Contextualising the relationship between music, emotions and the well-being of young people: A critical interpretive synthesis

Abstract

A convergent parallel design was used to interrogate two sets of literature produced by researchers investigating music, emotions and well-being: the first being 16 quantitative music psychology studies, the second being seven qualitative music therapy studies. A series of critical analyses examined some of the main assumptions that had influenced the design of the studies, largely related to the nomothetic or idiographic approaches adopted by the researchers, as well as beliefs about how music is best used for either emotion regulation or emotional expression. The results of the critical analyses were then synthesised into a set of three theoretical propositions describing how uses of music..