Justification for Melancholy

[tealin]

Even when I was a child, I gravitated strongly towards minor key music and tragic stories. I suspect my darkness worried a number of people. Little did they know I was improving my attention to detail and analysis skills!

Study Proves Sad Children Out-Perform Happy Children

I am now abuzz with theories for possible ramifications ... does the much larger proportion of minor (or modal) French children's songs have anything to do with how they seem to be intrinsically better at drawing? Do you stunt your child's intellectual development by feeding them only jaunty, happy media, as most children's media is? Does this effect continue into adulthood? Was listening to Thomas Newman soundtracks responsible for the overly technical animation I did on that seagull? Is this why Christian Pop and its devotees annoy me so much? Oh, the possibilities!

EDIT: The transcript of the segment of As It Happens where I heard about this study is behind the cut. They have more/different information than the story linked to above.

Someone once said, "A happy person is like a steaming bowl of oatmeal on a winter morning -- except that the oatmeal is smarter." That person was me. And I was not in a good mood when I said it, because some smiling doofus had just taken the last box of instant oatmeal and then strolled away, whistling.

And now scientists in England -- grumpy ones, presumably -- have provided some actual proof that joy and intelligence may not always be a happy couple.

Psychologist Simone Schnall and her colleagues at the University of Plymouth conducted a two-part test on ten-and eleven-year-olds. In the first test, they played this piece of music to one group:[a few bars of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik]Yay! And then they played the second group this piece of music:[A few bars of Mahler's 'Adagitto'] Boo. And then, the researchers asked each group -- the happy-music gang and the sad-music clump -- to search for a specific geometric shape within a picture. And they found that the kids who had had their hearts lifted by "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" had apparently had their brains lowered. They took significantly longer to find the shapes than did the children who had been mauled by Mahler's "Adagietto".

In the second part of the test, the psychologists split the kids into three groups. To one group, they showed a scene from The Jungle Book, wherein Baloo the bear cavorted while singing "Bare Necessities". To the second group, they showed a scene from a movie called The Last Unicorn, wherein nothing of any emotional import happened. And to the third, they showed a scene that could turn the happy-go-luckiest kid sad-go-unlucky: Simba the lion mourning the death of his father Mufasa, from The Lion King.

This test had similar results. The kids who watched the delightful bear were slow at picking out shapes. The kids who watched the neutral scene were somewhat quicker. And the kids whose innocence had been forever stolen from them were fastest of all.

The researchers have drawn this conclusion: that happiness may make people less discerning, while sadness, and I quote, "indicates something is amiss, triggering detail-oriented analytical processing." Which we all know to be true. For example, after a break-up, the sorrow may reveal details about how your ex-boyfriend was a jerk. And the subsequent analytical processing may lead to further discovery, such as the realization that your ex-boyfriend was a stupid jerk.

I may be oversimplifying, but I'm feeling pretty upbeat, so it's possible I just don't understand.

But here's something to raise the spirits of those whose spirits are already naturally high. Apparently, kids who are happy are better at exercises that require creativity. Which explains why all artists are so exuberant all the time.

Like this one: here's Otis Redding, with "The Happy Song (Dum-Dum-De-De-De-Dum-Dum). But maybe you should ask the kids to leave the room. As those University of Plymouth researchers warn: "Artificially inflating a child's mood may have unintended, and possibly undesirable, cognitive consequences."

You can listen to the whole show here.

Comments

[aspectabund.livejournal.com]

Well, that study isn't skewed at ALL. XD I think they forget that "sad" music is much calmer and can more easily serve as background music, whereas happy music generally has a quicker beat and more changes in melody, which is far more distracting and takes more of your focus. If part of your attention is eaten up by upbeat music, there's no way you can concentrate as well as someone listening to more calming stuff.

Still, it would be nice if we could explain away those accursed talented French children. (Train of thought just went: drawing -> animation -> French animation -> Gobelins ->intense burning envy)

*sigh*

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I've just posted the CBC's version of events, which contains some clearer description of what was actually involved in the study. The children did their tests after listening to the music, for one, and note the spectrum of reactions to the film clips.

[fairy-gany.livejournal.com]

Then I must be a very very veryyyy happy french girl.

[disneyboy.livejournal.com]

You silly! You're plenty bright and imaginative. Then again you love The Addams Family and The Hotel New Hamshire!
Perhaps moody, dark, reflective music tends to be more complex (atonal, minor, etc.) and better written, therefore more intellectually stimulating. Who knows - I may be living proof of this study's thesis, as I was a very happy kid with lots of happy stimuli, and although I think I'm pretty imaginative, I've always had a terrible time in school, am easily distracted and confused, not good at analysis or strategy...oh well. I'll soothe my sorrows with some more happy music! Maybe some hyperactive ska? A Sesame Street song? (Most Christian pop makes me depressed and/or angry, however)

[creednick.livejournal.com]

Cool - I was/am a "sad child," too. At least now I can defend myself when people accuse me of being a pessimist. :)

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I'm generally an optimistic and cheerful person, I just love me some good bloodletting when it comes to music and stories. But yes. Was it G.K. Chesterton who said something to the effect of 'Only the pessimist knows what's really going on'? (I only know the quote from Good Omens, shame on me).

[moondog.livejournal.com]

Haha, I was going to bring up that same situation--what if maudlin things make you happy? Nothing cheers me up like a good tale of graverobbing!

I've always subscribed to the Peter Ustinov school of thought on this topic:

"I am an optimist, unrepentant and militant. After all, in order not to be a fool an optimist must know how sad a place the world can be. It is only the pessimist who finds this out anew every day."

[ardys-the-ghoul.livejournal.com]

I HATE Christian Pop! HATE HATE HATE it! So many of those people act so sanctimonious just because they listen to a certain type of music! It's not even as though it's very good music, it's repetitive and boring!


Sorry, you gave me an opening.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Haha, don't EVEN get me going ... I think there was a good group rant here a couple years ago about it. :)

[chainedwind.livejournal.com]

"Happy" music can be just as calm. Perhaps it's that calmer music is more conducive to reflection, and reflection often induces wistfulness or vertiginous feelings.

APPROPRIATE ICON IS APPROPRIATE

[fani.livejournal.com]

Alouette, gentille Alouette
Alouette je te plumerai
Alouette, gentille Alouette
Alouette je te plumerai
Je te plumerai la tte
Je te plumerai la tte
Et la tte, et la tte
Alouette, Alouette
O-o-o-o-oh
Alouette, gentille Alouette
Alouette je te plumerai

Proof is in the pudding ;) All the French-Quebecois kids in my year were better drawres than French-Ottawa kiddies.

P.S: Christian Pop makes me mad. WHY CANT WE HAVE STUFF LIKE BEETHOVEN'S NINTH ANYMORE?

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying there aren't happy songs in the French children's songbook, but I always preferred listening to the French tape over anything else when I was small. 'J'entends le moulin,' 'La laine des moutons,' and that song about the duck that gets killed by the Prince and vomits silver, whose name I don't remember ... you'd be hard-pressed to find three minor key songs on an English* kids' compilation, and certainly nothing about murdered waterfowl or plucking the feathers off a lark (which is possibly even more disturbing for how happily it is sung).

In fact, now that I've opened that jar of dim memories, there was also a song about the crew of a ship drawing straws to choose who'd be cast overboard to appease the gods or eaten to stave off starvation (I forget which), and a boy who was so poor he wore newspapers for clothes. No wonder the French excel at philosophy and filigree, with that upbringing!

[fairy-gany.livejournal.com]

The song you're talking about is "Il était un petit navire", they indeed draw straws to know who will be the one eaten by the others because they don't have food anymore. The youngest boy is of course shown by fate, but with his prayer to Marie, a thousand fishes just happen to jump in the boat. And every chorus is :
Il était un petit navire,
Il était un petit navire
Qui n'avait ja-ja-jamais navigué
Qui n'avait ja-ja-jamais navigué
Ohé ohé !
Ohé Ohé matelot
Matelot navigue sur les flots
Ohé ohé matelot
Matelot navigue sur les flots
Which is kinda long between the little verses. As a kid I wwould sing the choruses very rapidly to sing what was next. If you want I can find you the exact verses (I'm not sure of the last ones).

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Wow ... as soon as I read those lyrics I could hear the song perfectly clearly in my head, complete with the somewhat dopey singer and creaking ship sound effects. Thanks!

[fairy-gany.livejournal.com]

You had a version with a somewhat dopey singer and creaking ship sound effects ?
Lucky you !

[noodledaddy.livejournal.com]

Never fear, a study next week will "prove" the opposite.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Nevertheless I shall cling to this one as it says 'sad stuff can be good for you.' Like those people who chug back the red wine and dark chocolate because that's good for you too.

[veronikamg.livejournal.com]

I'm not really surprised that it is the melancholy and worried children that do well, but I tend to believe that it's because they are more anxious about the consequenses of failing.

Good to know I was not the only kid who liked the dark and tragic. When I was 7 I fell in love with a really bleak ballad called Night in Moscow, which nearly drove my mother insane. In the end she forbid me to play it anymore, but I couldn't help it and I remember Mom screaming from the other side of the house "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!"

And during a bit of Youtubing I found another song that had me completely hypnotized as a little girl (may have to do with the video that goes along with it, warning: authentic war scenes!).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMiEaVk_as4

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

That's a cool video, thanks for sharing!

I heard a story once that the Romanian Revolution started when the crowd misheard something someone shouted at a rally, took it as an incitement to revolt, and in a week Ceaucescu was dead ... though Wikipedia seems to contradict this. It's a good story, anyway.

[veronikamg.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it. :)

BTW; where you able to hear that the song was in two different languages?

[azvolrien.livejournal.com]

Well, now I'm mildly insulted.