Popular music and the Papageno effect: Experimental evidence for the beneficial impact of listening to songs with suicide-preventive messages

Media portrayals of overcoming suicidal crises can beneficially contribute to suicide prevention, a phenomenon termed the Papageno effect. The present study (<i>N</i> = 322) is the first to utilize an experimental design to investigate the possible suicide-preventive impact of popular music. The participants listened either to three songs with explicit suicide-preventive messages (intervention group) or three matched songs from the same artists without such explicit messages (control group). Suicidal thoughts were measured before and after exposure. Listening to songs with suicide-preventive lyrics elicited a significant reduction in suicidal thoughts consistent with the Papageno effect. In an exploratory analysis, we also identified a small suicide-preventive impact in the control group. A reduction in suicidal thoughts was observed only in those participants in the control group who reported beneficial thoughts related to a Papageno narrative. This finding provides tentative evidence that songs with, but also without, explicit suicide-preventive messages may be helpful.