Why you feel like crying when you listen to music

gloria mari

May 10, 2018 10:23 AM

Even when the songs aren't sad.

For most people, theyll shed a tear when a dirge or a song about loss is played. However, other times people have visceral emotional reactions to some songs.

In recent cases, songs that have given people chills and even left some of them in tears is Florence and The Machine's Sky Full of Song or Celine Dion's Ashes.

Researchers Katherine Cotter and Paul Silvia of the University of North Carolina, and Kirill Fayn of the University of Sydney conducted an investigation to see what kinds of emotions people experience when listening to music which makes them feel like crying.

892 adults were surveyed to determine how many had experienced feeling like crying while hearing music, and what emotion they were feeling at that moment.

ALSO READ: What happens to your body when you stop eating bread

90% of the people reported that they felt like crying while listening to music. The emotions they felt varied between euphoria, happiness, awe, anxiety, sadness etc.

The candidates were also ranked according to personality traits. Anxiety, extroversion, open-mindedness, affability and conscientiousness.

People who ranked high on the anxiety scale experienced sadness when they had been moved to tears by music.

People who scored high in the open-mindedness scale felt like crying, because the music provoked a sense of awe.

However, the study may not be conclusive as majority of the participants were female college students. The effects of the age bracket and gender weren't studied.

While the overall emotion that leads to crying when listening to music is basically sadness, sometimes songs just evoke complex feelings within you which will only come out through your eyes.