The Efficacy of Music for Emotional Wellbeing During the COVID-19 Lockdown in Spain: An Analysis of Personal and Context-Related Variables

Abstract

The strict lockdown experienced in Spain during March–June 2020 as a consequence of the COVID-19 crisis has led to strong negative emotions. Music can contribute to enhancing wellbeing, but the extent of this effect may be modulated by both personal and context-related variables. This study aimed to analyze the impact of the two types of variables on the perceived efficacy of musical behaviors to fulfill adults’ emotional wellbeing-related goals during the lockdown established in Spain. Personal variables included age, gender, musical training, personality, resilience, and perception of music’s importance. Contextual variables referred to living in a region with a high COVID-19 impact, perception of belonging to a risk group, being alone, having caring responsibilities during confinement, and amount of time of music listening as compared to prior to the crisis. The study was conducted retrospectively during August–December 2020, when the strict lockdown was over in Spain. An online survey was disseminated among the general population and groups of musicians, and the answers of 507 adults (from 18 years on, 73.9% females, 51.3% musically trained adults) were analyzed. Only personal, but not COVID-19 context-related variables, showed an impact on music’s efficacy. The youngest age group of adults and those with musical training reported the highest efficacy of music for wellbeing enhancement, and music’s importance was found to be the main significant predictor of music’s perceived efficacy. Our findings suggest that the people who have been reported to be emotionally more vulnerable during the lockdown, due to either a strong impact on their daily lives or their lower resilience, perceive a higher benefit from musical behaviors. Being musically trained, even for a small number of years, also leads to a perception of higher efficacy of music for the achievement of emotional wellbeing goals. However, this effect is explained by the musically trained individuals’ higher perception of music’s importance. Although musical behaviors can be generally considered as important for wellbeing enhancement, our study highlights who are the potential individuals who could benefit the most from music-related activities for obtaining better levels of wellbeing, at least within the current context of the COVID-19 crisis.

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

“…Importantly, the survey was gathered in the months of July to-October 2020 with some countries experiencing relief after the first lockdown, others still in lockdown, and yet others seeing a rise in cases toward a second lockdown. Therefore, results for specific countries may show patterns that deviate from the overall results presented here (see Martínez-Castilla et al, 2021).…”

Music for hedonia and eudaimonia during pandemic social isolation

“…These effects were, however, fully mediated by the perceived importance of music (Martínez-Castilla et al, 2021), which was significantly higher in younger and musically trained individuals (cf. Granot et al, 2021). Relatedly, Fink et al (2021) found this factor to be amongst the six strongest predictors of pandemic coping with music.…”

“…Survey studies on qualitative motivations for engagement and perceived coping efficacy of music suggest that this was not the case. During the pandemic, music was used for coping by at least half of the general population (Cabedo-Mas et al, 2021;Fink et al, 2021;Kiernan et al, under review;Martínez-Castilla et al, 2021;Sameer et al, 2020). While active music-making activities like singing and dancing were deemed the most effective for coping (along with music listening), they were also the most ceased during lockdown (Kiernan et al, under review).…”

“…Whereas COVID-19-specific, contextual factors had limited influence on the perceived efficacy of musical behaviors for wellbeing enhancement, individual factors-such as employment situation (Cabedo-Mas et al, 2021)-showed stronger moderating effects. In general, younger people and those with higher levels of musical training reported greater efficacy (Henry et al, 2021;Martínez-Castilla et al, 2021). These effects were, however, fully mediated by the perceived importance of music (Martínez-Castilla et al, 2021), which was significantly higher in younger and musically trained individuals (cf.…”

“…One study reported a tendency for the use of music for emotional selfregulation and anxiety reduction to increase with age whereas use of music for loneliness reduction showed the opposite pattern (Martín et al, 2021). Conversely, another survey found that music reduced loneliness with higher efficacy in elderly age groups while also achieving enjoyment with higher efficacy in younger age groups (Granot et al, 2021;Martínez-Castilla et al, 2021).…”