Effect of Music on Cooperative Problem Solving by Children

Abstract

One hundred and forty children, 6 to 9 yr. of age, were randomly selected under the auspices of public and parochial school officials in Missoula, Montana. Each of 20 groups was composed of 7 randomly assigned children. Group members traded 8 playing cards with one another in order to obtain a set identical to a display model containing 8 oversized playing cards. The model was visible to Ss at all times. Knowing that completing his or her set would earn 15 MSdrls was an effective incentive in promoting set completion, which each S eventually achieved. Every group individually received only 1 of 4 background sound treatments, with 5 groups ultimately receiving the same treatment. These treatment conditions were: ( a ) art music, characterized by sudden changes in density, volume, timbre, and tempo; ( b ) mood music, in which sonorious variation was at a minimum; ( c ) a recorded, spontaneous reading by 3 adults from different psychology textbooks (n-music control); ( d ) no background sound (no-sound control). All Ss were run under neatly identical conditions of lighting, apparatus arrangement, and extraneous stimuli input. Half the Ss participated after school at a psychology clinic; the other half, at school during the school day. Cooperative behaviors, i.e., S's verbal and physical actions directed toward completing the group task while giving and/or receiving assistance from other Ss, and noncooperative behaviors, i.e., lack of cooperative behavior, were independently assessed by three trained raters. Using time-sampling observation, raters carefully observed S's actions for 5 sec., and for che succeeding 5 sec., checked cooperative and/or noncooperative subcategories into which S's behavior fell, at the time of observation, on prepared rating forms. Using an exact tally matching criterion of subcategory recordings of the rater per observation produced an interrater reliability coefficient of .72, while .87 was obtained for agreement on cooperative and noncooperative assessment per observation. Results were in line with predicted group differences, though not statistically significant ( p z .20). Noncooperative behaviors tended to be greater under conditions of no recorded sound and adults' reading aloud (5-group totals of 39.58 and 35.39 noncooperative responses per minute, respectively), and reduced under art and mood music (5-group totals of 33.71 and 31.38 noncooperative responses per minute, respectively). Also, more noncooperative and fewer cooperative behaviors were noted when playing art than mood music. Participation after school at the clinic and during school hours at school did not influence children's behavior. Suggestions for future studies include revision of the raring form, allowing Ss to choose from alternative reinforcements before beginning the cooperative task, and increasing the task's complexiry to focus on concentration as a function of sound input. Research could investigate music's effect on cooperative responding as a function of S's current level of intellectual functioning, combined social reinforcement and introversion-extroversion tendencies, and gross and fine visual-motor coordination.