have been biased ag ainst certain types of popular music (i.e., heavy metal and rap), the autho rs expected that those genres of music would be viewed more negatively than other genres of popular music, for which there has been little or no negat ive publicity (i.e., pop and country). Participants (N = 160 college studen ts) rated their perceptions of how the lyrical content of a song would affe ct listeners' behavior. The authors presented prosocial or antisocial lyric al passages to students (N = 160) under the guise of four musical genres (h eavy metal, rap, pop, and country). Participants rated the potential impact of the lyrics on listeners' behavior. Findings indicated that lyrics label ed as heavy metal or rap were perceived as less likely to inspire prosocial behavior but not more likely to inspire antisocial behavior than the same lyrics labeled as country or pop.