Summary: People who are more accurate at reading another person’s emotions also tend to be better at interpreting the emotions musicians communicate in their compositions. Likewise, individuals with stronger affect sharing report feeling the emotions conveyed by music more intensely. These findings point to a link between social empathy and musical emotion perception.
Source: Southern Methodist University
New research suggests a meaningful relationship between the ability to understand others’ emotions and the ability to perceive emotions in music.
An international team of researchers examined whether people who accurately infer other people’s thoughts and feelings—known as empathic accuracy—also show superior ability to identify the emotional intentions behind musical pieces. They also investigated whether people who tend to share others’ emotions (affect sharing) are more likely to feel emotions elicited by music. The results indicate that these social cognitive skills extend into musical perception, with implications for future clinical and educational applications.
The study, published in the journal Emotion, lays groundwork for follow-up research into whether engaged music listening could be used to strengthen social cognition, and whether music-based training might support social skills interventions for populations with social-cognitive difficulties, such as individuals on the autism spectrum or those with schizophrenia.
The research was led by Benjamin A. Tabak, assistant professor of psychology and director of the Social and Clinical Neuroscience Lab at Southern Methodist University, together with Zachary Wallmark, assistant professor of musicology and affiliated faculty at the Center for Translational Neuroscience at the University of Oregon.
“Empathy is typically studied in face-to-face social situations,” Tabak explained, “but humans communicate socially in many ways beyond direct conversation—music is a powerful example. Music can convey emotional meaning and can evoke strong emotional responses, yet the specific mechanisms behind those effects are not fully understood.”
To test their hypotheses, the researchers measured two related constructs: empathic accuracy, the behavioral ability to correctly infer others’ thoughts and feelings; and affect sharing, the degree to which someone vicariously experiences another person’s emotions. They then assessed these measures in relation to participants’ ability to perceive and feel emotions communicated through music.
Their analysis produced consistent support for both hypotheses. People who scored higher on empathic accuracy were better at identifying the emotions composers intended to express, and those with higher affect sharing reported stronger emotional responses to musical excerpts. Importantly, these effects were observed across multiple samples and remained after controlling for relevant individual differences.
Tabak and Wallmark view these findings as tentative but meaningful evidence that music functions as a form of social behavior: an evolved means of connecting with others, communicating emotional states, and helping people navigate their social worlds. If empathy and music perception share underlying processes, intentionally designed music experiences could be explored as tools to foster social understanding.
“This work matters on several levels,” Tabak added. “Beyond basic science, there is potential to develop music-based interventions to help people who struggle to interpret others’ emotions. Our results justify more targeted studies to determine whether active, socially engaged listening exercises can improve social cognition.”
The study also exemplifies an interdisciplinary research model. In addition to psychology and musicology, the team included statisticians and a psychologist with expertise in social cognition in schizophrenia. Tabak noted that when the idea was first discussed several years ago, existing research only touched indirectly on these questions, sample sizes were often small, and direct replications were lacking.
“By combining perspectives from the sciences and the humanities,” he said, “we can apply established psychological constructs like empathy to new domains—such as asking what a composer intends to express—and thereby broaden our understanding of human social cognition.”
About this music and empathy research news
Author: Press Office
Source: Southern Methodist University
Contact: Press Office – Southern Methodist University
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Original Research: Closed access. “Initial evidence for a relation between behaviorally assessed empathic accuracy and affect sharing for people and music” by Benjamin A. Tabak et al., published in Emotion.
Abstract
Initial evidence for a relation between behaviorally assessed empathic accuracy and affect sharing for people and music
Do people who are better at understanding or feeling other people’s emotions also have an enhanced ability to perceive and experience emotions in music? Evolutionary theories have long proposed that both empathy and music promote social bonding, but few studies have directly examined behavioral measures of empathic processes across social and musical domains.
This study addressed the question using two independent samples: a laboratory sample of undergraduate students (n = 236) and a larger online replication sample drawn from across the United States (n = 596). Across both samples, linear mixed-effects models revealed positive associations between empathic accuracy and affect sharing for people telling personal stories as well as for musical expression. These associations persisted after adjusting for individual differences.
The findings provide initial behavioral evidence of a relationship between empathic processes in social and musical contexts. Future research should investigate whether intentional, socially engaged music listening can produce measurable improvements in social cognition and whether music-based approaches could complement existing therapeutic strategies for populations with social-cognitive challenges.