SOURCE-LINKED INTELLIGENCE

Psychological Effects of Cultural Upheavals from Millions of Song Lyrics Over 100 Years

arXiv · AI, language, vision and robotics · article · Sep 15, 2026 · UTC

Cultural upheavals impact many aspects of social life, and many studies have investigated their impact on language patterns. However, few investigations have isolated the impact of upheavals on individuals at scale in popular media. The current work evaluated millions of song lyrics spanning more than a century in search of within-artist and between-artist signals of distress from the Vietnam War, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and COVID-19. Compared to a five-year baseline, rates of self-references - a marker of psychological distancing - were significantly reduced after the Vietnam War and S

Read original source ↗ Open in workspace

recordType

paper

region

Global