The databases that were used included EBSCO and PsycNET. When researching, the search terms that were used included music, stress, college students, music emotion, musical therapy, college stress, and stress reduction.
Family stress theory is the theory that closely identifies with this research. This theory explores how systems adapt when faced with a stressor or transitional events. The concept of this theory, which is also known as the ABC-X model, is that there is an event or stressor (A), followed by family resources (B), followed by the perception of the event (C) and then the likelihood of a crisis (X) (Wilmoth & Smyser, 2009). The event or stressor can be anything that has potential to change a family system. This stressor can be positive or negative, long or short, or even external or internal. The stressor can be a pile up of many things or a spurs event that keeps occurring, defining its …show more content…
After conducting a survey of students at Towson University, it was found that any reduction of stress when listening to music did not depend on music genre, therefore making the hypothesis incorrect. However, as found in past research, ones music preference has an impact on whether ones stress level is decreased or not. This also makes the study consistent because many studies never found a difference in stimulative (hip-hop or rock) versus sedative (r&b) music. The table below shows that while there were different genres selected, there were both low and high levels of perceived stress. This indicates that it does not depend on the genre itself. The research at hand differed from the research in the literature review because that research found that preference hold the most importance when one is attempting to reduce stress. Whereas, this hope of this study was to determine if one genre was better over