Jack up those Senheissers and crank that house-y shit y’all, lets get this revolution started.

New research from Northwestern University in Illinois into the psychological effects of music has found that bass-heavy music can make the listener feel significantly empowered.

With researchers testing more than 31 genres of music, including reggae, hip hop and sports music, subjects were measured how powerful they were feeling. Tests included tasks such as a dice-rolling exercise to measure illusions of control, a word-generating task to give insight to emotional levels and decision making exercise to measure if the subject would act with confidence.

“Part of our objective was to test whether music produces the same downstream effects of power found in other sources,” researcher Dennis Hsu says.

Findings strongly suggested that songs and genres with increased bass lead to increased levels of power in decision making and a general sense of control, as well as a higher sense of positivity in the listener and more power-related words and positivity in the word-generating task.

Suggesting that bass music could significantly change our emotional states and processes, Hsu reflected: “Although significantly more research needs to be done before we can truly begin to understand music’s effects on our psychological experiences, I believe our findings provide initial evidence for the potential strategic use of music, especially in situations where people need to feel empowered.

“People might want to explore whether pumping up their favorite tunes can quickly ease them into an empowered mental state before going into a first date, an important client meeting, or a job interview.”

Interestingly the Baha Men’s ‘Who let the dogs out?’ rated aggressively low on the power scale. WE JUST DON’T KNOW WHO LET THEM OUT OK!? LET ME LIVE MY LIFE !!!

Slappa’ da bass people.

[via Mixmag and PsyhCentral]