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Cultural evolution of emotional expression in 50 years of song lyrics

Author

Listed:
  • Brand, Charlotte Olivia

    (University of Exeter)

  • Acerbi, Alberto

    (Brunel University London)

  • Mesoudi, Alex

    (University of Exeter)

Abstract

The cultural dynamics of music has recently become a popular avenue of research in the field of cultural evolution, reflecting a growing interest in art and popular culture more generally. Just as biologists seek to explain population-level trends in genetic evolution in terms of micro-evolutionary processes such as selection, drift and migration, cultural evolutionists have sought to explain population-level cultural phenomena in terms of underlying social, psychological and demographic factors. Primary amongst these factors are learning biases, describing how cultural items are socially transmitted from person to person. As big datasets become more openly available and workable, and statistical modelling techniques become more powerful, efficient and user-friendly, describing population-level dynamics in terms of simple, individual-level learning biases is becoming more feasible. Here we test for the presence of learning biases in two large datasets of popular song lyrics dating from 1965-2015. We find some evidence of content bias, prestige bias and success bias in the proliferation of negative lyrics, and suggest that negative expression of emotions in music, and perhaps art generally, provides an avenue for people to not only process and express their own negative emotions, but also benefit from the knowledge that prestigious others experience similarly negative emotions as they do.

Suggested Citation

  • Brand, Charlotte Olivia & Acerbi, Alberto & Mesoudi, Alex, 2019. "Cultural evolution of emotional expression in 50 years of song lyrics," SocArXiv 3j6wx, Center for Open Science.
  • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:3j6wx
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/3j6wx
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Elena Miu & Ned Gulley & Kevin N. Laland & Luke Rendell, 2018. "Innovation and cumulative culture through tweaks and leaps in online programming contests," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 9(1), pages 1-8, December.
    2. Ángel V. Jiménez & Alex Mesoudi, 2019. "Prestige-biased social learning: current evidence and outstanding questions," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 1-12, December.
    3. Mason Youngblood, 2019. "Cultural transmission modes of music sampling traditions remain stable despite delocalization in the digital age," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(2), pages 1-12, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. Danqing Zhang & Guowen Huang & Jiaen Zhang & Xiaoyu Hou & Tianyi Zhou & Xianyuan Chang & Ying Ge & Jie Chang, 2022. "The Evolution of Sustainability Ideas in China from 1946 to 2015, Quantified by Culturomics," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-12, May.
    2. Patrick E. Savage, 2019. "Cultural evolution of music," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 1-12, December.
    3. Song, Min & Xie, Qing, 2020. "Characterizing the psychiatric drug responses of Reddit users from a socialomics perspective," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3).
    4. Liang Xu & Min Xu & Zehua Jiang & Xin Wen & Yishan Liu & Zaoyi Sun & Hongting Li & Xiuying Qian, 2023. "How have music emotions been described in Google books? Historical trends and corpus differences," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-11, December.
    5. Acerbi, Alberto & Sacco, Pier Luigi, 2022. "The self-control vs. self-indulgence dilemma: A culturomic analysis of 20th century trends," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    6. Acerbi, Alberto & Sacco, Pier Luigi, 2021. "The self-control vs. self-indulgence dilemma: A culturomic analysis of 20th century trends," OSF Preprints xgqt5, Center for Open Science.
    7. Joseph M. Stubbersfield & Lewis G. Dean & Sana Sheikh & Kevin N. Laland & Catharine P. Cross, 2019. "Social transmission favours the ‘morally good’ over the ‘merely arousing’," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 1-11, December.

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