The effect of background music in auditory health persuasion

In auditory health persuasion, threatening information regarding health is communicated by voice only. One relevant context of auditory persuasion is the addition of background music. There are different mechanisms through which background music might influence persuasion, for example through mood (Västfjäll, 2002) or distraction (Doyle & Furnham, 2012). Here, it is reasoned that music can be interpreted as a way to define one’s self-image (MacDonald, Hargreaves, & Miell, 2002). In the present study, the extent to which the background music matches the person’s perceived identity is manipulated. Via an online questionnaire four to six weeks prior to the actual experiment, students (N = 106) were asked to name a song they would or would not put on their personal weblog as characterizing them as a person. In addition, health value was assessed. If health is highly valued, respondents will focus on the content information, whereas background music might affect respondents who valued health as relatively low. In the laboratory, they listened to a health message, either accompanied by one of those self-mentioned pieces of music (positive / negative identification) or by no background music. First, background music leads to significantly higher self-reported distraction compared to the control condition. Furthermore, a significant interaction of condition × health value on intention showed that people with a relatively low health value reported a significantly lower intention when background music was added, which might be explained by the process of distraction. It is therefore recommended to apply background music carefully in auditory health education.