Music May Reduce Loneliness and Act as Social Surrogate for a Friend: Evidence from an Experimental Listening Study

Abstract

After losing a close other, individuals usually confide in an empathic friend to receive comfort and they seem to have a heightened desire for mood-congruent, consoling music. Hence, it has been proposed that affect-congruent music acts as a social surrogate for an empathic friend. Thus, we hypothesized that listening to comforting music, as a response to a social loss experience, provides a sense of empathic company as indicated by reduced loneliness and heightened empathy. We further predicted that distracting music would have a stronger impact on the listeners’ mood in comparison to comforting pieces. To test these assumptions, an experiment with two factors was designed: (1) Sadness was induced by an approved guided imagery method where participants visualized either their father dying (social loss), losing their eyesight (non-social loss), or shopping for groceries (control condition). (2) After the mood induction, the listening task included either comforting or distracting music that participants selected themselves. Psychometric measures for mood and loneliness were collected before and after the mood induction and after the music listening. The data were analyzed with mixed model ANOVAs. The results showed a significant reduction of loneliness and a relevant rise in empathy and mood due to listening to self-selected music, irrespective of the listener’s mood or the applied listening strategy, which suggests that private musical engagement in general can provide mood-repair and a sense of connection. This beneficial effect of private musical engagement supports the notion that not only music production but also its perception engenders social cognition. Overall, the findings corroborate the idea of music as a social surrogate.

Singing Together, Yet Apart: The Experience of UK Choir Members and Facilitators During the Covid-19 Pandemic

“…Listening to music has been found to provide a social surrogate, providing a sense of belonging and comfort different to that associated with characters in other forms of social surrogate such as literary or TV characters ( Schäfer and Eerola, 2017 ). The focus on creation of music through singing together, rather than passive listening, makes direct comparison with such literature premature, although social surrogacy may be at play for those finding comfort in the final products of the multi-track choir, similar to the reduction in loneliness observed by Schäfer et al (2020) for private musical engagement. Whilst most members reported enjoying the final product of the multi-track model, some expressly did not at all and it may not have been an uplifting experience for all.…”

Music Listening Predicted Improved Life Satisfaction in University Students During Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Despite being unable to establish causation from our findings, it is possible that music listening might be an adaptive coping strategy during times of social isolation. It is interesting to consider this in light of recent work highlighting how listening to music may reduce loneliness and act as a social surrogate ( Krause, 2020 ; Schaäfer and Eerola, 2020 ; Schaäfer et al, 2020 ). While individuals seek comfort and company by engaging in both music listening and TV watching, music listening evokes memories and is used to temporarily satisfy needs for social relatedness ( Schaäfer and Eerola, 2020 ).…”

Music Listening as a Strategy for Managing COVID-19 Stress in First-Year University Students

“…At the time of data collection, Australia was experiencing Government mandated social distancing policies and stay-at-home restrictions that limited physical social contact. Subsequently, music listening may have provided listeners with a way to feel connected with others by acting as a social surrogate and also providing feelings of solace or consolation (Hanser et al, 2016 ; Schäfer and Eerola, 2020 ; Schäfer et al, 2020 ).…”

“…What was clear was that well-being in the present sample was lower than established norms in the earlier UK sample (Ng Fat et al, 2017 ), highlighting the impact of COVID-19 on well-being. In addition, when considering the trend toward coping songs being moderate in arousal and negatively valenced, future research may wish to explore how this varies with BRECVEMA mechanisms (Juslin, 2013 ), mechanisms by which music is being used to find social support or surrogacy (Hanser et al, 2016 ; Schäfer and Eerola, 2020 ; Schäfer et al, 2020 ), and how music use may be hedonic or eudaimonic in the stressful context of COVID-19 (Eden et al, 2020 ). This line of research would be particularly useful in considering how individuals can best curate their listening not only in the context of the current pandemic and associated social distancing but also more generally for times of increased stress and limited social context.…”