Urban music is known to influence the behavior of young people through its lyrical content. A team of Dutch researchers explored the effects of smoking in young adults upon exposure to pieces of urban music.
The study was published online in the journal Substance Use & Misuse.
As part of the study, researchers experimented with a three-group between-subject design, involving 74 young adult participants with daily smoking habits. The participants were aged 17 to 25.
The participants were exposed to either regular chart popular music, urban music (e.g., hip-hop) without non-frequent references to smoking, and urban music with frequent references to smoking.
According to the findings: “One-way ANOVA showed that participants listening to substance use infused rap/hip-hop songs felt significantly less pleasant, liked the songs less, and comprehended the songs less compared to participants listening to pop songs.”
“Poisson loglinear analyses revealed that compared to the pop music condition, none of the two rap/hip-hop music conditions had a significant effect on acute smoking,” the findings also showed.
“Listening to rap/hip-hop, even rap hip/hop with frequent referrals to substance use (primarily alcohol and drug use, and general smoking referrals), does not seem to encourage cigarette smoking among Dutch daily-smoking young adults, at least short term,” the authors of the study concluded.
