Music and Empathy

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Empathy is the ability to imagine how others are feeling. It allows an individual to share the same emotions observed in another person. Music can nonverbally channel empathy between people. People who demonstrate empathy can better interpret emotions conveyed through music (Tabak, 2022). They tend to be more accurate in understanding what musicians intend to convey through music.

Empathy levels influence people’s preferences for music (Clark 2015). Research has shown that empathy is positively linked to preferences for sad and tender music (R&B/soul, adult contemporary, soft rock genres) and negatively correlated with preferences for intense music (punk, heavy metal, and hard rock genres).

Evidence has shown that highly emphatic people experience more intense sadness after listening to sad instrumental music (Clarke 2015). Highly empathic people also find listening to music more pleasurable than people low in empathy. This evidence suggests the possibility that empathy can be cultivated via music. Music with emotional depth may increase empathy, whereas music with more strong and tense features may decrease it.

Even listening to music could help us be more empathic toward others. For instance, listening to love songs enhances our romantic feelings, and marching bands intensify our feelings for the home team.

For some people, music can represent a virtual person with whom to empathize. For example, we listen to sad music when we feel sad. We experience the music as empathizing with our feelings and making us feel less alone.

Evidence has also shown that long-term musical training (rhythmic coordination) has a positive influence on children’s empathy and social competence. For instance, musically trained children tend to be more sensitive to emotions expressed in music, and adults with professional musical training have heightened sensitivity to emotions in speech compared to non-musicians (Juslin 2019).

The social hormone oxytocin plays a role in facilitating empathy. Music triggers the hormones oxytocin and serotonin, responsible for bonding, trust, and intimacy. Sharing rhythmic behaviors such as singing, dancing, chanting, smiling to a smile, or talking together can increase social bonding.

The power of music to arouse brain oxytocin was at the center of the 2004 film entitled The Story of Weeping Camel. In the movie about a family of nomads in Mongolia, one camel had just given birth, but with great difficulty. Consequently, the mother camel showed little interest in her baby and refused to let it nurse. Tradition holds that the playing of the violin can motivate a camel and reunite her with her calf. This is exactly what the family did. They brought a musician to the village and played for the mother and baby camels. After a while the mother camel began to weep and gradually moved closer to her baby, in the end allowing it to suckle.

In sum, empathy is the capacity to share what someone else is feeling, resulting in compassionate behavior. Even if empathy doesn’t come naturally, research suggests people can cultivate it. Music has some special power to motivate our empathy and help us connect with others. Listening to music that contains reflective, thoughtful, and gentle attributes may increase empathy and improve reflective functioning. In fact, a possible evolutionary benefit of music is to improve group cohesion. Singing in choruses and sharing rhythms and melodies could have brought people together, whether as a community or in preparation for a battle.