What is the effect of violent lyrics on youth? In recent years, research studies have increasingly demonstrated that frequent exposure to violent media has a violent effect on youth. For example, a psychological study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that college students who heard a violent song, replicated across songs and song types, felt more hostile than those who heard a similar but nonviolent song. Similarly, the Annual Review of Public Health published an article determining that media violence poses a threat to public health inasmuch as it leads to an increase in real-world violence and aggression. More specifically, a public interest study on Music and Aggression revealed a correlation between sexual-aggressive song lyrics and aggression-related thoughts, emotions, and behavior toward the same and the opposite sex. The Psychological Science in the Public Interest Journal confirms that research on violent television and films, video games, and music reveals unequivocal evidence that media violence increases the likelihood of aggressive and violent behavior in both immediate and long-term contexts. Why does this happen? According to research like the studies mentioned above, violent media in the short-term primes aggressive scripts and thought processes that already exist in our minds. This increases psychological arousal and triggers an automatic human tendency to imitate observed behaviors. Therefore, in the short-term, our brains are reminded of primal instincts and we are inclined to mimic the behavior we are listening to or watching on TV. In the long-term, through a variety of learning processes, we acquire lasting and automatically accessible aggression-supporting beliefs about social behavior, which desensitizes us, or reduces our normal negative emotional response to violence, and encourages us to be more accepting if not more encouraging of violent behavior. Does music affect everyone the same way? Donald Roberts, Peter Christenson, and Douglas Gentile bring up a valuable point in their article on the effects of violent music on children and adolescents when they say that listeners respond to the music in terms of various social, psychological and physical conditions that influence how they use music, how they interpret messages, and whether, when, and how they act on what they have learned. This approach can also fit within a risk factor approach, in which children who are already at risk for suicide or violence may increase their risk by heavy use of music extoling those themes. However, for children without pre-existing risk factors, or for those who have a number of protective factors, music with themes of suicide or violence is likely to have little short-term effect. A study on the social uses of music reflects that youth utilize music as a means of understanding themselves and their social context. Two of the key developmental tasks in middle childhood, when popular music starts to become a strong interest of youth, are (1) to learn how to be accepted by peers and to build meaningful friendships and (2) to consolidate the self-concept. Popular music serves these goals very well. In adolescence, two key developmental tasks are (1) to learn to build intimate relationships, both same-sex and cross-sex, and (2) to develop a personal identity, in terms of, “how am I different from others?” Popular music continues to serve these goals very well, by becoming part of the social backdrop for exploring feelings of intimacy and by defining in-groups and out-groups along lines of musical preferences. In 1990, Rouner exposed that youth resort to music as a means of guidance. When asked to rank music against several other possible sources of moral and social guidance, including parents, teachers, friends, church leaders, and coworkers, 16 percent of high school students ranked music among the top three sources of moral guidance, and 24 percent placed music in the top three for information on social interaction. This illustrates that lyrics are often a source of moral, social, and personal guidance for youth, and depending on what sort of guidance they are receiving elsewhere, their dependence on and interpretation of violent music may be different. What can we do? The negative effects of violent lyrics on our youth can be approached from a number of angles. Regarding the content of the songs, some groups are already very active in protesting to limit youth’s engagement with violent lyrics. For example, the Chicago Sun-Times highlights Kwabena Rasuli, founder of The Clear the Airwaves Project, as a change-maker fighting for radio stations to limit child access to vulgar music. Beyond limiting youth access to the music, we can better understand the way youth interpret the music, or encourage deeper analysis. Groups like Project NIA’s Circles and Ciphers gather youth and encourage using popular music as inspiration for writing and rapping creative self-written music. This avenue opens the door to vulnerability in ways that can be healing and encouraging rather than aggressive and negative. Similarly, Jessica Disu, a Peace Builder within The Peace Exchange, hosted Transforming Pain into Power November 23, a panel themed on reducing violence in Chicago sandwiched by performances by groups like Lyric Mentoring and FM Supreme (Jessica Disu herself), which exemplified a community’s capacity to honor inspiring youth by opening up the floor to their words and experiences. Thirdly, we can provide stronger protective factors for youth who are already at risk of violent tendencies that are amplified by violent music. For example, movements in Chicago Public Schools to incorporate Restorative Practices, including peer juries and peace circles, are strong steps in the right direction. Groups like Alternatives, Inc. provide guidance in restorative justice, youth empowerment, and career and employment services. Additionally, heightened mental health services and mentors are crucial. Groups like C4, or Community Counseling Centers of Chicago, help heighten resilience and understanding of self and others among youth. If we want the influence of violent lyrics to change, we need to take charge of providing the guidance youth receive from music in stronger, more positive ways. We can start by listening to the youth in order to become more aware of their circumstances and why they might be yearning for violent music to soothe them. Once we better understand our youth, we are more able to realize and to address the voids in their lives that violent music has a tendency of amplifying rather than healing.
