Week 6: Fundamental Research
Aashi H -
Welcome back, everyone! As this is Spring Break, I have been volunteering heavily at the MIM. I have also been reaching out to people to take my survey. I am continuously calculating the results of the survey from the pre and post questionnaires, and I am happy to say they there is a dramatic decrease in the results! In today’s blog, I will be exploring why I think this is the case.
Ongoing Survey Results
There are three scoring categories for the PSS-10:
- Scores ranging from 0-13 = low stress
- Scores ranging from 14-26 = moderate stress
- Scores ranging from 27-40 = high perceived stress
So far, every result of my survey either goes from high -> moderate or moderate -> low scoring ranges. The highest and lowest scores are 31 and 4 respectively.
Let’s explore some reasons as to why this might be the case. This post is a little research-heavy; it is certainly not the most fun part of the project, but no doubt the most important.
Reliability
A “Review of the Psychometric Evidence of the Perceived Stress Scale” (Lee, 2012) showed that the PSS-10 is the most reliable of the three variations (PSS-4, PSS-10, PSS-14). Further, other studies have looked into the gender and cultural partiality of the test. Although Lee’s study found no information on the diversity aspect, a study published in the Wiley Online Library showed that the PSS-10 is not partial to gender (Murray et al., 2023). Essentially, the test will not yield a certain result for men versus women. Further, the study also showed that the PSS-10 can be used reliably in an adapted state. I have adapted my test to be present in the short-term, and this study shows that the results will still be reliable.
All in all, although more research needs to be done on the internal consistency and validity of the PSS-10, the test is reliable and impartial to diverse populations or gender.
Familiarity
It is well-known that familiar music elicits an increased cognitive response. A study published in the Public Library of Science ONE studied music familiarity and its effects on the brain through an f-MRI. In the images, it is clearly shown that music familiarity leads to the brain having increased brain activity, especially in emotionally inclined areas such as the amygdala (Pereira et al., 2011). Thus, we can infer that by choosing music from the top of charts, music people are more likely to be familiar with, this will elicit a heightened influence on stress levels rather then pre-chosen music.
A study done by Dr. Bradt, a professor at Drexel University, studied the the “Impact of Music Therapy versus Music Medicine on Psychological Outcomes and Pain in Cancer Patients.” They found that although 77.4% of participants said they preferred the music therapy sessions, a number of participants preferred listening to pre-recorded music. This is mainly due to the asthetic, the familiarity that came from music predictaility, and the comfort that came from listening in solitude. Additionally, another study in the same vein found that listening to client-preferred music may have a more sedative effects that affect physiological parameters such as stress hormones (Dileo & Bradt, 2009).
We hope that by giving the participants the opportunity to take this questionnaire and listen to music on their own time, that some of these conditions are met.
Gap?
There is ““empirical evidence for the short-term effectiveness of music therapy” for reducing stress (De Witte et al., 2020). Many of the studies focus on analysis before or after a medical procedure, but not on day-to-day life stress. The biggest gap is that there is no evidence for any correlation with music medicine. We hope to come to the conclusion that people using medicines for daily stress will be able to turn to music-related interventions for refuge.
That’s all for this week! Next week I will be learning some statistics to start analyzing my results. Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you on my next post!
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