Rockonomics
Page 33
Chapter 11: MUSIC AND WELL-BEING
1. Oliver Sacks, Musicophylia (New York: Knopf, 2007), 373.
2. See Daniel Levitin, This Is Your Brain on Music (New York: Plume/Penguin, 2007), 186–88.
3. See Alan B. Krueger, Daniel Kahneman, David Schkade, Norbert Schwarz, and Arthur A. Stone, “National Time Accounting: The Currency of Life,” in Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations: National Accounts of Time Use and Well-Being, ed. Alan B. Krueger (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 9–86. Analysis of the more recent 2010, 2012, and 2013 American Time Use Well-Being module data yields broadly similar results.
4. The sample was recruited by random-digit dialing in 2005. Each subject was paid $75 for participation, and filled out four packets containing questions and a time diary in a central location. This type of survey yields many more instances of multitasking than traditional time-use surveys, such as the American Time Use Survey, which is conducted by phone. The questionnaire and data are available here: https://rady.ucsd.edu/faculty/directory/schkade/pub/fa-study.
5. Weighted by the duration of episodes, music was reported during 7.5 percent of people’s awake time.
6. See Daniel Kahneman, Alan B. Krueger, David A. Schkade, Norbert Schwarz, and Arthur A. Stone, “A Survey Method for Characterizing Daily Life Experience: The Day Reconstruction Method,” Science 306, no. 5702 (2004): 1776–80.
7. If the happiness rating for each episode is regressed on an indicator for whether music was present during the episode and indicator variables for the main activity, episodes that involve music have a 0.281 higher happiness rating, with a standard error of 0.043.
8. Specifically, if the happiness rating for each episode is regressed on an indicator for whether music was present during the episode, indicator variables for the main activity, and unrestricted indicators for each person, episodes that involve music have a 0.157 higher happiness rating, with a standard error of 0.038. If there are random recall errors in individuals’ reports of whether music was listened to during each episode, as is likely, then controlling for person effects will attenuate the estimated effect of listening to music.
9. See Daniel Västfjäll, Patrik N. Juslin, and Terry Hartig, “Music, Subjective Well-Being, and Health: The Role of Everyday Emotions,” in Music, Health, and Well-Being, ed. Raymond A. R. MacDonald, Gunter Kreutz, and Laura Mitchell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 405–23. The authors also report on an Experience Sampling Method study of theirs that quizzed thirty-two Swedish college students about their emotions and activities in real time at seven randomly chosen times a day over a two-week period. The authors found that self-reported stress was significantly lower during musical episodes than non-musical episodes.
10. See Marie Helsing, Daniel Västfjäll, Pär Bjälkebring, Patrik Juslin, and Terry Hartig, “An Experimental Field Study of the Effects of Listening to Self-Selected Music on Emotions, Stress, and Cortisol Levels,” Music and Medicine 8, no. 4 (2016): 187–98.
11. See Saoirse Finn and Daisy Fancourt, “The Biological Impact of Listening to Music in Clinical and Nonclinical Settings: A Systematic Review,” Progress in Brain Research 237 (2018): 173–200.
12. See Katlyn J. Peck, Todd A. Girard, Frank A. Russo, and Alexandra J. Fiocco, “Music and Memory in Alzheimer’s Disease and the Potential Underlying Mechanisms,” Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease 51, no. 4 (2016): 949–59.
13. A. Blythe LaGasse and Michael H. Thaut, “Music and Rehabilitation: Neurological Approaches,” in Music, Health, and Well-Being, ed. Raymond A. R. MacDonald, Gunter Kreutz, and Laura Mitchell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 159–60.
14. See Laurel J. Gabard-Durnam, Takao Hensch, and Nim Tottenham, “Music Reveals Medial Prefrontal Cortex Sensitive Period in Childhood,” bioRxiv (2018), https://doi.org/10.1101/ 412007; Steve M. Janssen, Antonio G. Chessa, and Jaap M. Murre, “Temporal Distribution of Favourite Books, Movies, and Records: Differential Encoding and Re-Sampling,” Memory 15, no. 7 (2007): 755–67.
15. Seth Stephen-Davidowitz, “The Songs That Bind,” New York Times, Feb. 10, 2018.
16. From an interview with Cliff Burnstein and Peter Mensch on Mar. 1, 2018, in New York City.
17. See John Maynard Keynes, Essays in Persuasion (New York: W. W. Norton, 1963), 358–73.
18. Daniel Hamermesh, Spending Time: The Most Valuable Resource (London: Oxford University Press, 2018), 4.
19. Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton, “High Income Improves Evaluation of Life but Not Emotional Well-Being,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107, no. 38 (2010): 16489–93. Also see, for example, Richard Layard, Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, 2nd ed. (London: Penguin Books, 2011).
Appendix: EVALUATION OF THE POLLSTAR BOXOFFICE DATABASE
1. To obtain the data from the public university, in Feb. 2018 I officially became a contractor providing analytical services to the university for a fee of $100. The terms of the agreement required that the identity of the university and the individual venues involved in this analysis remain confidential.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALAN B. KRUEGER was the James Madison Professor of Political Economy at Princeton University and a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama. He also served as assistant secretary for economic policy and chief economist of the U.S. Department of the Treasury from 2009 to 2010. He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a recipient of the Moynihan Prize.
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