Music strengthens prosocial effects of interpersonal synchronization – If you move in time with the beat

Stupacher, Jan; Maes, Pieter-Jan; Witte, Matthias; Wood, Guilherme

doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2017.04.007

Cited by 56 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…As perception-action links are considered crucial for self-other overlaps, social understanding, and empathy [33][34][35][36] , interpersonal synchrony of movements might facilitate the ability to put oneself in another's shoes -on a simulated motor level and on an affective empathic level 35,37 . Furthermore, in line with Stupacher and colleagues 14 , our findings demonstrate that active movement is not a prerequisite for social evaluations of interpersonal synchronization, suggesting that the perception-action links relevant for social understanding are also utilized when watching or imagining a social situation. How do these evaluations of interpersonal movement interactions change in social contexts with more and less enjoyed and more and less familiar music?…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

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

Stupacher

Witek

Vuoskoski

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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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. Social bonds have long been associated with enhanced mental and physical health and well-being 1. How well we connect with another person depends, among others, on our cultural background, individual preferences, and the context of a given situation. Music provides a unique social context by introducing temporal and affective frameworks, which increase behavioural synchrony and emotional harmony. Individuals collectively synchronize their movements with rhythmical features of the music on a temporal scale down to milliseconds. This type of temporal framework provides a shared understanding of a group's behaviour by increasing the predictability of others' movements, for example in dance. In addition, by listening to the same music, people share common contextual information and establish joint attention, ultimately building up a collective affective experience driven by cooperation and affiliation. Following Phillips-Silver and Keller 2 , we refer to the synchronization of movements as temporal social entrainment and to the sharing of emotional experiences as affective social entrainment. Temporal social entrainment is observable in the tendency to synchronize movements and behaviour in everyday interactions such as walking 3,4 , chair rocking 5 , and joke telling 6. These and other expressions of interpersonal movement synchronization have been shown to promote affective social entrainment in form of affiliation, cooperation, and altruistic behaviour 7-11. The prosocial effects of temporal entrainment seem to be particularly strong when moving together with music 12-15 , suggesting that music adds a powerful social context to interpersonal interactions....

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…However, detailed information about how an individual's familiarity with and enjoyment of specific types of music are related to social entrainment is scarce. Figure 1 provides an overview of the design of Studies 1-3, which used a social entrainment video paradigm similar to Stupacher and colleagues 14 . In the videos, two figures were walking side by side.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Stupacher

Witek

Vuoskoski

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

Self Cite

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“…There is still much to understand, notably concerning the mechanisms at play and the higher cognitive processes linked to behavioral synchronization at an interspecific level between dogs and humans. In humans, nonconscious behavioral synchronization is thought to be a prerequisite for empathy and prosociality (Asendorpf, Warkentin, & Baudonnière, 1996;Kirschner & Tomasello, 2010;Mogan, Fischer, & Bulbulia, 2017;Stupacher, Maes, Witte, & Wood, 2017;Valdesolo, Ouyang, & DeSteno, 2010;Xavier, Tilmont, & Bonnot, 2013), but is the same true for synchronization between dogs and humans? If dogs exhibit behavioral synchronization with us, will they also exhibit prosociality and empathy toward us?…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavioral synchronization and affiliation: Dogs exhibit human-like skills

Duranton

Gaunet

2018

Learn Behav

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Behavioral synchronization is evolutionary adaptive, fostering social cohesion. In humans, affiliation between partners is associated with a high level of behavioral synchronization; people show increased affiliation towards people who synchronize with them. Surprisingly, until recently, little was known about these phenomena at an interspecific level, which is, however, essential to better understand the respective roles of evolution and ontogeny. After presenting why dog-human dyads are a relevant biological model to study this field of social cognition, we review the recent findings about dog-human behavioral synchronization. We summarize recently published findings on behavioral synchronization and affiliation between dogs and humans. We also review results showing that genetic selection modulates behavioral synchronization propensity in dogs, emphasizing the role of genetic selection on dog's social behaviors towards humans. Finally, we discuss the possible evolutionary influences and proximate mechanisms of this phenomenon. We conclude that, as in humans, behavioral synchronization acts as a social glue between dogs and humans. After dogs' ability to use human-directional cues or to produce referential cues towards humans, we evidenced a new human-like social process in the dog, at the interspecfic level with humans.

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“…This adaptive process allows a perceiver to abstract the beat from, and synchronize with, various signals including isochronous (evenly-spaced) metronomes, tempo-varying metronomes (Large, Fink, & Kelso, 2002 ), simple and complex rhythms (Nozaradan, Peretz, & Mouraux, 2012 ), dynamic speech (Schultz et al, 2016) and rich musical sequences (Large, 2000 ). Moreover, there is evidence that humans spontaneously move to the beat of music and in synchrony with others, suggesting that synchronizing with music and with co-performers may play a role in social cohesion (Bolt, Poncelet, Schultz, & Loehr, 2016 ; Demos, Chaffin, Begosh, Daniels, & Marsh, 2012 ; Hove & Risen, 2009 ; Janata, Tomic, & Haberman, 2012 ; Stupacher, Maes, Witte, & Wood, 2017 ). This phenomenon is called spontaneous synchronization and can occur either intentionally (e.g., Bolt et al, 2016 ) or unintentionally (e.g., Demos et al, 2012 ).…”

Section: The Role Of Musical Expertise and Sensory Feedback In Beat Kmentioning

confidence: 99%

The roles of musical expertise and sensory feedback in beat keeping and joint action

Schultz

Palmer

2019

Psychological Research

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Auditory feedback of actions provides additional information about the timing of one’s own actions and those of others. However, little is known about how musicians and nonmusicians integrate auditory feedback from multiple sources to regulate their own timing or to (intentionally or unintentionally) coordinate with a partner. We examined how musical expertise modulates the role of auditory feedback in a two-person synchronization–continuation tapping task. Pairs of individuals were instructed to tap at a rate indicated by an initial metronome cue in all four auditory feedback conditions: no feedback, self-feedback (cannot hear their partner), other feedback (cannot hear themselves), or full feedback (both self and other). Participants within a pair were either both musically trained (musicians), both untrained (nonmusicians), or one musically trained and one untrained (mixed). Results demonstrated that all three pair types spontaneously synchronized with their partner when receiving other or full feedback. Moreover, all pair types were better at maintaining the metronome rate with self-feedback than with no feedback. Musician pairs better maintained the metronome rate when receiving other feedback than when receiving no feedback; in contrast, nonmusician pairs were worse when receiving other or full feedback compared to no feedback. Both members of mixed pairs maintained the metronome rate better in the other and full feedback conditions than in the no feedback condition, similar to musician pairs. Overall, nonmusicians benefited from musicians’ expertise without negatively influencing musicians’ ability to maintain the tapping rate. One implication is that nonmusicians may improve their beat-keeping abilities by performing tasks with musically skilled individuals.

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Music strengthens prosocial effects of interpersonal synchronization – If you move in time with the beat

Cited by 56 publications

References 25 publications

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

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

Behavioral synchronization and affiliation: Dogs exhibit human-like skills

The roles of musical expertise and sensory feedback in beat keeping and joint action

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