Effect of Piped Music on Anxiety - Study and Analysis

This research paper analyzes the effect of piped music on anxiety and stress levels of patients. The study is conducted on 25 patients of a psychotherapist and includes stress tests, interviews, and questionnaires. The paper also includes a literature review and hypothesis, research questions, methodology, and research rigour and limitations.

Running head: EFFECT OF PIPED MUSIC ON ANXIETY
Effect of piped music on anxiety
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1EFFECT OF PIPED MUSIC ON ANXIETY
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Literature review and hypothesis.....................................................................................................2
Research questions.......................................................................................................................4
Research hypothesis.....................................................................................................................4
Methodology....................................................................................................................................4
Philosophy of the research...........................................................................................................4
Design of the research.................................................................................................................5
Approach of the research.............................................................................................................6
Strategy of the research...............................................................................................................6
Target population.........................................................................................................................6
Sample size..................................................................................................................................6
Process of data collection............................................................................................................6
Data analysis................................................................................................................................7
Research rigour and anticipated limitations................................................................................7
Bibliography....................................................................................................................................8

2EFFECT OF PIPED MUSIC ON ANXIETY
Introduction
The purpose of this research is to highlight the fact that whether any kind of piped music
can help to fight anxiety disorder of the patients or it does not. In this research, the research
scholar presents detailed study, which he conducted on the patients of a psychotherapist who
asked him to conduct a social research on this issue on her patients waiting for consultation in
the reception hall. It has been suggested from the ages that listening to music can positively
impact on the psychological state of people as it is believed that the sound of piped music can
effectively reduce the stress factors (Hsu, Chen & Hsiep, 2016). As the psychotherapist has
invited the research scholar to conduct a study in her reception hall, the researcher decided to
study approximately 25 patients of the therapist and they will be exposed to a standard stress test
after conditioning their mind with some sort of piped music for half an hour. In this paper,
various relevant literature and theories will be studied and then relevant stress tests will be
performed. Primary data will be collected and analyzed in order to disclose the results.
Literature review and hypothesis
It has been widely believed that light soothing music, especially music of piped
instruments can significantly help to reduce any kind of stress and the social research conducted
by the research scholar in the reception of a psychotherapist is to justify the reliability of this
idea (Gan, Lim & Haw, 2016). This literature provides a limited number of investigations done
by the researcher and provides a hypothesis that is yet to be proved. As the sample size is smaller
and the patients of the psychotherapists come with various types of psychological disorders, the
results of the test might have some shortcomings. When the researcher exposed 25 male and
female patients to the stress test after conditioning their brain with soft piped music for more

3EFFECT OF PIPED MUSIC ON ANXIETY
than half an hour, the salivary cortisol, heart rate, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, subjective anxiety
and perception of stress is assessed and recorded for the research work. Later, the researcher
again asked the respondents to go through the stress test without prior listening to any piped
music or any kinds of music. It has been seen that the new test results did not significantly vary
from the results which were taken earlier after conditioning the patients with the piped music.
For very few of the patients the test results changed in a significant manner (Hole et al., 2015).
Apart from the stress test, the research scholar took interview of the patients and also distributed
a questionnaire to them so that they can give their views and that would help the researcher to
come to a conclusion. According to Chang (2015), it can be said that the root of the anxiety
disorder of the patients are the determining factors whether the music of piped instrument can
lower the stress factors or not. Thus it can be said that effectiveness off the piped music in
reducing stress is strictly case specific and no one can draw a proper conclusion with a compact
result for this case. It is widely known that music can help to initiate the multitude of cognitive
process of the brain and also can influence processes which are strictly stress related. On the
other hand, according to Gallego and García (2017), it is also believed that listening to piped
music can majorly influence the cognitive processes which are related to stress and the previous
stress test taken by the researcher concluded that piped music can at times lowers the perceived
stress and anxiety which are related to anxiety and stress (Simavli et al., 2014). In this regard, it
can be said that listening to piped music somehow alters the level of relaxation in the minds of
the respondents under the stressful context. It is also seen that listening to any kind relaxing
soothing of music can o some extent trigger the level of activity of the parts of brain which takes
active parts in modulating the level of anxiety in the human brain. It can also be said that the
inadequacy of the study in this context and the lack of respondents can reduce the accuracy of

4EFFECT OF PIPED MUSIC ON ANXIETY
the research work and to determine the effects of piped music on the SAA levels or on the stress-
induced cortisols (Gan, Lim & Haw, 2016). In this particular context it can be said that the
effectiveness of the research is limited as the research work is done under laboratory like
environment and the sample size is significantly small.
Research questions
RQ 1. Does listening to piped music reduce the level of anxiety?
RQ2. Does listening to piped music helps people to relax when they are facing any type of
anxiety?
Research hypothesis
RH 1. Sound of piped music can reduce stress level of some of the individuals who are suffering
from minor psychological disorders.
RH 0. Listening to piped music would not impact on the anxiety disorder of the respondents.
Methodology
Philosophy of the research
Positivism, post positivism, realism and interpretivism are the frequently used research
philosophies. The realism philosophy induces the researcher to get involved with the incessant
process of the research though at times it is not at all possible to get the results. Positivism
philosophy can help to make the scientific observations and helps to contact the analyzed
statistical data. In this regard, only the process that is scientific can properly utilize this
philosophy of positivism (Lewis, 2015).

5EFFECT OF PIPED MUSIC ON ANXIETY
For this particular social research the research scholar has chosen post positivism
philosophy to study the existing theories regarding the issue and also to study the background
knowledge. It can be said that the difficulties in the data collection method makes adopting the
philosophy of positivism difficult in research works. The interpretivism philosophy helps to
make significant observation by studying the viewpoint of the respondents that are related to the
social research. In this way, the research scholar can identify the biases’ effects and this
particular philosophy focuses on the quantitative along with the qualitative methods.
Design of the research
Some of the widely known or adopted research designs are exploratory, explanatory and
descriptive type of designs. The explanatory design helps to realize the causes of occurrences
regarding any specific phenomenon with accordance to the research topic along with predicting
the future incidence of any likewise form of the phenomenon (Choy, 2014). The explanatory
design of research takes in the ways that interrelate and often come together. Exploratory design
of research works helps to adopt the best designs of researches and also to adopt the accurate
methods for data collection and to choose the subjects. The major focus of the exploratory design
of research would be on the constructing the rationale and on the problems and clarifications of
the research statement along with the various concepts to examine the concepts related to the
research work. On the other hand, the design of descriptive research can be stated as a
combination of explanatory and exploratory research designs (Lewis, 2015). The descriptive
types of researches can surly be defined as a fact that tries to establish, recognize or describe
what is, while the research efforts which are analytical establishes why it has been chosen.
For this particular social research the researcher has adopted the descriptive type of
research as it is the combination of the advantages of two research designs and to get accurate

6EFFECT OF PIPED MUSIC ON ANXIETY
result, the researcher has chosen the descriptive design. The chief purpose of choosing
descriptive design of research is to cast light on the contemporary issues regarding the method of
data collection that enables them to describe the circumstances without employing the method
(Gast & Ledford, 2014).The descriptive types of research works cannot take into account the
specific situation causing factors.
Approach of the research
Inductive and deductive are the two mostly adopted research approaches. The deductive
approach is dependent on the explanation of the researcher and the inductive approach is based
on the formulation of new ideas along with the existing theories (Lewis, 2015). In the deductive
approach the focus is on exploring new concepts or viewing previously published ideas with a
new perspective. On the other hand, in the inductive approach the focus is on the quantitative
data analysis and there is no presence of set rules for this. In this case, the researcher has chosen
inductive approach for the research work as it would facilitate the researcher to supply accurate
evidence regarding the result of the research work.
Strategy of the research
The research scholar will be interviewing 25 patients of the psychotherapist and also use
questionnaire and conduct a stress test to get the outcome. Apart from that the researcher will
depend on the various secondary data gathered from the medical journals, magazines and
government websites.

7EFFECT OF PIPED MUSIC ON ANXIETY
Target population
The patients of the psychotherapist are the targeted respondents. As the psychotherapist’s
patients are already suffering from psychological disorder regarding stress and various other
issues; thus they can be perfect target population for conducting the research work.
Sample size
The sample size would be 25 as the target population will be the patients of the
psychotherapist and there will not be enough scope to collect data from more respondents.
Process of data collection
The data collection processes are of two types; one is primary and the other one is
secondary type of data collection. The primary type of data collection is done over face to face
interviews with the respondents or by providing them with questionnaires and making surveys on
a particular topic. On the other hand, as per Flick (2015), the secondary data can be gathered
either from government websites, or from reputed magazines, books and journals. For this
research work, the researcher has opted for primary type of data collection where he will be
taking interview and also give the respondents a questionnaire to get to know their view points.
Data analysis
There are two basic types of data analysis one is qualitative and the other one is
quantitative analysis. Qualitative data analysis can be seen as the range of procedures so that the
research scholar can collect and understand the interpretations of the situations and the responses
of the target population. On the other hand, quantitative data analysis is a systematic approach to
investigate during the time of collection of numerical data. Quantitative analysis is to get the
results; a quantitative data analysis should be done to analyze the gathered data by the researcher.

8EFFECT OF PIPED MUSIC ON ANXIETY
Research rigour and anticipated limitations
There are some limitations in this particular social research conducted by the scholar as
the sample size is smaller. The researcher had to perform the tests and he collected data from the
patients of the psychotherapist and he had to use the reception hall as a laboratory. Apart from
that each individuals have different types of psychological problems and thus music cannot
impact on every human minds in the same way. Naturally thus there are some limitations of this
types of social research.

9EFFECT OF PIPED MUSIC ON ANXIETY
Bibliography
Bensimon, M., Einat, T., & Gilboa, A. (2015). The impact of relaxing music on prisoners’ levels
of anxiety and anger. International journal of offender therapy and comparative
criminology, 59(4), 406-423.
Chang, Y. S., Chu, H., Yang, C. Y., Tsai, J. C., Chung, M. H., Liao, Y. M., ... & Chou, K. R.
(2015). The efficacy of music therapy for people with dementia: a meta‐analysis of
randomised controlled trials. Journal of clinical nursing, 24(23-24), 3425-3440.
Choy, L. T. (2014). The strengths and weaknesses of research methodology: Comparison and
complimentary between qualitative and quantitative approaches. IOSR Journal of
Humanities and Social Science, 19(4), 99-104.
Finch, K., & Moscovitch, D. A. (2016). Imagery-Based Interventions for Music Performance
Anxiety. Medical problems of performing artists, 31(4), 222-231.
Flick, U. (2015). Introducing research methodology: A beginner's guide to doing a research
project. Sage.
Gallego, M. G., & García, J. G. (2017). Music therapy and Alzheimer's disease: Cognitive,
psychological, and behavioural effects. Neurología (English Edition), 32(5), 300-308.
Gan, S. K. E., Lim, K. M. J., & Haw, Y. X. (2016). The relaxation effects of stimulative and
sedative music on mathematics anxiety: A perception to physiology model. Psychology of
Music, 44(4), 730-741.

10EFFECT OF PIPED MUSIC ON ANXIETY
Gast, D. L., & Ledford, J. R. (Eds.). (2014). Single case research methodology: Applications in
special education and behavioral sciences. Routledge.
Gravetter, F.J., & Forzano, L.B. (2016) Research Methods for Behavioral Sciences (5th Edition.)
Hole, J., Hirsch, M., Ball, E., & Meads, C. (2015). Music as an aid for postoperative recovery in
adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet, 386(10004), 1659-1671.
Hsu, K. C., Chen, L. F., & Hsiep, P. H. (2016). Effect of music intervention on burn patients’
pain and anxiety during dressing changes. burns, 42(8), 1789-1796.
Jiang, J., Rickson, D., & Jiang, C. (2016). The mechanism of music for reducing psychological
stress: Music preference as a mediator. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 48, 62-68.
Lewis, S. (2015). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five
approaches. Health promotion practice, 16(4), 473-475.
Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2014). Basics of social research. Pearson Canada.
Särkämö, T., Laitinen, S., Numminen, A., Kurki, M., Johnson, J. K., & Rantanen, P. (2016).
Clinical and demographic factors associated with the cognitive and emotional efficacy of
regular musical activities in dementia. Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, 49(3), 767-781.
Simavli, S., Gumus, I., Kaygusuz, I., Yildirim, M., Usluogullari, B., & Kafali, H. (2014). Effect
of music on labor pain relief, anxiety level and postpartum analgesic requirement: a
randomized controlled clinical trial. Gynecologic and obstetric investigation, 78(4), 244-
250.

11EFFECT OF PIPED MUSIC ON ANXIETY
Tan, F., Tengah, A., Nee, L. Y., & Fredericks, S. (2014). A study of the effect of relaxing music
on heart rate recovery after exercise among healthy students. Complementary therapies in
clinical practice, 20(2), 114-117.
Thoma, M. V., Zemp, M., Kreienbühl, L., Hofer, D., Schmidlin, P. R., Attin, T., ... & Nater, U.
M. (2015). Effects of music listening on pre-treatment anxiety and stress levels in a
dental hygiene recall population. International journal of behavioral medicine, 22(4),
498-505.
Yaman Aktaş, Y., & Karabulut, N. (2016). The effects of music therapy in endotracheal
suctioning of mechanically ventilated patients. Nursing in critical care, 21(1), 44-52.
Zarza Alzugaray, F. J., Hernández, S. O., López, O. C., & Gil, B. M. (2016). Kenny Music
Performance Anxiety Inventory: Confirmatory factor analysis of the Spanish
version. Psychology of Music, 44(3), 340-352.