The company has done a great job to optimize the music in retail stores to stimulate clients to buy more stuff. Pondering simple or catchy tunes that play in any cafe, shop or shopping center is always uplifting.
However, studies on the effect soundscapes have on employees, carried out very little. So a group of Cornell PhDs” launched an experiment to see how different types of music affect the joint behaviour of different groups of people, writes the Washington Post.
The study they invited 188 undergraduates to participate in the “voluntary contribution mechanism” (VCM). The researchers decided to use a well-established tool for the measurement and manipulation of cooperative behavior among the subjects.
The students were divided into anonymous groups of three and interacted with each other through computer monitors. “Voluntary contribution mechanism” was divided into 20 rounds. In each round, all students were given a certain amount of cash which they could use at own discretion – either to contribute to group contribution or keep it for yourself. Cash transferred to the group contribution was increased by 1.5 times for those groups, creating an incentive for charity.
In other words, a student with $10 in the early rounds, you may choose either to pay this amount in group contributions that would lead to the return of the $15 for the next round. Or they could leave this amount at home, and in this case, the student will be only $10 for the next round.
It is important to note that the participants did not know how many total rounds will be in the experiment. So the choice in order to contribute to the group, they had not the slightest idea if they return your money.
Different types of music were randomly set among the different groups of subjects. So, one third of the groups during the experiment listened to a playlist of “happy” music: “Yellow submarine” (Yellow Submarine), “Walking on the sun” Walking on Sunshine”), “brown eyed girl” (“Brown-Eyed Girl”) and the theme from “Happy days” (Happy Days) .
Another third listened to the playlist, which included two “unhappy” songs of relatively unknown metal bands: “Smokahontas” by Attack Attack and “You Ain’t No Family” performed by Iwrestledabearonce.
The control group did not listen to anything.
The researchers found that, after all 20 rounds of the experiment, one group of participants made money in the group Fund more frequently.
“We found that significantly and persistently high levels of cooperative behavior was shown by the members of the group that listened to happy music, compared to the two other groups,” say the researchers.
The differences were quite large. In the fifth round of the study, for example, listeners “happy” music made more than 60 percent of their available funds in the Fund group. People who listened to thrash metal, on the contrary, made the contribution at 40 percent.
At the end of the experiment the first group was given 50% for the benefit of the group. People who are not listening to music that was made to Fund the group a little more than 20 percent of own funds.
“These figures show that “happy” music provokes employees to make decisions for the good of the team,” according to a press release of the study.
It should be noted that the task for the students was quite abstract. After deciding to trust your money to strangers is not quite the same to do the same for the employee who works with, for example, behind the counter of a shop. But the positive effect from this experiment is that it provides a controlled and approved measures of cooperative behavior”, the researchers note.
This study is only a first step in understanding how music can affect the behavior of employees, because it still leaves many questions unanswered. For example, it is hard to say what happens when the music starts to repeat itself again and again (as is often the case in retail stores). When in the supermarket through the speaker a visitor the first time you hear the theme from “Happy days”, then he probably will perform a little dance. However, when this tune will sound 10 times, or even 5 minutes, well, to be honest, even the second time, the visitor may be somewhat annoyed.
You can also raise the question about the individual preferences in music. What happens if there is a team of employees who prefer to listen to shouty death metal? What happens, for example, when a Manager hears the “Cool Fun Jams for the Work Day, working with an employee who can’t stand that tune?
However, this study is a useful reminder that in the workplace, music can have a significant impact on workers, not just clients.
However, the researchers say that in order to understand what music needs to be put to attract customers and stimulate for better performance managers need to conduct additional research.
