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May 17, 2026Emotion0 citations

Ideal affect outside the head: Popular song lyrics emphasize low-arousal positive affect in Japan and high-arousal positive affect in the United States.

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BMBeth MorlingHMHiroki MasuiYMYuri Miyamoto

Key Points

  • This research aims to analyze the emotional content of popular song lyrics from Japan and the United States, focusing on high-arousal and low-arousal positive affect.
  • Utilized a natural language processing tool for lyrical analysis.
  • Compared ideal and actual emotional content in 7,464 songs from Japan and the U.S.
  • Conducted longitudinal analyses to assess changes in emotional content over time.
  • American songs had higher ideal and actual high-arousal positive affect (HAP).
  • Japanese songs exhibited higher ideal and actual low-arousal positive affect (LAP).
  • Longitudinal data indicated a slight increase in both HAP and LAP in Japan, while HAP declined in the U.S.

Abstract

= 7,464). A natural language processing tool called Contextualized Construct Representation (Chen et al., 2024) estimated HAP and LAP content in each song. Lyrics were higher on ideal than actual positive emotions. U.S. American popular songs scored higher on ideal and actual HAP, and Japanese popular songs scored higher on ideal and actual LAP. Longitudinal analyses showed that both HAP and LAP increased slightly over time in Japan, while HAP declined slightly in the United States. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

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Cite This Study

Morling et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a095af37880e6d24efe0af5https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001688
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Also Consider

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  1. 1The effects of linguistic sounds on Westerners' impressions of Japanese pop songs: A comparison between Japanese and English lyrics2025
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  4. 4When feeling good does not always help you sleep: Cultural moderation of the positive affect–sleep link.2026
  5. 5Actual and Ideal Affective Correlates of Risk for Bipolar Disorder: Cultural Similarities and Differences2024