Favorable versus unfavorable propaganda in the enjoyment of music.

College students indicated on a graphic rating scale their enjoyment of certain phonographic recordings. At the first hearing there was no comment. At the second hearing the music was presented to Group I in a romantic light, in Group II (control) there was no comment, while for Group III the music was associated with Hitler and German Nationalism. The respective mean gains were 28.52, 13.70, and 4.18. Thus the unfavorable propaganda was almost enough to erase the gain which comes from a second hearing without comment, while the favorable propaganda produced, on the basis of the scale that was used, a gain twice that of the control group. An analysis of covariance showed highly significant differences between the groups after the effect of the students' initial appreciation of the music had been removed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)