Promoting musical engagement for well-being: the effects of negative contextual information on engagement, enjoyment, and aesthetic response

Artistic engagement and enjoyment are conceptualized as mechanisms for positively affecting well-being. However, less is known about how negative extramusical information influences enjoyment and/or engagement. We asked if knowing the immoral character of a composer and/or their compositional intent negatively affected listeners' engagement and enjoyment. Participants (N = 448) read a fictionalized excerpt about Holst's Mars, with either sexist or neutral composer information, and either sexist or neutral musical intent before listening to the work and completing measures of their enjoyment, engagement, and aesthetic response. We found an effect of extramusical information for listeners' enjoyment and aesthetic response, but not for engagement. Enjoyment and aesthetic response were higher in the Neutral Composer/Neutral Intent condition than the other three conditions. This study furthers understanding of how extra-musical factors affect the positive emotions music elicits, and impact how listeners interact with music, thus impacting possibilities for enhanced senses of well-being.