Explaining the enjoyment of negative emotions evoked by the arts: The need to consider empathy and other underlying mechanisms of emotion induction.

Any model aiming to explain the enjoyment of negative emotions in the context of the arts should consider how works of art are able to induce emotional responses in the first place. For instance, research on empathy and the arts suggests that the psychological processes that mediate the enjoyment of sadness and horror may be fundamentally different.

The influence of musical parameters and subjective musical ratings on perceptions of culture.

Recent research suggests that music can affect evaluations of other groups and cultures. However, little is known about the objective and subjective musical parameters that influence these evaluations. We aimed to fill this gap through two studies. Study 1 collected responses from 52 American participants who listened to 30 folk-song melodies from different parts of the world. Linear mixed-effects models tested the influence of objective and subjective musical parameters of these melodies on evaluations of the cultures from which they originated. Musical parameters consistently predicted cultural evaluations. The most prominent musical parameter was musical velocity, a measure of number of pitch onsets, predicting more cultural warmth, competence and evolvedness and less cultural threat. Next, with a sample of 212 American participants, Study 2 used a within-subjects experiment to alter the tempo and dissonance for a subset of six melody excerpts from Study 1, testing for causal effects. Linear mixed-effects models revealed that both dissonance and slow tempo predicted more negative cultural evaluations. Together, both studies demonstrate how musical parameters can influence cultural perceptions. Avenues for future research are discussed.

Feeling moved by music: Investigating continuous ratings and acoustic correlates.

The experience often described as feeling moved, understood chiefly as a social-relational emotion with social bonding functions, has gained significant research interest in recent years. Although listening to music often evokes what people describe as feeling moved, very little is known about the appraisals or musical features contributing to the experience. In the present study, we investigated experiences of feeling moved in response to music using a continuous rating paradigm. A total of 415 US participants completed an online experiment where they listened to seven moving musical excerpts and rated their experience while listening. Each excerpt was randomly coupled with one of seven rating scales (perceived sadness, perceived joy, feeling moved or touched, sense of connection, perceived beauty, warmth [in the chest], or chills) for each participant. The results revealed that musically evoked experiences of feeling moved are associated with a similar pattern of appraisals, physiological sensations, and trait correlations as feeling moved by videos depicting social scenarios (found in previous studies). Feeling moved or touched by both sadly and joyfully moving music was associated with experiencing a sense of connection and perceiving joy in the music, while perceived sadness was associated with feeling moved or touched only in the case of sadly moving music. Acoustic features related to arousal contributed to feeling moved only in the case of joyfully moving music. Finally, trait empathic concern was positively associated with feeling moved or touched by music. These findings support the role of social cognitive and empathic processes in music listening, and highlight the social-relational aspects of feeling moved or touched by music.

Corona Concerts: The Effect of Virtual Concert Characteristics on Social Connection and Kama Muta.

The popularity of virtual concerts increased as a result of the social distancing requirements of the coronavirus pandemic. We aimed to examine how the characteristics of virtual concerts and the characteristics of the participants influenced their experiences of social connection and kama muta (often labeled "being moved"). We hypothesized that concert liveness and the salience of the coronavirus would influence social connection and kama muta. We collected survey responses on a variety of concert and personal characteristics from 307 participants from 13 countries across 4 continents. We operationalized social connection as a combination of feelings and behaviors and kama muta was measured using the short kama muta scale (Zickfeld et al., 2019). We found that (1) social connection and kama muta were related and predicted by empathic concern, (2) live concerts produced more social connection, but not kama muta, than pre-recorded concerts, and (3) the salience of the coronavirus during concerts predicted kama muta and this effect was completely mediated by social connection. Exploratory analyses also examined the influence of social and physical presence, motivations for concert attendance, and predictors of donations. This research contributes to the understanding of how people can connect socially and emotionally in virtual environments.

Being moved by listening to unfamiliar sad music induces reward-related hormonal changes in empathic listeners.

Many people enjoy sad music, and the appeal for tragedy is widespread among the consumers of film and literature. The underlying mechanisms of such aesthetic experiences are not well understood. We tested whether pleasure induced by sad, unfamiliar instrumental music is explained with a homeostatic or a reward theory, each of which is associated with opposite patterns of changes in the key hormones. Sixty-two women listened to sad music (or nothing) while serum was collected for subsequent measurement of prolactin (PRL) and oxytocin (OT) and stress marker (cortisol and adrenocorticotropic hormone) concentrations. Two groups of participants were recruited on the basis of low and high trait empathy. In the high empathy group, PRL and OT levels were significantly lower with music compared with no music. And compared to the low empathy group, the high empathy individuals reported an increase of positive mood and higher ratings of being moved with music. None of the stress markers showed any changes across the conditions or the groups. These hormonal changes, inconsistent with the homeostatic theory proposed by Huron, exhibit a pattern expected of general reward. Our findings illuminate how unfamiliar and low arousal music may give rise to pleasurable experiences.

Livestream Experiments: The Role of COVID-19, Agency, Presence, and Social Context in Facilitating Social Connectedness.

Musical life became disrupted in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many musicians and venues turned to online alternatives, such as livestreaming. In this study, three livestreamed concerts were organized to examine separate, yet interconnected concepts-agency, presence, and social context-to ascertain which components of livestreamed concerts facilitate social connectedness. Hierarchical Bayesian modeling was conducted on 83 complete responses to examine the effects of the manipulations on feelings of social connectedness with the artist and the audience. Results showed that in concert 1, where half of the participants were allowed to vote for the final song to be played, this option did not result in the experience of more agency. Instead, if their preferred song was played (regardless of voting ability) participants experienced greater connectedness to the artist. In concert 2, participants who attended the concert with virtual reality headsets experienced greater feelings of physical presence, as well as greater feelings of connectedness with the artist, than those that viewed a normal YouTube livestream. In concert 3, attendance through Zoom led to greater experience of social presence, but predicted less connectedness with the artist, compared to a normal YouTube livestream. Crucially, a greater negative impact of COVID-19 (e.g., loneliness) predicted feelings of connectedness with the artist, possibly because participants fulfilled their social needs with this parasocial interaction. Examining data from all concerts suggested that physical presence was a predictor of connectedness with both the artist and the audience, while social presence only predicted connectedness with the audience. Correlational analyses revealed that reductions in loneliness and isolation were associated with feelings of shared agency, physical and social presence, and connectedness to the audience. Overall, the findings suggest that in order to reduce feelings of loneliness and increase connectedness, concert organizers and musicians could tune elements of their livestreams to facilitate feelings of physical and social presence.

"Help! I Need Somebody": Music as a Global Resource for Obtaining Wellbeing Goals in Times of Crisis.

Music can reduce stress and anxiety, enhance positive mood, and facilitate social bonding. However, little is known about the role of music and related personal or cultural (individualistic vs. collectivistic) variables in maintaining wellbeing during times of stress and social isolation as imposed by the COVID-19 crisis. In an online questionnaire, administered in 11 countries (Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, the UK, and USA, N = 5,619), participants rated the relevance of wellbeing goals during the pandemic, and the effectiveness of different activities in obtaining these goals. Music was found to be the most effective activity for three out of five wellbeing goals: enjoyment, venting negative emotions, and self-connection. For diversion, music was equally good as entertainment, while it was second best to create a sense of togetherness, after socialization. This result was evident across different countries and gender, with minor effects of age on specific goals, and a clear effect of the importance of music in people's lives. Cultural effects were generally small and surfaced mainly in the use of music to obtain a sense of togetherness. Interestingly, culture moderated the use of negatively valenced and nostalgic music for those higher in distress.

On the Enjoyment of Sad Music: Pleasurable Compassion Theory and the Role of Trait Empathy.

Drawing on recent empirical studies on the enjoyment of nominally sad music, a general theory of the pleasure of tragic or sad portrayals is presented. Not all listeners enjoy sad music. Multiple studies indicate that those individuals who enjoy sad music exhibit a particular pattern of empathic traits. These individuals score high on empathic concern (compassion) and high on imaginative absorption (fantasy), with only nominal personal distress (commiseration). Empirical studies are reviewed implicating compassion as a positively valenced affect. Accordingly, individuals who most enjoy sad musical portrayals experience a pleasurable prosocial affect (compassion), amplified by empathetic engagement (fantasy), while experiencing only nominal levels of unpleasant emotional contagion (commiseration). It is suggested that this pattern of trait empathy may apply more broadly, accounting for many other situations where spectators experience pleasure when exposed to tragic representations or portrayals.

Cultural Familiarity and Individual Musical Taste Differently Affect Social Bonding when Moving to Music.

Social bonds are essential for our health and well-being. Music provides a unique and implicit context for social bonding by introducing temporal and affective frameworks, which facilitate movement synchronization and increase affiliation. How these frameworks are modulated by cultural familiarity and individual musical preferences remain open questions. In three experiments, we operationalized the affective aspects of social interactions as ratings of interpersonal closeness between two walking stick-figures in a video. These figures represented a virtual self and a virtual other person. The temporal aspects of social interactions were manipulated by movement synchrony: while the virtual self always moved in time with the beat of instrumental music, the virtual other moved either synchronously or asynchronously. When the context-providing music was more enjoyed, social closeness increased strongly with a synchronized virtual other, but only weakly with an asynchronized virtual other. When the music was more familiar, social closeness was higher independent of movement synchrony. We conclude that the social context provided by music can strengthen interpersonal closeness by increasing temporal and affective self-other overlaps. Individual musical preferences might be more relevant for the influence of movement synchrony on social bonding than musical familiarity.

An integrative review of the enjoyment of sadness associated with music.

The recent surge of interest towards the paradoxical pleasure produced by sad music has generated a handful of theories and an array of empirical explorations on the topic. However, none of these have attempted to weigh the existing evidence in a systematic fashion. The present work puts forward an integrative framework laid out over three levels of explanation - biological, psycho-social, and cultural - to compare and integrate the existing findings in a meaningful way. First, we review the evidence pertinent to experiences of pleasure associated with sad music from the fields of neuroscience, psychophysiology, and endocrinology. Then, the psychological and interpersonal mechanisms underlying the recognition and induction of sadness in the context of music are combined with putative explanations ranging from social surrogacy and nostalgia to feelings of being moved. Finally, we address the cultural aspects of the paradox - the extent to which it is embedded in the Western notion of music as an aesthetic, contemplative object - by synthesising findings from history, ethnography, and empirical studies. Furthermore, we complement these explanations by considering the particularly significant meanings that sadness portrayed in art can evoke in some perceivers. Our central claim is that one cannot attribute the enjoyment of sadness fully to any one of these levels, but to a chain of functionalities afforded by each level. Each explanatory level has several putative explanations and its own shift towards positive valence, but none of them deliver the full transformation from a highly negative experience to a fully enjoyable experience alone. The current evidence within this framework ranges from weak to non-existent at the biological level, moderate at the psychological level, and suggestive at the cultural level. We propose a series of focussed topics for future investigation that would allow to deconstruct the drivers and constraints of the processes leading to pleasurable music-related sadness.

The Pleasure Evoked by Sad Music Is Mediated by Feelings of Being Moved.

Why do we enjoy listening to music that makes us sad? This question has puzzled music psychologists for decades, but the paradox of "pleasurable sadness" remains to be solved. Recent findings from a study investigating the enjoyment of sad films suggest that the positive relationship between felt sadness and enjoyment might be explained by feelings of being moved (Hanich et al., 2014). The aim of the present study was to investigate whether feelings of being moved also mediated the enjoyment of sad music. In Experiment 1, 308 participants listened to five sad music excerpts and rated their liking and felt emotions. A multilevel mediation analysis revealed that the initial positive relationship between liking and felt sadness (r = 0.22) was fully mediated by feelings of being moved. Experiment 2 explored the interconnections of perceived sadness, beauty, and movingness in 27 short music excerpts that represented independently varying levels of sadness and beauty. Two multilevel mediation analyses were carried out to test competing hypotheses: (A) that movingness mediates the effect of perceived sadness on liking, or (B) that perceived beauty mediates the effect of sadness on liking. Stronger support was obtained for Hypothesis A. Our findings suggest that - similarly to the enjoyment of sad films - the aesthetic appreciation of sad music is mediated by being moved. We argue that felt sadness may contribute to the enjoyment of sad music by intensifying feelings of being moved.

Being Moved by Unfamiliar Sad Music Is Associated with High Empathy.

The paradox of enjoying listening to music that evokes sadness is yet to be fully understood. Unlike prior studies that have explored potential explanations related to lyrics, memories, and mood regulation, we investigated the types of emotions induced by unfamiliar, instrumental sad music, and whether these responses are consistently associated with certain individual difference variables. One hundred and two participants were drawn from a representative sample to minimize self-selection bias. The results suggest that the emotional responses induced by unfamiliar sad music could be characterized in terms of three underlying factors: Relaxing sadness, Moving sadness, and Nervous sadness. Relaxing sadness was characterized by felt and perceived peacefulness and positive valence. Moving sadness captured an intense experience that involved feelings of sadness and being moved. Nervous sadness was associated with felt anxiety, perceived scariness and negative valence. These interpretations were supported by indirect measures of felt emotion. Experiences of Moving sadness were strongly associated with high trait empathy and emotional contagion, but not with other previously suggested traits such as absorption or nostalgia-proneness. Relaxing sadness and Nervous sadness were not significantly predicted by any of the individual difference variables. The findings are interpreted within a theoretical framework of embodied emotions.

Crossmodal interactions in the perception of expressivity in musical performance.

In musical performance, bodily gestures play an important role in communicating expressive intentions to audiences. Although previous studies have demonstrated that visual information can have an effect on the perceived expressivity of musical performances, the investigation of audiovisual interactions has been held back by the technical difficulties associated with the generation of controlled, mismatching stimuli.With the present study, we aimed to address this issue by utilizing a novel method in order to generate controlled, balanced stimuli that comprised both matching and mismatching bimodal combinations of different expressive intentions. The aim of Experiment 1 was to investigate the relative contributions of auditory and visual kinematic cues in the perceived expressivity of piano performances, and in Experiment 2 we explored possible crossmodal interactions in the perception of auditory and visual expressivity. The results revealed that although both auditory and visual kinematic cues contribute significantly to the perception of overall expressivity, the effect of visual kinematic cues appears to be somewhat stronger. These results also provide preliminary evidence of crossmodal interactions in the perception of auditory and visual expressivity. In certain performance conditions, visual cues had an effect on the ratings of auditory expressivity, and auditory cues had a small effect on the ratings of visual expressivity.

The role of mood and personality in the perception of emotions represented by music.

Neuroimaging studies investigating the processing of emotions have traditionally considered variance between subjects as statistical noise. However, according to behavioural studies, individual differences in emotional processing appear to be an inherent part of the process itself. Temporary mood states as well as stable personality traits have been shown to influence the processing of emotions, causing trait- and mood-congruent biases. The primary aim of this study was to explore how listeners' personality and mood are reflected in their evaluations of discrete emotions represented by music. A related aim was to investigate the role of personality in music preferences. An experiment was carried out where 67 participants evaluated 50 music excerpts in terms of perceived emotions (anger, fear, happiness, sadness, and tenderness) and preference. Current mood was associated with mood-congruent biases in the evaluation of emotions represented by music, but extraversion moderated the degree of mood-congruence. Personality traits were strongly connected with preference ratings, and the correlations reflected the trait-congruent patterns obtained in prior studies investigating self-referential emotional processing. Implications for future behavioural and neuroimaging studies on music and emotions are raised.