Student

Music and Happiness: is there correlation?
People love music for much the same reason they're drawn to sex, drugs, gambling and delicious food, according to new research. Music has been around throughout history because it can touch a deeper emotional level that many things in this universe simply cannot. Being a musician I understand the value and emotions encountered though music. Therecent research shows how because of the tensions and release of music the listener (many times not knowingly) expects a certain chord or note that sounds good. Whether the music resolves as one thinks or surprises you it strikes emotions because it releases dopamine, which creates happiness (Sohn, 2011). Music clearly does emanate from our alarm clocks in the morning, and fill our cars, and give uschills, and make us cry (Marc Changizi). Because the scientific showing of the release of dopamine in ones brain with present music, and the timeless emotional power, I am trying to investigate and discover the correlation between an individuals overall happiness and how relevant music is to their life.
Through the experiment created I expect that an average college student’s overall happinesswill positively correlate with how much they value music, as well as the amount of time that they donate to playing or listening to music. I expect to find out if the correlation upholds the hypothesis, or if it disproves it. A survey was created to test this hypothesis.
I chose a survey method because it is the most precise, accurate form of research for testing this hypothesis. The surveymethod was easy to distribute, but the main advantage of it was it gives the clearest form of rating overall happiness and importance of music on a personal level. The disadvantages of the survey method are that it is possible for people to be dishonest on a survey. However this is the best method compared to an experimental design because happiness levels may change every day. The survey allows youto see the overall happiness while an experiment would be more useful to see if the playing of music directly makes one happier. A variety of subjects (college students) had to be surveyed.
The sample of students selected was at a cafeteria where the surveys were randomly dispersed. It is assumed that the people collected at this table are a fairly average college student with a variety ofhappiness levels and a range of interest and time spent listening or playing music. I needed to consider the gender of the subjects; therefore, the surveys were distributed evenly according to gender.
I tested my hypothesis through a series of questions in a survey method. The results from the surveys are displayed in the graphs below: [pic]


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Showed by theresults of the survey the hypothesis is supported. With the exception of the individual “d” who was very unhappy answering with a one but, the overall trend showed that generally high levels of happiness related to at least a 3 in their individual ranking of value of music. Four individuals ranked music 5 out of 5 importance in their lives. Other than the one exception, the other three people have atleast a ranked 4 for happiness if not a 5. Countering to this other than the one exception once again the importance of music seems to decrease with the two other individuals who rate their happiness lower at the level “2”. These two subjects with lower happiness levels selected only a three and a two for importance of music. This differs from the happiest subjects that show when they are a ‘5’happiness the lowest importance of music selected was a four. This supports one side of my hypothesis that in general happiness will be increased with the raised level of importance towards music. Some subjects who selected “4’s” for happiness did have a “3” interest in music. In this experiment the most common happiness level was a four. Although this suggests that the people randomly were fairly...