Using media to regulate our moods: When we turn to television and music

I came across an interesting study today in a recent issue of Personality and Individual Differences. Dara Greenwood and Christopher Long (2009) examined which individuals are most likely to utilize particular types of media (e.g., television, music) in response to specific emotional states. Different individuals are impacted differently by their emotions. As such, insight into which individuals are likely to utilize particular methods for regulating their emotions would be useful in treatment settings, as it would help clinicians to tailor skills training to the client while also revealing potential vulnerabilities to harmful behaviors.
In this particular study, the authors had a sample of 229 undergraduates fill out questionnaires detailing their ability to regulate emotions [Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS); Gratz & Roemer, 2004]. The authors also had participants respond to a series of questions regarding the use of entertainment media within the context of emotional states, including positive emotions, negative emotions, and boredom. Extending this further, the authors asked each participant how often they utilized particular types of media (music, television, movies, magazines, and video games) in each of these states.
The authors found that, in both positive and negative mood states, music was the most frequently used form of entertainment media. In negative moods, television was the second most common form of media use, whereas in positive moods, television and movies were the second most frequently used forms of media. In states of boredom, television was the most frequently used form of entertainment media.
Perhaps more interestingly, the authors found that individuals who experience difficulty regulating their emotions and who frequently ruminate were the most likely to watch television when upset. The authors argue that individuals choose this method of addressing their emotions because it allows for passive participation in an activity that might distract from aversive self-awareness, which is consistent with other theories regarding the use of particular behaviors in response to negative affective states (e.g., Heatherton & Baumeister, 1991). Another more complex finding was that both individuals with low emotion regulation abilities and high emotion regulation abilities were likely to turn to music when upset. The authors use a more nuanced argument in explaining this finding - one that I believe is extremely compelling. Individuals high in emotion regulation skills, they argue, use music to help them reflect upon their mood and better understand it in a healthy manner. Individuals low in emotion regulation skills, on the other hand, use music in an attempt to simply distract from what they are feeling, often resulting in further brooding and deteriorating mood.
In my opinion, this study is a useful foundation upon which further work must be done in order for us to understand these phenomena to a sufficient degree. In this sense, it is a very useful study that provides some interesting findings, but it leaves several important questions unanswered. Primarily, I found myself wondering the following:

1. To what degree is entertainment media the first thing that these individuals turn to when upset? Might they use alcohol, drugs, binge eating, non-suicidal self-injury, or another behavior first?
2. To what degree does an undergraduates sample with no measurement of psychopathology provide an adequate understanding of how these behavioral tendencies appear outside the lab?
3. To what degree do these behaviors actually work? In other words, do these individuals turn to entertainment media for a brief time, give up on it as a tool, then engage in another behavior or do they actually experience significant alterations in their mood?
4. What types of choices are these individuals making within each type of media? Are they listening to sad songs when sad or listening to happier music in attempt to lift their spirits?
5. What type of cognitive approach are these individuals taking when engaging in these activities? Are they being mindful of the media, focusing their attention only on what they see or hear and thus allowing their emotions to run their course or are they ruminating as they watch or listen, extending negative moods and increasing their vulnerabilities to more destructive behaviors?

I ask these questions not as a criticism of the study - no study ever answers all questions and, in fact, good ones prompt readers to reflect upon the findings and pursue follow-up data. I ask them, rather, because the study serves as an excellent corollary to our ongoing series of articles on dialectical behavior therapy. Part 3, which will appear later this week, will deal with emotion regulation skills, which can be defined as the manner in which individuals attempt to adjust or sustain their current emotional states (Thompson, 1994). Studies like this provide a framework within which to consider how individuals approach their emotions, how motivated they are to change them, and to what degree they show a tendency to use methods for emotion regulation that actually backfire.
In this sense, my fourth and fifth questions are particularly important to consider. If I am sad and decide to listen to "Everybody Hurts," by REM, that is likely to have a decidedly different impact on my emotions than will listening to "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves. If individuals who have difficulty regulating their emotions choose to listen to upsetting songs when upset, the question of which type of entertainment media used (e.g., music versus television) becomes less important than questions regarding the content of media used. In clinical experience, I have found that, quite often, clients need to be reminded that an episode of "Friends" would be a better tool for distraction and emotion regulation than will an episode of "Six Feet Under," even though the latter is a beautifully written program. The argument is not that sad media is a bad thing, but simply that sad media, when viewed or heard while sad, may not be the most effective tool for that particular moment. Of course, empirical data demonstrating this effect would be more useful than my clinical lore.
With respect to the fifth question - what type of cognitive approaches are individuals taking when they utilize entertainment media in response to emotions - the answer would require a much more complex experimental procedure. If individuals are able to control their attention by focusing on music, television, or any other form of media, utilizing all of their cognitive resources on positive or neutral stimuli until their own emotions run their course (or at least decrease in intensity), this is a very healthy behavioral choice, as it slows down impulsive responses and better positions individuals to effectively problem solve. If, on the other hand, entertainment media induces or prolongs rumination, the behavior will have the opposite effect.
In Part 3 of the DBT series, I will explain a variety of emotion regulation skills suggested by Linehan. In the meantime, I thought it would be useful and interesting to consider how we use entertainment media in the context of our emotions and to what degree our choices in that regard are healthy ones. Remember, while DBT is used for the treatment of borderline personality disorder, bulimia, and other mental illnesses, we all experience emotions and must make decisions regarding how to alter or sustain them. Studies like this might provide us with an added perspective, allowing for greater insight into why, on occasion, we are more or less successful at effectively changing how we feel.