Listening to music after a breakup might seem like a safe emotional outlet, but for those high in neuroticism, it could actually intensify the pain, new research warns.
Study: Adaptive or maladaptive music-listening coping strategy: How does neuroticism use music after experiencing a romantic relationship breakup? Image credit: Antonio Guillem/Shutterstock.com
Romantic breakups are extremely common in adolescence and early childhood, but leave behind emotional scars. Listening to music is often used to cope with these emotions. A recent paper in PLOS ONE explores the differential use of music listening as an adaptive or maladaptive coping strategy for such emotions after a breakup.
Introduction
Romantic breakups can lead to intense emotional stress, causing people to become more anxious, irritable, depressed, or suicidal. Drug or alcohol abuse rates also increase. Personality may drive these risks. For instance, neuroticism is associated with greater emotional instability and increased sensitivity, with intense and long-lived emotional responses to people or situations. Such people feel attacked more easily, become anxious or depressed under stress, or show increased aggression.
Some studies suggest that neuroticism has a strong innate component, though both genetic and environmental factors likely shape it. Neuroticism is characterized by a more negative outlook on life. The number of times a person experiences negative feelings over a day reflects stronger neuroticism.
Multiple theories have been proposed to explain this link. One suggests that individuals with high levels of neuroticism may find it more challenging to regulate their emotions due to heightened sensitivity. Neuroticism has also been linked to more inflexible and pessimistic thinking patterns, which may contribute to less effective emotion-regulation strategies and worsen unhealthy mental habits.
Neurotic people are more likely to find fault with their partners and negatively interpret the other’s behavior. They are more likely to feel worse after a breakup. They may rely on less effective coping strategies to manage their distress.
Coping strategies
A coping strategy is any behavior that regulates one’s feelings, behavior, reasoning processes, and physiological function when faced with stress.
People use very different strategies to protect themselves from stress-induced negative impacts. Those with more neurotic traits often listen to music to regulate their emotions, but not always successfully. For example, individuals with high neuroticism may use music to avoid or for emotional expression, which can sometimes reinforce negative thought patterns rather than alleviate them.
These coping behaviors can include reflection, distraction, venting, or avoidance. Their effectiveness depends not just on intention, but also on the person’s emotional patterns and traits.
Music listening and neuroticism
Music conveys and provokes emotions. It also helps regulate them to preserve mental health by minimizing negative feelings while enhancing positive ones. For instance, it may distract people from their stressors or help them think about solutions.
Personality traits influence how people use music to cope, making this an important field of study. Listening to music as a coping strategy may either promote good feelings (an adaptive strategy) or serve to express negative feelings (a maladaptive one). In the latter case, people may try to bury themselves in angry or sad music to express their negative emotions.
Neuroticism is associated with a greater use of music for emotional regulation worldwide. This could be because individuals high in neuroticism are more sensitive to the emotional side of music-listening more than others, which could influence how they engage with it during periods of distress.
While maladaptive music listening may offer temporary relief, it has been associated with less effective emotional regulation and may contribute to sustained negative mood over time.
In this context, it is possible that “when love loss is a stressor, music listening coping may mediate the relationship between neuroticism and the negative emotions associated with a breakup.” However, not much is known about this coping strategy in neurotic individuals.
The current study sought to provide evidence for this hypothesis.
Study methods
The study involved 389 Chinese college students who had experienced at least one romantic breakup in the past five years. Participants completed surveys on their levels of neuroticism, emotional responses to the breakup, and how they used music to cope.
The researchers used statistical modeling, specifically structural equation modeling (SEM), to assess whether music coping styles mediated the relationship between personality and emotional outcomes.
The study tested three hypotheses: that neuroticism is linked to both types of music coping and negative emotions (H1); that adaptive music coping mediates the relationship between neuroticism and breakup distress (H2); and that maladaptive coping plays a mediating role (H3).
Study findings
The investigators found that individuals with higher levels of neuroticism reported more negative feelings about romantic breakups. They were also more likely to use maladaptive listening to music as a coping mechanism to regulate their emotions and less likely to use music in adaptive ways. Maladaptive music listening was positively associated with greater negative emotions following a breakup.
Statistical modeling showed that neuroticism is associated with greater negative emotions following a breakup and that this relationship was partially mediated by maladaptive music listening as a coping strategy. However, adaptive music listening was not found to mediate the relationship between neuroticism and emotional distress, providing no support for H2.
Conversely, adaptive music listening did not reduce such negative feelings. This may be because adaptive coping, such as listening to uplifting or relaxing music, does not directly counteract the intense and uncontrollable emotional reactions triggered by romantic loss.
Additionally, adaptive music listening tends to have a neutral effect, supporting emotional balance rather than enhancing positive mood. Instead, adaptive coping encourages a reasoned approach to the situation, which helps people rebound from distress over the long term and promotes mental health.
Maladaptive music-listening is thus partly responsible for increased negativity after a breakup in neurotic individuals, but not adaptive listening. Maladaptive coping, including venting or disengagement through music, predicts poorer outcomes. Possibly this is because they provide a false sense of having overcome the stressor or of comfort. Subsequently, rebound negativity occurs, which persists longer and becomes more frequent.
If neurotic individuals begin to use maladaptive coping routinely, it makes them less able to respond with proper behavioral changes when in a bad mood. It could cause the underlying negative thoughts to become permanent.
The study also noted that in collectivist cultures like China, where open emotional expression is often discouraged, neurotic individuals may be particularly prone to internalizing distress after a breakup. This cultural factor could amplify emotional challenges in this group.
Limitations
The authors caution that the findings are based on a cross-sectional study, which cannot determine causality. Future research using longitudinal designs would help clarify whether maladaptive coping leads to sustained negative outcomes.
In addition, the sample was drawn from a single Chinese university and included mostly female participants, which limits its generalizability across genders and cultures.
All data were self-reported, potentially introducing bias. More objective behavioral or physiological measures may strengthen future studies.
Conclusions
As consistent with earlier studies, neurotic people were found to be more troubled after a romantic breakup because of higher moodiness, anxiety, and depression.
More importantly, the study confirms that neurotic individuals are more likely to resort to maladaptive music listening to cope with their distress. Again, the study affirms that negative feelings become stronger when people use maladaptive coping.
The present study also extends current knowledge about the link between neuroticism and emotional coping strategies, particularly listening to music, following a significant life stressor such as a romantic breakup.
It is the first study to examine how music listening mediates the link between neuroticism and break-up-related emotions. It also highlights the need to evolve personalized interventions to improve the mental health of college students. Since the neurotic personality cannot be altered, coping strategies should be tailored based on such evidence.
The authors suggest that mental health programs should include guidance on identifying and avoiding maladaptive coping strategies, such as overusing sad music, and instead promote healthier options. They also recommend teaching students how personality traits affect emotional regulation and recovery.
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