oa Feel the Love Generation

Feel the Love Generation: the effect of prosocial music on adolescents’ prosocial behavior

Aim of this experimental study was to examine whether prosocial music affects prosocial behaviors of adolescents. During the pretest, adolescents were asked questions about their initial prosocial behaviors and also their level of happiness. Subsequently, adolescents in the experimental condition were exposed to a pro-social song while adolescents in the control condition were exposed to a neutral song. After listening, the experimenter ‘accidently’ dropped pens, and whether or not the adolescents helped was used as a measure of prosocial behavior. In this study, 79 adolescents (aged 12-15 years old) participated. Findings demonstrated that adolescents who had listened to prosocial music were more likely to help than adolescents who had listened to neutral music. Moreover, older adolescents showed more prosocial behavior than younger ones and adolescents who indicated themselves as happier showed more prosocial behavior than less happy adolescents.