Emotional and motivational uses of music in sports and exercise: A questionnaire study among athletes

Abstract

Music is present in many sport and exercise situations, but empirical investigations on the motives for listening to music in sports remain scarce. In this study, Swedish elite athletes ( N = 252) answered a questionnaire that focused on the emotional and motivational uses of music in sports and exercise. The questionnaire contained both quantitative items that assessed the prevalence of various uses of music, and open-ended items that targeted specific emotional episodes in relation to music in sports. Results showed that the athletes most often reported listening to music during pre-event preparations, warm-up, and training sessions; and the most common motives for listening to music were to increase pre-event activation, positive affect, motivation, performance levels and to experience flow. The athletes further reported that they mainly experienced positive affective states (e.g., happiness, alertness, confidence, relaxation) in relation to music in sports, and also reported on their beliefs about the causes of the musical emotion episodes in sports. In general, the results suggest that the athletes used music in purposeful ways in order to facilitate their training and performance.