研究表明:聽悲傷的歌會讓抑鬱患者快樂

People with depression listen to sad music because it makes them feel better, according to a small study that is one of the first to investigate why people turn to tearjerkers when they're already down.
一項小型研究表明：抑鬱症患者喜歡聽悲傷的音樂，因爲這會使他們快樂。該研究也是首次調查人們在難過時爲什麼會選擇催淚活動的研究之一。

The first part of the study, published recently in the journal Emotion, tried to repeat the findings of a 2015 study that showed that depressed people preferred listening to sad music. Researchers at the University of South Florida asked 76 female undergrads (half of them were diagnosed with depression) to listen to various classical music clips. "Happy" music included Jacques Offenbach's cheerful "Infernal Gallop," and "sad" music included Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings," which is almost universally considered to be extremely depressing. The scientists found that, like in the 2015 study, participants with depression indicated they would rather listen to sad music than happy music.
近來，該研究的第一部分已在《情感》雜誌發表，試圖重複2015年的一項研究成果，該研究表明：抑鬱患者傾向於聽悲傷的音樂。南佛羅里達大學的研究員要求76名女性本科生（其中一半被診斷出抑鬱症）聽不同的古典音樂片段。"快樂的"音樂包括雅克·奧芬巴赫（Jacques Offenbach）的《地獄快步舞》，"悲傷的"音樂包括賽謬爾·巴伯（Samuel Barber）的《絃樂柔版》，幾乎全世界的人都認爲這段音樂令人悲傷。科學家發現，與2015年的研究一樣，抑鬱患者表示他們寧願聽悲傷的音樂而非快樂的音樂。

Then, the researchers gave the participants new clips of happy and sad instrumental music and asked them to describe how the tracks made them feel. Again, the depressed participants preferred the sad music, but they also stated that the sad music made them feel happier. "They actually were feeling better after listening to this sad music than they were before," study co-author Jonathan Rottenberg told WUSF News. It seemed to have relaxing and calming effects. This challenges the assumption that sad people listen to sad music to make themselves feel worse, when, in fact, it may be a coping mechanism.
之後，研究員又給參與者播放了快樂和悲傷的新的器樂作品，並要求他們形容聽音樂時的感受。抑鬱患者再一次地選擇了悲傷音樂，但他們也表示，悲傷音樂會使他們更快樂。"事實上，聽完悲傷的音樂之後，他們的心情反倒比先前更好了，"研究的共同作者喬納森·羅滕貝格（Jonathan Rottenberg）對《南佛羅里達大學新聞》（WUSF News）說道。就好像悲傷的曲子能讓他們平靜下來。這一發現挑戰了先前的猜想--悲傷的人聽悲傷的音樂是爲了讓自己更悲傷--但實際上，這種做法可能是一種應對機制。

Of course, there are many limitations. This is a small study that only looked at female undergraduates, so the results should be taken with a grain of salt. (Psychology, in general, tends to use WEIRD - Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic - subjects too often.) We don't have a lot of detail regarding exactly why people with depression prefer sad music, and we don't know how results might change with happy and sad music that has words.
當然，研究還存在很多限制。這是一項小型研究，只研究了女性本科生，所以我們只能對研究發現持保留態度。（一般來說，大多數心理學研究對象都是西方的、受過教育的、工業化的、富有的、民主的被試。）我們尚不清楚爲什麼抑鬱患者更傾向於聽悲傷的音樂，也不清楚若快樂的音樂和悲傷的音樂有了歌詞後，這一結果是否會發生變化。