MWP1: Precis 4: “Heavy Metal Music And Adolescent Suicidality: An Empirical Investigation”

            In the article “Heavy Metal Music And Adolescent Suicidality: An Empirical Investigation” (1999) by Karen Scheel and John Westefeld, the authors claim that listening to Heavy Metal Music relieves sadness or anger as much as any other type of music, and that there could be a slight correlation between feelings of suicide and listening to Heavy Metal music, but that this is likely from a completely different cause. The authors support this argument with an experiment of a group of high school students and a test to determine various reasons for living, using statistical analysis to separate the data into usable numbers. The purpose of this article is to present the findings of an experiment conducted in order to inform people about the possible correlation between Heavy Metal music and suicide among adolescent females, even though the authors admit that this may be caused by something else entirely. The audience for this article is a group of educated people with an interest in the psychology relating to music, because the article uses statistical data and techniques without explaining them and presents the information in a chart that contains collegiate statistical methods; also, the article uses upper level vocabulary and is in the form of a lab report, whilst being 21 pages long, suggesting that it is for post-graduates.

Scheel, Karen R., and John S. Westefeld. "Heavy Metal Music And Adolescent Suicidality: An Empirical Investigation." Adolescence 34.134 (1999): 253. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 Feb. 2012.