According to a study in the Journal of Consumer Research, many individuals repeat past experiences to purposely ‘ignite’ their emotions. The data found the underlying reasons for the 'emotional re-living’ through repeated actions were generally to enhance the emotional awareness, pleasure and increase the self-knowledge of the person.
Listening to a song over and over again (emotional re-living) may be a way for some individuals to alleviate their inner negative feelings. The song repetition can help erase the feeling of ‘bitter’ from a bittersweet relationship by repeatedly remembering the ‘sweet’ memories associated with the song. The professional understanding of this process is known as desensitizing. (Continue below)
This repeated behavioral tendency can be applied to individuals who re-read a book, watch a specific movie numerous times or visit a place again, among copious other personal experiences.
"Even though people are already familiar with the stories or the places, re-consuming brings new or renewed appreciation of both the object of consumption and their self," write authors Cristel Antonia Russell (American University) and Sidney J. Levy (University of Arizona and Northwestern University). "By doing it again, people get more out of it." EurekAlert
These repeated experiences are different than habitual and addictive behaviors. Habitual and addictive behaviors are not considered a pro-active choice but a negative choice to relieve inner stress of the individual, whereas the consciously chosen experiences are to enrich the sense of self for various reasons such as affirmation, refresh or reconstruct a memory, share the experience with people or to invalidate previous held ideas.
This study could explain why people listen to sentimental or love songs repeatedly. It’s not necessarily the song itself, but the feeling from the song which gives them what they want. The experience associated with the song may be a bittersweet one, but individuals re-live the ‘sweet’ while desensitizing the ‘bitter.’
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Source:
Reigniting consumer emotions: Why are some experiences better the second time?
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