Access-Awareness-Agency (AAA) Model of Music-Based Social-Emotional Competence (MuSEC)

Abstract

Social-emotional competence (SEC) is a set of psychological resources, highly relevant for adaptive growth and wellbeing. Music has been argued to support social-emotional skills, yet there is little theoretical consensus about the underlying impact mechanisms and the special nature of music as a medium for SEC. This article presents a theoretical model of music-based SEC that combines research from general SEC models with music-specific literature from music psychology, music education, music therapy, and music for health and wellbeing. The proposed access-awareness-agency (AAA) model defines music-based social-emotional competence (MuSEC) as interplay of embodied access, reflective awareness, and sense of agency. These three components are defined as the core competencies that music in particular facilitates; competencies that underlie and explain further competence in behaviors ranging from affective self-regulation to social interaction. The article elaborates these MuSEC components and their potential connections to particular equivalents in general SEC and proposes hypotheses for empirically testing the model. The model offers a novel, integrative SEC-based perspective for advancing theoretical coherence in the growing field of music as social-emotional wellbeing and growth.

Music Listening for Supporting Adolescents’ Sense of Agency in Daily Life

“…According to the authors, the factor power reflects healthfostering experiences and is closely related to the sense of agency given the self-determination and control it implies. The observed relatedness of agency increase with valence increase is a noteworthy addition to the broader literature on music and wellbeing, proposing that agency and mood regulation may serve as dialogical determinants for adaptive and health-fostering music engagement (Saarikallio, 2019a).…”

“…Sense of agency has been identified as a defining element in music usages and their role on social-emotional health (Saarikallio, 2017(Saarikallio, , 2019aSaarikallio and Baltazar, 2018). In the conceptual model of health-relevant competencies in music, Saarikallio (2017Saarikallio ( , 2019a argues that engaging in musical behaviors can foster emotional health when the emotions expressed, evoked, and regulated through music are surrounded by (a) self-reflective awareness and (b) sense of self-control and agency.…”

“…Sense of agency has been identified as a defining element in music usages and their role on social-emotional health (Saarikallio, 2017(Saarikallio, , 2019aSaarikallio and Baltazar, 2018). In the conceptual model of health-relevant competencies in music, Saarikallio (2017Saarikallio ( , 2019a argues that engaging in musical behaviors can foster emotional health when the emotions expressed, evoked, and regulated through music are surrounded by (a) self-reflective awareness and (b) sense of self-control and agency. Concerning musical self-enhancement, Elvers (2016) proposed a framework according to which there are three main musical experiences bolstering positive self-evaluations: induction of empathy (through identification with the music, self/other merging, and self-confirmation), promotion of social cohesion (through rhythmic entrainment and reinforcement of a cultural worldview and sense of social belonging), and pleasure (through the induction of positive affect, default mode networkactivation, and self-referential emotions).…”

Come on Baby, Light My Fire: Sparking Further Research in Socio-Affective Mechanisms of Music Using Computational Advancements

“…Socio-affective behavior is entangled in our experience of music (Devroop, 2012 ; Koelsch, 2014 ; Aucouturier and Canonne, 2017 ; Saarikallio, 2019 ). Joint musical engagement, or making and listening to music with others, was found to result in increased prosocial tendencies (Kirschner and Tomasello, 2010 ; Rabinowitch et al, 2013 ; Cirelli et al, 2014 ) and is thought to occur due to overlapping mechanisms underpinning interactive musical behavior and empathically driven prosocial behaviors (Rabinowitch et al, 2012 ; Clarke et al, 2015 ; Saarikallio, 2019 ). In this paper, we present opportunities for experimental investigation of emotional contagion, a specific subprocess hypothesized to lie at this overlap, and highlight ways to improve understanding of how joint musical engagement may promote prosocial behaviors.…”

“…In this sense, affective alignment may contribute to higher-level processes of musical interaction such as shared intentionality by ensuring that members are working toward a common musical goal in real time and have “coordinated action roles for pursuing that shared goal” (Tomasello et al, 2005 , p. 680) through upregulating constituent socio-affective behaviors (e.g., other-directed behaviors) that help individuals ascertain their interlocutor's internal state and align their behavior accordingly (Cross et al, 2012 ). Joint music-making's positive influence on socio-affective behaviors in non-musical contexts suggests that psychosocial processes underpinning musical interaction may overlap with those involved in non-musical interaction, and that co-activation of these overlapping structures may result in prosocial transfer effects (Kirschner and Tomasello, 2010 ; Cross et al, 2012 ; Saarikallio, 2019 ).…”