Search

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-pom-10.1177_03057356231153065 for Audiences’ emotional response to choir singing by people living with mental health conditions by Elyse Williams, Jolanda Jetten and Genevieve A. Dingle in Psychology of Music

A great deal of research in recent decades supports the notion that participating in choirs has benefits for psychosocial outcomes, such as social connection, wellbeing and health (Dingle et al., 2021). This is the case for professionals and amateurs, across clinical and non-clinical populations (Clift, 2010; Dhippayom et al., 2022; Mittelman & Papayannopoulou, 2018), and for people with a range of health and mental health conditions (Williams et al., 2019), including dementia (Bourne et al., 2021; Dorris et al., 2021; Thompson et al., 2021). These studies have mainly focused on outcomes for the people with dementia (PWD), however, it is also possible that carers and volunteers who also attend may derive benefits from their engagement with the choir singing. There is a need for theories to explain how this works. One such theory is social identity theory, which predicts that benefits of choir singing will be experienced to the extent that the person identifies with the group (Williams et al., 2019). However, we do not know if this effect is true for participants in these various roles. Therefore, this study will investigate firstly whether there is a change in psychosocial measures between baseline and after four months membership with a community choir, for PWD, their carers, and volunteers. Secondly, we will investigate whether there is a mediating effect of group identification on the outcomes of quality of life, and wellbeing. In addition, we will look at whether the participants’ role in the choir (i.e., being a person with dementia, or carer, or volunteer) has a moderating effect on the link between time in the choir and group identification. Finally, we will examine specific behaviours and activities of choir members that may facilitate the development of choir identity.

For first year students, commencing university studies is often related to personal challenges such as being independent socially, emotionally, and financially, and structural challenges such as adapting to a new environment (Skromanis, et al., 2018). Also, it is a time when many students are gaining autonomy from parents and are taking more responsibility for their own health and wellbeing (Walker et al., 1987). Among young people in tertiary education, symptoms of psychological distress are prevalent and are associated with poor academic outcomes (Awadalla et al., 2020; Sotardi & Brogt, 2020). The stress and challenges associated with commencing university have been compounded by the recent COVID-19 pandemic. First year university students in Australia were significantly lonelier and experienced more mental health problems and lower wellbeing during the first wave of COVID-19 (2020) compared to the year prior to COVID-19 (2019) or the following year (Dingle et al., 2022). Compared to domestic students, international students may face unique stressors such as cultural stress, intense pressure from family to succeed in their studies, and difficulties with language when they transitioning to university (Rosenthal et al., 2008). These challenges may result in negative impacts on students’ mental wellbeing, and place international students at greater risk for different psychological problems than domestic students (Poyrazli et al., 2004). Mental health literacy (MHL) has been defined as individuals’ knowledge and beliefs related to recognising, preventing, and managing mental health problems (Jorm et al., 1997). This includes knowledge about mental health symptoms and services, as well as knowledge of self-care strategies such as physical activity, healthy eating, sleep, social support, and emotion regulation (Myers et al., 2012, Moses et al., 2016). However, previous studies showed that university students have difficulties recognising and understanding symptoms of mental illnesses (Furnham et al., 2011; Youssef et al., 2014; Gorczynski, et al., 2017). Also, during high stress times, students tend to practice self-care strategies less often (Weidner et al., 1996). Help-seeking is defined as “the behaviour of actively seeking help from other people” (Rickwood et al., 2005, p.221), which involves asking others for support, advice, or understanding of problems or distressing experiences. In terms of public mental health promotion, the Australian Government Head to Health website was launched in 2017 and a COVID-19 mental health support section was added in 2020, as well as other broader services such as Lifeline and beyondblue. In fact, the 2020-21 National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing (NSMHW) reported that only around 24.1% people aged 16-34 years saw a health professional for their mental health in the year 2020 to 2021 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2022). Moreover, Skromanis et al. (2018) investigated the help-seeking behaviour among 1013 domestic students and 382 international students in an Australian university and found that although more than 50% of the domestic students sought help for mental health problems, less than 20% of the international students sought such help. In this study, we seek to update research on MHL in first year university students by exploring if there are any effects of cohort (2021 vs. 2022), enrolment status (international vs. domestic), demographic variables, and current mental health status on MHL (i.e., knowledge of where to seek information; awareness of and confidence in accessing local mental health supports and services; and knowledge of self-care strategies), help-seeking behaviour (i.e., current engagement in local mental health supports and services), and use of self-care strategies (e.g., physical activity, healthy eating, sleep, mood regulation and social connection).

EMG data

This study investigates whether musical emotions can be considered linguistically supported constructed emotions and whether alexithymia is negatively related to performance on a task where musical emotions have to be matched on an intra-modal level (another musical emotion) a cross-modal level (a facial display of emotion) or on a semantic level (an emotion word). Participants will listen to a 1000ms musical clip and then make a judgement as to whether the emotion in a second 1000ms stimulus (a song, face, or word) is consistent with the cue. Participants will complete the task in three randomised blocks, with each block varying in terms of the stimulus type of the target. Participants will also complete a measure of alexithymia and give information on musical sophistication

The Tuned In program was developed in 2012 by Dr Genevieve Dingle as an experiential music-based program designed to increase emotion awareness and regulation for young people. The program uses participant-selected music to evoke emotions in sessions, and to facilitate psychoeducation about emotions and emotion regulation skills (Dingle, Hodges & Kunde, 2016). It involves listening to personalised music, evaluating the lyrics of songs, identifying the physical and emotional experience of music, and identifying the types of music that can be useful to listen to when experiencing emotions such as sadness, anger and happiness. This research project will expand on work to date to examine the effectiveness of a modified version of Tuned In for international university students.

Development and Validation of the Self-Efficacy in Managing Social Identities (SEMSI) Scale using Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses.

qualitative data collection

Explores the relationship between alexithymia, perception of emotions in music within the circumplex space and size of music emotion word lexicon

This current study proposes to experimentally test this functional explanation of crying by evaluating if crying before a stressor will facilitate coping and recovery

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-pom-10.1177_03057356211066964 for Music listening as a coping resource in domestic and international university students by Dianna Vidas, Nicole L Nelson and Genevieve A Dingle in Psychology of Music

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-pom-10.1177_0305735620988793 for The effects of emotionally congruent sad music listening in young adults high in rumination by Joel L Larwood and Genevieve A Dingle in Psychology of Music