Empathy on its own can be difficult to define. It is often mistaken for sympathy, which is the understanding or expressed sorrow for another person’s feelings. Empathy is to take on the feelings of another from their perspective, not just your own. Marieke C. Sittler, in his journal article, “Is Empathy Involved in our Emotional Response to Music?” describes two forms of empathy. There’s affective empathy, the ability to experience the emotional state of others and cognitive empathy, the ability to put yourself in one’s shoes. Stittler’s study explores how music evokes emotions and human empathy. What interested me about this study was a distinct assessment of genetic trait empathy in the individuals. The study took a total of 160 participants swabbed for genetic analysis and listened to 10 happy and sad musical excerpts. They assessed their empathy through an IRI questionnaire which assessed the affective and cognitive facets of empathy with 4 subscales, each rated between 1-5.
The result of this study showed that those with higher scores on the subscales, meaning higher empathy evaluated sad songs and their emotions better than those with lower scores (Sittler). Affective empathy or felt emotions were helpful in observing personal distress (PD) and empathetic concern (EC). Those with higher PD scores revealed a correlation between their empathetic reaction to distress of others, and so they in a way, suffer with those who are suffering. People with lower PD have more boundaries between the distress of others personally affecting them. EC is the reaction correlated to trying to fulfill other’s needs or to help them in their distress. Those with high scores in EC and FS (ability to empathize with fictional characters) were more accurate in evaluation of sad and happy songs (Sittler). This explains the cognitive processing of music evoking sadness using perceived emotions. Other than the correlation of PD in evoking distress in higher empathetic individuals, music may not be as relevant to affective processing. I think this may be because some enjoy listening to “sad” music. It sometimes calms instead of distressing them emotionally, and so confirming empathy is involved in the process of perceiving emotions from music.
A study showed that individuals with higher empathy were found to be more aware of, and affected by the emotions induced via music. Intense sadness, for example, was identified and felt more keenly, compared to less empathetic people. There was shown to be increased activity in individuals with higher empathy when listening to familiar music, whether they liked the music or not. This related to how the students discussed music as well. Individuals with higher empathy were generally more passionate about their music of interest. This makes sense, because artists are generally people who feel strongly about their passions and are enthusiastic talking about them. For example, my papa gets excited when talking about his days as the lead singer in a cover band in the 60’s!
Another thing I found interesting, was the results of the FMRI showed that musical perception uses the same areas of the brain that help us process or make sense of our social world. “The temporoparietal junction, which is critical to analyzing and understanding others’ behaviors and intentions,” according to the study is activated when listening to music (SMU). This area is activated when processing or thinking about other people or having social interaction. So music helps us make sense of our social world, and is related to how we communicate like reading nonverbal or social ques. This was found regardless of a participants EQ (emotional intelligence or empathy) score (SMU).
As I said previously, music is expression through organized sound, but we are sensitive to that expression when it expresses some part of the human condition like deep pain or intense sadness (Goleman). Even people without a high EQ can easily identify intense joy or feelings of infatuation from listening to music. There is also notable involvement of the reward system area of the brain indicating pleasure felt when listening to music, especially those with a higher EQ (SMU).
One more study to mention tested whether musical group interaction has a positive influence on children’s empathy. Their hypothesis was that long term music group interaction (MGI) would increase empathy in children even outside of the musical context. The study tested primary school aged children with musical games implementing empathy-promoting musical components (EMPC’s) for an entire school year (Rabinowitch). The games included different aspects of play like imitation, synchronization, and musical communication between the children. The studies showed that over time began to “pick up” on the intention of other subjects through cognitive dynamics, a process similar to empathy. The study focused on 8-11 year-old children because they have already developed what’s called theory of mind or the ability to perceive other people’s thoughts and feelings.
The concept of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, while fascinating, is obviously not how humans communicate emotionally. Having a sense of empathy is important to develop because it motivates our concern for the emotional and physical state of others. The emotional process involved in simply listening to music is related to how humans process social interactions. I believe that the more we, in a way, “tap in” to these emotional processing through empathy we can become more empathy-guided beings. This can be accomplished either with our own emotions and music, or even by cognitively processing the emotions of other artists as we perform or watch them perform.
My favorite moment of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, is when she is able to communicate with her ill father by hearing him express his heart by singing “True Colors.” The emotion she processes from hearing his song helps put herself in his shoes and help him. The emotional properties involved in musical interaction or listening to music can increase our empathy. Returning to my quote from the TV show, music is a way humans express or communicate our emotions or thoughts. Often the thoughts we express in music are beyond surface level emotions and open a window to the soul. When I hear an artist sing a song that has a personal resonance for them, it touches me more than if they just casually were familiar with the piece. We can use music as a catalyst to share and understand each other’s emotions and put ourselves in their shoes.
Works Cited
Miu, A. C., & Vuoskoski, J. K. (2017). The social side of music listening: Empathy and contagion in music-induced emotions. In E. King & C. Waddington (Eds.), Music and empathy. (pp. 124–138). Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.
Southern Methodist University (2018, June 12). Higher Empathy People Process Music Differently in the Brain. NeuroscienceNews. Retrieved June 12, 2018 from http://neurosciencenews.com/empathy-music-processing-9313/
Rabinowitch, Tal-Chen & Cross, Ian & Burnard, Pamela. (2012). Long-term musical group interaction has a positive influence on empathy in children. Psychology of Music. 41. 484-498. 10.1177/0305735612440609.
Balteș, F. R., & Miu, A. C. (2014). Emotions during live music performance: Links with individual differences in empathy, visual imagery, and mood. Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain, 24(1), 58–65. https://doi-org.ezproxy.obu.edu:2443/10.1037/pmu0000030
Goleman D (1998). Emotional Intelligence. Why "EQ" is more important than "IQ". Hellinika Grammata, Athens (In Modern Greek)
Sittler, M. C., Cooper, A. J., & Montag, C. (2019). Is empathy involved in our emotional response to music? The role of the PRL gene, empathy, and arousal in response to happy and sad music. Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain, 29(1), 10–21. https://doi- org.ezproxy.obu.edu:2443/10.1037/pmu0000230.supp
