Soundtrack to the social world

Emotional music enhances empathy, compassion, and prosocial decisions but not theory of mind

Dados Bibliográficos

ID17765573
AutoresBrennan McDonald (0000-0003-2801-8301, Faculty (United Kingdom), autor correspondente), Anne Böckler-Raettig (0000-0003-1000-9052, Leibniz University Hannover), Philipp Kanske (0000-0003-2027-8782, Faculty (United Kingdom))
Ano2022
Volume22
Fascículo1
Páginas19-29
Data de publicação2022-01-27
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoEmotion (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1528-3542 • E-ISSN: 1931-1516
EditoraAmerican Psychological Association (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1037/emo0001036
PMID35084909
OpenAlexW4210721937
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas10
Referências citadas35

Music is a human universal and has the ability to evoke powerful, genuine emotions. But does music influence our capacity to understand and feel with others? A growing body of evidence indicates that empathy (sharing another's feelings) and compassion (a feeling of concern toward others) are behaviorally and neutrally distinct, both from each other and from the social-cognitive process theory of mind (ToM; i.e., inferring others' mental states). Yet little is known as to whether and how these dissociable routes to feeling with and understanding others can be independently modulated. The goal of the current study was to investigate if emotional music has the potential to enhance social affect and/or social cognition. Using a naturalistic, video-based paradigm which disentangles empathy, compassion, and ToM, we demonstrate selective enhancement of social affect through music during the videos. Specifically, we found enhanced empathy and compassion when emotional, but not when neutral music was present during videos displaying emotionally negative narrations. No such enhancement was present for ToM performance. Similarly, prosocial decision making increased after emotionally negative videos with emotional music. These findings demonstrate how emotional music can enhance empathic responding, compassion and prosocial decisions as well as contribute to the growing evidence for separable processes within the social mind. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Compassion · Empathy · Feeling · Prosocial behavior · PsycINFO · Simulation theory of empathy · Theory of mind · Communication · Digital Mental Health Interventions · Mental Health Research Topics · Music Therapy and Health · Psychology · Social Psychology