People with depression listen to sad music because it makes them feel better, according to a small study that is one of the first to investigate why people turn to tearjerkers when they're already down.
一项小型研究表明：抑郁症患者喜欢听悲伤的音乐，因为这会使他们快乐。该研究也是首次调查人们在难过时为什么会选择催泪活动的研究之一。

The first part of the study, published recently in the journal Emotion, tried to repeat the findings of a 2015 study that showed that depressed people preferred listening to sad music. Researchers at the University of South Florida asked 76 female undergrads (half of them were diagnosed with depression) to listen to various classical music clips. "Happy" music included Jacques Offenbach's cheerful "Infernal Gallop," and "sad" music included Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings," which is almost universally considered to be extremely depressing. The scientists found that, like in the 2015 study, participants with depression indicated they would rather listen to sad music than happy music.
近来，该研究的第一部分已在《情感》杂志发表，试图重复2015年的一项研究成果，该研究表明：抑郁患者倾向于听悲伤的音乐。南佛罗里达大学的研究员要求76名女性本科生（其中一半被诊断出抑郁症）听不同的古典音乐片段。"快乐的"音乐包括雅克·奥芬巴赫（Jacques Offenbach）的《地狱快步舞》，"悲伤的"音乐包括赛谬尔·巴伯（Samuel Barber）的《弦乐柔版》，几乎全世界的人都认为这段音乐令人悲伤。科学家发现，与2015年的研究一样，抑郁患者表示他们宁愿听悲伤的音乐而非快乐的音乐。

Then, the researchers gave the participants new clips of happy and sad instrumental music and asked them to describe how the tracks made them feel. Again, the depressed participants preferred the sad music, but they also stated that the sad music made them feel happier. "They actually were feeling better after listening to this sad music than they were before," study co-author Jonathan Rottenberg told WUSF News. It seemed to have relaxing and calming effects. This challenges the assumption that sad people listen to sad music to make themselves feel worse, when, in fact, it may be a coping mechanism.
之后，研究员又给参与者播放了快乐和悲伤的新的器乐作品，并要求他们形容听音乐时的感受。抑郁患者再一次地选择了悲伤音乐，但他们也表示，悲伤音乐会使他们更快乐。"事实上，听完悲伤的音乐之后，他们的心情反倒比先前更好了，"研究的共同作者乔纳森·罗滕贝格（Jonathan Rottenberg）对《南佛罗里达大学新闻》（WUSF News）说道。就好像悲伤的曲子能让他们平静下来。这一发现挑战了先前的猜想--悲伤的人听悲伤的音乐是为了让自己更悲伤--但实际上，这种做法可能是一种应对机制。

Of course, there are many limitations. This is a small study that only looked at female undergraduates, so the results should be taken with a grain of salt. (Psychology, in general, tends to use WEIRD - Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic - subjects too often.) We don't have a lot of detail regarding exactly why people with depression prefer sad music, and we don't know how results might change with happy and sad music that has words.
当然，研究还存在很多限制。这是一项小型研究，只研究了女性本科生，所以我们只能对研究发现持保留态度。（一般来说，大多数心理学研究对象都是西方的、受过教育的、工业化的、富有的、民主的被试。）我们尚不清楚为什么抑郁患者更倾向于听悲伤的音乐，也不清楚若快乐的音乐和悲伤的音乐有了歌词后，这一结果是否会发生变化。