Article Review: The Impact of Singing on Positive Social Psychology

This assignment is an article review focusing on Karen Lonsky's article, "The Importance of Singing," exploring its application of positive social psychology to reduce stress and improve health outcomes. The review analyzes Lonsky's observations of kindergarten children and teachers, highlighting how singing fosters positive emotions, reduces stress, and builds social bonds. The paper summarizes the article's methodology, which involves naturalistic observation, and discusses the demographic of the participants. It examines the theories used, including the Broaden and Build theory, Theory of Mind, and Action Identification theory. The review emphasizes the practical applications of singing for mindfulness and stress reduction, supported by scientific evidence of endorphin release. The author concludes by advocating for incorporating singing into school curricula to promote mental well-being and harmony among students and teachers, while also acknowledging the need for further research into the benefits of singing. The review also includes a bibliography of the sources used.

Running Head: Article Review 0
POSITIVE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

ARTICLE REVIEW 1
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Method.......................................................................................................................................2
Demography...............................................................................................................................2
Brief Summary of Article...........................................................................................................3
Scope and Application...............................................................................................................3
Application.............................................................................................................................3
Positive Psychology...............................................................................................................4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................4
Bibliography...............................................................................................................................5

ARTICLE REVIEW 2
Introduction
In this paper the author aims to review an article which along with discussing about
its subject, also provides an insight on how the subject applies positive social psychology to
help reduce stress. And for this purpose the reviewer studied various articles by Walter
Reithmuller, Betty Staley etc. and found the article written by Karen Lonsky on “The
Importance of Singing” to be an apt article to conduct the study (Staley, 2002), (Walter,
2005). The article selected by the reviewer explains how singing eases stress and affects
health of kids and adults.
Further in this paper the reviewer will review the article published by Karen Lonsky
and analyse how the activity of singing not only provides instant joy to the singer but also
effects the overall health and acts as a positive factor in providing an opportunity to reduce
stress and displays how it benefits the mental well-being and health of its participants.
Method
The method adopted by the author in the article to conduct her research is Naturalistic
Observation in which the researcher observes the spontaneous behaviour of participants in
natural surroundings, at her place of work etc. and records whatever they see in a set of
circumstances.
Demography
The participants of the review article are kindergarten kids and teachers as the author
herself is a musician working for Waldorf kindergarten since 23 years. Since the technique
adopted by the researcher is observational thus the participants were not required to be
compensated.

ARTICLE REVIEW 3
Brief Summary of Article
Karen Lonsky in her article “The Importance of Singing” has shared her experience
of how singing brought positive changes in young children (Karen, 2009). She describes
singing as a way to generate positive and happy thoughts in whosoever sings or listens to
pleasant sounds, it gathers the children into activity, it creates form and movement, widens
scope of focus, neglects the negative thoughts of stress. It reduced emotional exhaustion in
students as well as teachers and also builds a strong bond between a singer and the listener.
She summarises that kids are healed with pure tones and this in turn builds a more peaceful
and healed neighbourhood which also makes a better world. Thus every kid and adult must be
given lessons on singing and it should be included in their curriculum to build a warm and
soft nation.
The theories used by the author in the article are:
(i) Broaden and build theory: which studies the positive emotions of people and
the factors causing them.
(ii) Theory of mind: refers to observation of everyday activities of humans and
studying how they react to different things different ways.
(iii) Action identification theory: refers to the principles of identifying and
understanding behaviour pertaining to particular action and how people attach
identity with that action.
Scope and Application
Application
The effects of singing cannot be disputed as it has been witnessed worldwide that
music works as a drug which calms and soothes mind and serves as a tool to escape stress

ARTICLE REVIEW 4
attacks. A lot of emphasis has been given to mindfulness in today’s world and singing is a
joyful way to attain that mindfulness. Thus it is highly recommendable that the findings of
the article be applied worldwide. It has been proved scientifically that singing releases
endorphin, the feel good chemicals, which help in better circulation as it draws more oxygen
into blood and thus reduces stress, fatigue, and anger and helps brain to maintain balance.
Positive Psychology
Positive psychology focuses on healthy and happy human development and to achieve
this it studies what causes happiness in individuals, what are the effects of happiness and how
such actions can be build. Thus the aim of positive psychology is to help in reduction of
stress and related ailments. It encourages optimism, gratitude, mindfulness, spirituality which
have proven to raise satisfaction among large groups of people. Thus applying the principles
of positive psychology adds happiness and health in positive manners.
Conclusion
The author has suggested singing to be included in schools to combat stress among
young kids and teachers and also shared the positive effects of singing that she witnessed on
kids and how it brought all the students to work together in peace and harmony. Although the
author has shared her experiences of how effective singing has been to kids but the reviewer
feels the need to know more about the happiness that it built in the students and how
creatively they functioned. A better approach to the article was mentioning how greater
learners the kids became after doing things that gave them joy.

ARTICLE REVIEW 5
Bibliography
Karen, L. (2009). Waldorf library. Retrieved March 14, 2020, from waldorflibrary.org:
https://www.waldorflibrary.org/journals/15-gateways/73-fallwinter-2009-issue-57-
the-importance-of-singing
Staley, B. (2002). What are the Physiological, Soul and Spiritual Changes in Youth Today?
AWSNA .
Walter, R. (2005). Waldorf Library. Retrieved March 14, 2020, from waldorflibrary.com:
https://www.waldorflibrary.org/journals/22-research-bulletin/806-june-2005-vol-10-
2-the-current-debate-about-temperaments