How Women Respond to Female Empowerment Songs: An Abstract

This research project aims to investigate the impact of music on female empowerment. Previous research established the link between listening to music and affective, attitudinal, and behavioral outcomes (e.g., Anderson and Eubanks 2003; Hansen and Hansen 1990). However, there is a dearth of research on the impact of music on female empowerment. Songs that encourage and promote female power have been part of the pop culture for a long time. Some examples of such songs are “Hit me with your best shot” by Pat Benatar, which was released in 1980, and “Sit still, look pretty” by Daya, which was released in 2016. The influence of these songs on pop culture and women, especially at younger ages, makes it important to study their impact on the female audience. Understanding such effects is critical to practitioners as well. To keep up with their target markets, firms continuously monitor the trends in the pop culture and try to adapt those in their promotional campaigns. The purpose of this research is to study the impact of music with female-empowering lyrics on audiences’ feel of power, specifically, in terms of, their reported level of self-esteem, self-efficacy, and positive thoughts (hope). Spreading activation theory suggests that receiving a new piece of information triggers the related node of information in the brain (Collins and Loftus 1975). Therefore, hearing a female-empowering song should make the information about power more accessible. The audience would demonstrate higher levels of self-esteem, self-efficacy, and hope, at least momentarily. Female empowerment has been a recurring theme in the pop culture. Therefore, it is essential to understand how these songs impact the emotions, cognition, and behavior of the audience. The current research plan aims to understand the psychological implications of such songs and examine the effects of adapting female-empowering trends into the marketing campaigns.