Emotions and non emotions
It becomes usual to write around the fact that music is useful to construct the self and that emotions play an important part in the process. But construction of the self using music listening is not always based on emotion. It may be linked to non emotions like self-efficacy. Dealing with their expectations, listeners who use music to increase their success must also manage their emotions. Amongst the numerous classifications of emotions made by psychologists, one theory presented by Lazarus seems interesting. Basically, Lazarus is discerning: emotions that come from threats, losses and harms (fear, anxiety and anger), those coming from benefits (joy, happiness and pride), borderline cases (relief, contentment and hope), the last category being non emotions. Grief, curiosity and efficacy beliefs are example of non emotions.
People, listening to music, use it to elicit emotions to regulate their moods, but as we explained it through the example of athletes, people may also use music in a way that is not linked to emotions, notably when they want to develop self-efficacy. What is self-efficacy? It is an attitude that success-oriented people have, athletes for instance. When athletes use music in the intent of reaching the appropriate mental state they need to increase their results. Why is music convenient for them? Because they believe that music may help them to organize and execute actions in order to attain specific targets. At the same time, they of course believe that they will reach their target. That process is named self-efficacy: people let music be a key factor in their success. Self-efficacy is linked to the ability that people develop in order to interpret current situations and anticipate future ones. After that, when they obtain results, they reward themselves or not. So, they model their behavior.
Emotions and non emotions
Music listening routes
A music listening theory, presented by Scherer and Zentner, is mentioning three ways emotions can follow, in relationship with music listening: the empathy route, the memory route and the appraisal route. Following the appraisal route, music listeners attribute a personal meaning to music, evaluating each dimension of it. Choosing the memory route, listeners examine aspects of their individual life. When music listeners set out on the path of empathy, they may produce emotional answers to the music by examining events including other people than themselves.
In any case, the emotional state of the music listener is a mix of musical, personal and situational factors. Musical factors are elements like rhythm, tempo, melody, loudness or texture of the music. In personal factors, there are personality, current physical state and cognition. All these factors combined explain why music listeners preferences are not fixed. In front of different types of events, listeners will feel precise emotions or non emotions and will regulate them with different styles of music. That phenomenon may be observed amongst composers: after a car accident, one of them, Richard Southern, radically changed his compositional methods to produce a totally new style of music.