Feeling Both Happy And Sad During A Song? Science Says That’s Normal

Study of 84 Countries Finds Most People Feel Mixed Emotions During Their Favorite Songs

Music has a strange power to pull out feelings that seem to contradict each other: grief and gratitude, longing and joy, all tangled up in the same three-minute track. A new study involving more than 2,100 people from 84 countries now offers one of the most detailed pictures yet of who tends to feel that kind of emotional complexity, and why.

Published in the Journal of Research in Personality, the study found that the reason someone turns on a song matters just as much as the song itself. People who use music to explore their feelings, express their identity, or relive memories are far more likely to report those rich, conflicting emotional states. People who hit play mainly for fun, or to shift their mood, tended to report simpler, more one-note experiences. Age, certain personality traits, and cultural worldview were all linked to how emotionally layered a musical moment can be.

Participants ranged in age from 16 to 81, came from countries as varied as Lithuania, Brazil, India, Japan, and the United States, and completed the survey in 11 different languages, making it one of the broadest cross-cultural looks at music and emotion to date.

Participants From 84 Countries Rated Emotions Tied to One Meaningful Song

Researchers at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland asked 2,137 participants to think of one personally meaningful piece of music. Participants then rated how much they typically feel each of 33 different emotions when listening to that piece, on a scale from “not at all” to “very much.” From those ratings, the team calculated an emotional complexity score, a measure of how much positive and negative feelings overlap when someone listens. A high score means someone feels both ends of the emotional spectrum at once; a low score means the experience skews strongly in one direction.

Participants also answered questions about their personality, how they typically use music in daily life, and their cultural values: specifically whether they prioritized individual goals or group harmony, and whether they viewed the world through a more hierarchical or equality-focused lens.

Mixed Emotions Were the Norm With Personally Meaningful Songs

Nearly 90% of participants rated both positive and negative emotions at least “a little” when thinking about their song, and nearly two-thirds rated both at least “rather much.” Far from being a quirk, feeling happy and sad simultaneously appears to be the norm for music that genuinely matters to someone.

This will ring true for anyone who has ever wept at a wedding song, felt a pang of loss hearing a childhood favorite, or felt strangely uplifted by something deeply melancholy. Music seems unusually good at holding contradictions.

People Who Listened for Fun or Mood Relief Reported Less Emotional Complexity

Among the factors most closely linked to emotional complexity were the reasons people listen in the first place. People who frequently used their chosen piece for fun or to regulate their mood scored lower in emotional complexity. Those who used music to express their identity, connect with the emotions the music itself conveyed, or bring up personal memories scored notably higher.

Two personality traits stood out as consistently linked to lower emotional complexity. People who scored higher in conscientiousness, a trait tied to organization, discipline, and a preference for order, tended to rate their musical experiences as emotionally simpler. People high in emotional stability, meaning those who are generally calm and less prone to mood swings, showed the same pattern. Notably, openness to experience, which researchers expected to predict higher emotional complexity based on prior work on preferences for complex art, did not emerge as a significant predictor.

Age also played a role: older participants were consistently linked to lower emotional complexity, a pattern partly explained by differences in how older people tend to use music. Research suggests this may reflect a broader shift that comes with age, as older adults tend to gravitate toward positive experiences and away from emotional ambiguity.

Cultural Orientation Predicted Emotional Complexity Through Listening Habits

Cultural values added an unexpected wrinkle. People who placed a strong emphasis on personal achievement and standing out within a social hierarchy reported higher emotional complexity, while those who leaned toward a more equality-focused, self-reliant worldview reported lower scores. Crucially, that cultural link was fully accounted for by differences in how people use music. Cultural background appears to shape emotional perception in music through listening habits, not directly.

Because the study captured responses at one point in time, it cannot establish that listening habits, age, personality, or cultural values cause these emotional patterns. What it does show, across 84 countries and more than 2,100 people, is that the emotional texture of a personally meaningful song varies depending on who is listening, where they come from, and what they are looking for when they press play.

---

Disclaimer: This article is based on observational research and cannot establish cause and effect. Findings reflect associations observed in a self-selected international sample and may not represent all populations or everyday music listening contexts.

---