The ice-breaker effect: singing mediates fast social bonding

Abstract

It has been proposed that singing evolved to facilitate social cohesion. However, it remains unclear whether bonding arises out of properties intrinsic to singing or whether any social engagement can have a similar effect. Furthermore, previous research has used one-off singing sessions without exploring the emergence of social bonding over time. In this semi-naturalistic study, we followed newly formed singing and non-singing (crafts or creative writing) adult education classes over seven months. Participants rated their closeness to their group and their affect, and were given a proxy measure of endorphin release, before and after their class, at three timepoints (months 1, 3 and 7). We show that although singers and non-singers felt equally connected by timepoint 3, singers experienced much faster bonding: singers demonstrated a significantly greater increase in closeness at timepoint 1, but the more gradual increase shown by non-singers caught up over time. This represents the first evidence for an ‘ice-breaker effect’ of singing in promoting fast cohesion between unfamiliar individuals, which bypasses the need for personal knowledge of group members gained through prolonged interaction. We argue that singing may have evolved to quickly bond large human groups of relative strangers, potentially through encouraging willingness to coordinate by enhancing positive affect.

Is Group Singing Special? Health, Well‐Being and Social Bonds in Community‐Based Adult Education Classes

“…Collective-bonding to the group-Connectedness to the class group as a whole was measured before class using a modified version of the pictorial Inclusion of Other in Self (IOS) scale (Aron, Aron, & Smollan, 1992), as reported in Pearce et al (2015). Participants were instructed to 'circle the diagram that best describes your current relationship to your WEA class group as a whole'.…”

“…Future research could productively examine whether different activities lead to the same level of collective-bonding along different trajectories (cf. Pearce et al, 2015). Whatever the mechanisms, previous findings that participation in community-based adult education as a whole is associated with higher levels of well-being is supported by the current results (Jenkins & Mostafa, 2014 The fact that Flourishing, logGAD7 and Physical Health scores at timepoint 3 were only related to the extent of collective-bonding (IOS), and not the strength of relational-bonding to individual classmates, suggested that feeling part of a wider social group may be a particularly powerful way of promoting health and well-being, corroborating previous work , though note that Haslam et al compared relational bonds with close friends and family to engagement with wider groups, rather than collective and relationalbonding within the context of those wider groups as we did here).…”

Breaking Bread: the Functions of Social Eating

“…There is now considerable evidence, for example, to suggest that the size and quality of one's social network has very significant consequences for one's health, susceptibility to illness (and even death), wellbeing and happiness (Holtzman et al 2004;Min et al 2007;Rodriguez-Laso et al 2007;Fowler and Christakis 2008;Dominguez and Arford 2010;Pinquart and Duberstein 2010;Holt-Lunstad et al 2010;Liu and Newschaffer 2011;Chou et al 2012;Tilvis et al 2012;Oesch and Dunbar 2015). We also know that activities such as laughter, singing and dancing all lead to an enhanced sense of bonding towards those with whom one does these activities Pearce et al 2015;Tarr et al 2015Tarr et al , 2016Manninen et al, submitted), mainly because they trigger the endorphin system in the brain that underpins primate social bonding (Panksepp et al 1997;Curley and Keverne 2005;Dunbar 2010;Machin and Dunbar 2011). Since endorphins are involved in the control of feeding (Bakshi and Kelley 1993;Zhang and Kelley 2000;DiFeliceantonio et al 2012), the very fact of eating might itself trigger the endorphin system and promote bonding, and doing so socially may lead to the same kind of enhanced endorphin effects from behavioural synchrony that have been noted in physical exercise (Cohen et al 2010).…”

Group size, vocal grooming and the origins of language

“…Importantly, singing triggers the same endorphin mechanism as grooming and laughter, and at the same time increases the sense of belonging or social bonding (Pearce et al, 2015Weinstein et al, 2016). It thus contributes directly to the same bonding process as laughter and grooming.…”