Practical Report and Article analysis Essay

The article focuses on childrens perceptions of music by Radiohead who are known for being a depressive band but others say ‘creative geniuses.’ If the media changes trends and perceptions then what effect can one bands’ songs have on an individual. ‘Those social stimuli that are the products of the behaviour of other people essentially constitute culture.’ As stated by Segall, culture relates to perception and generalisation of this can depend on age, wealth and country. The children, aged ten years old from California, USA listened to Radiohead tracks and then drew their impression of the songs showing what perceptions were created from the stimuli. The children requested ‘Sean Paul instead’ but were told to listen to Radiohead so forced compliance (Festinger and Carlsmith) may have caused them to cognitively ‘switch off’ and draw anything which is why pictures such as ‘Aliens, church organs and McDonalds fries’ were created. The negativity of the situation by not being allowed their music may have caused dissonance as the children try to make sense of the consequences and the effect on their arousal level (Cooper and Fazio.) These children were used as they are â€Å"the best way to get honest reactions† about a band which already has strong opinions formed about them due to media coverage. But the children may not have wanted to get the ‘answer’ wrong so helping behaviour, echolalia, and self-fulfilling prophecy were used by copying their neighbour ‘the girl next to him starts to copy’ to try to get the answer the teacher wants. The social psychology here demonstrates how behaviours are reflected on to other people who then start to show the same feelings through body language, ‘the hold your head in your hands look is extremely popular.’ A psychological concept for this can be the attribution theory (Fiske and Tayler) where a typical behaviour is acknowledged so then appears acceptable to perform the same way. Identify some psychological evidence that applies to the source?  The psycholinguistics of the relationship between language and mind was displayed in this article. Morton says that logogens (key words) can trigger associations or create connecting ideas, one picture shows it is raining, based on the lyric ‘come on rain down on me,’ this child then thought about what he does when it rains (stays inside his house watching the rain was the basis of this picture) so ideas have been created from a few lyrics. Many of the songs referred to negative feelings for example ‘You’d kill yourself for recognition.’ so these may have affected the drawings. Savan investigated the effect music had on disruptive children. She started to play Mozart during science lessons over five months for an hour each day. The bio-physiological effect of this music caused lower blood pressure and pulse rate whilst the childrens’ behaviour and concentration improved. It is believed the music increased endorphin production, reduced corticosteroirds and adrenalin so metabolism slowed and co-ordination improved so biologically music is positive. This was calming music whereas Radiohead caused images of death (and ice cream.) Reports are appearing within media about the effect various music is having on people and there is a rise in cases of depression and suicide, at the same time more young people are listening to radio stations such as ‘Classic FM’ especially around exams because it is calming. Some studies such as Savan’s show the biophysical effects that music has but it would be a good contrast is this was done again using music such as heavy metal to see what changes occur within students. Schachter says there is a relationship between physiological arousal and emotion caused by external stimulus, like Savon’s study that found classical music calmed down pupils perhaps Radiohead’s lyrics make children feel frustrated and upset. The children all showed physical effects including lack of movement and a reduction in facial expressions when the music was played as stated by Schachter that physical effects such as faster heart rate occur from stimulus, an example could be clubbing music makes people move quickly whereas Radiohead slowly paces along and may make the children more socially aware.