Music listening does not inoculate the stress response in young and older adults

Although the acute stress response is adaptive for survival, frequent and intermittent activation of the acute stress response may have negative health consequences over time. As such, the development of effective low-cost and noninvasive stress reduction interventions is important. Music listening is shown to promote faster physiological recovery following acute stress. However, there is a paucity of research examining the potential inoculation effect of music on stress reactivity and potential modifiers that may influence this effect such as music selection. Hence, the current study examined the potential inoculation effect of music on acute stress reactivity, as measured by a comprehensive set of stress indices. It was hypothesized that listening to music prior to acute stress exposure would decrease stress reactivity compared with white noise (WN), and that self-selected music would serve as a stronger inoculator than researcher-selected music. Participants (N = 109) were randomly assigned to either researcher-selected music (n = 36), self-selected music (n = 38), or a WN group (n = 35) and listened to either music or WN prior to undergoing the Trier Social Stress Test, a standardized psychosocial stress protocol. Outcome indices of stress included skin conductance, heart rate, salivary cortisol, and self-report affect. Analyses failed to show a significant inoculation effect of music on the stress response. Exploratory analyses did not reveal differential sex or age effects in stress inoculation. This study contributes to the growing literature on the neuroscience of music and presents a new line of questions that require further investigation.