Peter+Y,+Tommy

How does music affect human behavior? Will people be more open to questions when different kinds of music are playing in the background?

__**Hypothesis**__
Our hypothesis is that all kinds of music, regardless of genre, will influence people to be more open, and that certain types of music will facilitate more "openness". This is based on the concept of music having an effect further than the mere enjoyment. Many refer to music as 'calming the nerves', or 'relaxing'. We believe that this effect will lead to people becoming more comfortable with themselves and their surroundings, thereby increasing their availability towards personal intrusions. Music with more calming and comforting properties will thus make listeners be more frank towards questions directed towards their personal matters.

__Objective__
The objective of this experiment is to determine the significance of music as a facilitator of intimate conversations. We define openness as "the willingness to be asked questions and the extent that they would reveal personal matters". Cultural differences will be another aspect of this experiment, whether music has greater influence on the culture in Seoul, Korea or that of Normal, Illinois,

__Method__
Select three different locations(school, cafe, street) to eliminate the effect of location as a variable. The final results will be given as a percentage so that the population does not matter. Make sure that music is playing in the background(classical, aggressive rap music, silence) without the subjects knowing that it is a part of the experiment. This can be done by requesting a teacher or attendant of the classroom or cafe to play the music or receiving the help of a friend to play loud music on the street as a stranger. The initial test of openness will be the subjects' response to the request for an interview. Higher acceptance rates will mean more openness to questions. If subjects accept the request, the second part of the experiment will begin: to further test their openness subjects will be asked intimate questions that increase in their severity as the interviews progress, and will be given an option to answer, give 'no answer', or stop the interview. The percentage of all the choices made by the subjects, acceptance/decline of interview, answer, no answer, and refusal to go on with the interview, will be given, and the differences of these percentages between the genre that was playing. The results will then be compared between cultures and will be analyzed for the effect of culture. (If the results are too different between locations -cafes, schools, street- to the extent that they show completely different trends, music+location will be taken into account to determine the effect of the genre of music on culture //and// location)

__Potential Errors__
The biggest possible error is the fact that not all groups of the population will be subject to the interview due to various reasons of time and resources. Our solution to lessen this problem is to try to get a wide group of samples, and report the final results as a percentage so that it gives the response of the overall population regardless of the size and composition of the population(i.e.: 50% of all people in Seoul were open to questions, wherever we went responses overall increased by 7% when classical music was playing). Another potential error will be the time. This is a problem because to conduct all the experiments at the same time -in the case of the school experiments it will be done on weekdays during school hours- it means that we would have to do experiments in cafes and on the street while we would have to be attending school. This can be somewhat alleviated by Spring Break, during which we would be able to do experiments at this timeframe.

Peter Yoon
1. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/under-the-influence-ofmusic/ Statistically, children are listening to more music(2.5 hours), and 90% of them are increasingly listening on their own, on their individual mp3 players without parental guidance. About 33% have references to alcohol and substance abuse - this translates to 35 references per hour. Such references have been increasing, with a 77% increase in the Rap genre. For the average adolescent, this means approximately 84 references to explicit substance use per day, 591 per week, or 30,732 per year.If the child were to only listen to rap, he would be subjected to to 251 references per day. This increased exposure to alcohol and drug usage is predicted by many to have destructive influences on youth and their behavior regarding drugs and alcohol.

2. http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/06/19/music-can-influence-chances-of-getting-a-date/14789.html This article focuses on the other side of the influence of music: the positive rather than the negative. Researchers interviewed women to find what many women regard as romantic music, neutral music, and the average man. Another group of women were subjected to an experiment in which they were told was a cookie taste evaluation, but was actually focused on the reaction of the women to the experimenter(the "average man")'s proposal for a date depending on the music playing in the background("romantic" or "neutral"). 52.2% of the women accepted the request when romantic music was playing, compared to 27.9% with neutral music.

3.http://esf.ccarh.org/254/254_LiteraturePack1/Restaurant_Music_Wilson.pdf Music was plated in a restaurant for 2 weeks to determine the effect it had on the atmosphere and the behavior of the customers. Genre was also taken into account by playing jazz, popular, classical, and easy listening. Jazz, popular and classical music tended to create an atmosphere that promoted the money spending of the patrons. This behavior was not as profound when the atmosphere was set with easy listening, and was the lowest when no music was playing at all. The researchers concluded that music, regardless of genre, had a positive effect on the tendency for people to be open to spending, and that certain genres had more impact than others.

Tommy
1. [|__http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1927-01592-000__] This article focuses on the effects of music on various experiments. The author believes that music increases stimulation and energy. There is a chapter on musical therapeutics and how it has influences of music on sick organisms, and also a chapter about the influence of music on mechanical work. At the end of the book he finds that l "activities tested are considerably accelerated by music and an increase in the energy and extent of reflexes frequently occurs." 2. [|__http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/under-the-influence-ofmusic/__]

In this article it shows that teenagers on average listen to 2.5 hours of music a day, and one in three popular songs contain explicit references to alcohol and drugs. Parents are not able to protect their kids from distasteful music because 9 out of 10 kids have mp3’s or radios. Music today, has only 3 percent of the songs portraying tobacco use. About 14 percent of songs spoke of marijuana use, 24 percent depicted alcohol use, and another 12 percent included reference to other substances.

3. [|__http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20030303/does-rap-put-teens-at-risk__]

A study shows that teenage girls from a certain population that watch rap videos and listened to rap music are three times more likely to hit a teacher, over 2.5 times more likely to get arrested. This study was to show how the rap music and industry all together affects teenage girl’s behavior.

__Results __
Peter Tommy