Songs with violent lyrical content can increase aggressive thoughts and emotions in listeners, according to a new study by the American Psychological Association. The study was released Sunday in the new issue of The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

The findings were led by Craig A. Anderson, Ph.D., of Iowa State University, who conducted a series of five experiments on more than 500 college students. One experiment incorporated Tool's "Jerk-Off" and "Four Degrees," two similar songs in sound and running time, with the former classified as violent: "I should play God and shoot you myself," a snippet of lyric reads. Other experiments featured the likes of Cypress Hill's "Shoot 'Em Up," Suicidal Tendencies' "I Wouldn't Mind" and Run-DMC's "Hit 'Em Hard," as well as humorous violent songs like Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue" and Weird Al Yankovic's "The Night Santa Went Crazy."

After listening to the songs, the subjects were given various psychological tasks designed to measure aggressive thoughts and feelings. The results suggested that the violent songs, even the humorous ones, increased hostile feelings without provocation and that they prompted "more aggressive interpretations of ambiguously aggressive words" like "rock" and "stick." Since the study focused on pre-aggression patterns, it didn't offer a suggestion as to what long-term exposure to violent lyrics could do to listeners.

"Aggressive thoughts can influence perceptions of ongoing social interactions, coloring them with an aggressive tint," Anderson said. "Such interpretations can, in turn, instigate a more aggressive response -- verbal or physical -- than would have been emitted in a nonbiased state. One major conclusion from this and other research on violent entertainment media is that content matters. This message is important for all consumers, but especially for parents of children and adolescents."

The study will likely play into the hands of the Federal Trade Commission and lawmakers like Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who has been trying to create a more thorough and stringent set of marketing and sales regulations of violent media to children. In the wake of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado, the music-listening habits of the two teenage shooters was scrutinized, albeit incorrectly. Marilyn Manson was singled out, though later reports found that the killers were not even fans. The shooting prompted President Bill Clinton to initiate an FTC investigation into marketing practices in the music, film and video gaming industries. In the fall of 2000, the FTC issued Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children: A Review of Self-Regulation and Industry Practices in the Motion Picture, Music Recording and Electronic Gaming Industries, a damning report that found all three industries guilty of marketing violent and explicit products to children under the age of seventeen.

Prior to the study, the popular defense of popular music was that it when it ran violent it was a reflection, not an instigation. "When it comes down to who's to blame for the high school murders in Littleton, Colorado, throw a rock and you'll hit someone who's guilty," Manson wrote in a 1999 essay for Rolling Stone. "We're the people who sit back and tolerate children owning guns, and we're the ones who tune in and watch the up-to-the-minute details of what they do with them. I think that the National Rifle Association is far too powerful to take on, so most people choose Doom, The Basketball Diaries or yours truly. In my work I examine the America we live in, and I've always tried to show people that the devil we blame our atrocities on is really just each one of us."

ANDREW DANSBY
(May 5, 2003)