Manilow and Streisand Dogged by Dag Factor

From the Age

There's a reason why some people gag at Barbra Streisand songs and Barry Manilow can chase teens out of car parks, a Sydney academic has found.

University of NSW music psychologist Emery Schubert says these responses are caused by a "differential affect gap" (DAG) — a discrepancy between the emotion expressed in a song and the emotion felt by the listener.

His research found young listeners placed a 57 per cent gap between their emotions and the emotions in Eric Carmen's 1998 schmaltz-fest I was Born to Love You, but only a 4 per cent gap between their emotions and John Butler Trio's Pickapart.

"What we found was that when there was a large gap between felt and expressed emotion, music was liked less," Dr Schubert said. "This is a new finding — no one's ever actually used this scale before."

The scale comes from asking people to plot their emotions while listening to a piece of music, using the four points of dimensional emotion: valence, arousal, emotional strength and dominance.

Our friend works for the Adelaide City Council and they have used this effectively in Stephens Place in Adelaide, which used to be a hang out for teens. They play a veriety of DAG music and the place has been quiet ever since.