Place Attachment, Social Identity and the Alleviation of Anxiety and Psychological Stress for Listeners in Hong Kong Popular Songs
Bocai NanAbstract
Objective
This study examines how landscape writing and national imagination in Hong Kong popular songs affect listeners' mental health—anxiety, depressive symptoms, and psychological stress. It investigates how place attachment and social identity alleviate emotional distress for audiences, establishing a psychiatric framework for understanding popular music as a culturally-embedded mental health intervention for listeners.
Subjects and Methods
This study analyzes Hong Kong popular songs across three affective phases (local consciousness, pre-handover anxiety, post-1997 national identification) and their impact on listeners' psychological states. Psychiatric frameworks include attachment theory examining how place bonds buffer listeners' existential anxiety; social identity assessing how belonging reduces depressive symptoms in audiences; and terror-management evaluating how national imagination counters mortality-related stress for listeners.
Results
Mental health findings reveal landscape as a psychological instrument for listeners' anxiety regulation. Awakening phase: place attachment provided secure belonging for audiences, reducing identity-related stress. Pre-handover phase: listeners' identity anxiety manifested as depressive symptoms and existential uncertainty. Post-1997 phase: national imagination functioned as cognitive reappraisal for listeners, transforming anxiety into belonging and reducing stress. Landscape served as therapeutic medium for audiences, buffering isolation and depression through collective memory and shared listening experiences.
Conclusions
Hong Kong popular songs function as culturally-embedded mental health interventions for listeners—reducing anxiety, depressive symptoms, and stress through place attachment, social identity, and national imagination. Landscape negotiates belonging and buffers existential threat for audiences. These findings inform culturally-adapted music therapy for populations undergoing identity transitions. Future research should examine dose-response relationships between listeners' music engagement and psychiatric outcomes.
Corresponding Author
Bocai Nan, Xi’an Fanyi University, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710105, China.