Children with High Perspective-Taking Ability Prefer Sad Music

Ai Kawakami (amour.kawakami@gmail.com)

Brain Science Institute, 6-1-1 Tamagawa-gakuen, Machida, 194-0041, JAPAN

Kenji Katahira (k.katahira@kwansei.ac.jp)

School of Science and Technology, 2-1 Gakuen Sanda, 669-1337, JAPAN

Minoru Asada ([email protected]-u.ac.jp)

Graduate School of Engineering, 2-1 Yamadaoka, Suita, 565-0871, JAPAN

Abstract

Why do we listen to sad music? One reason could be that it

generates pleasant emotions as well as sadness. Accordingly,

it is necessary to determine what kind of person experiences

pleasant affect by listening to sad music. In the current study,

we focused on empathy as a personal trait and examined the

relationship between trait empathy and emotional response,

including liking for the sad music. We targeted children

because we considered that this age group is appropriate to

highlight individual differences in empathy. Our findings

indicated that perspective-taking ability, a sub-component of

trait empathy, was correlated with emotional responses to the

sad music. In addition, children who experienced pleasant

emotions preferred sad music.

Keywords: sad music; empathy; pleasant emotion; liking sad

music; perspective-taking ability; Grade 6 elementary school

children

Introduction

 Among the many current definitions of empathy, a

common casual definition of empathy is “sharing the

perceived emotion of another” (Eisenberg & Strayer, 1987).

This kind of empathy was first introduced by Lipps (1903;

1905) and this is typically considered the origin of the term

(Wispé, 1987). Of note, however, is that Lipps did not

initially include the interpersonal context in his use of the

term. In fact, the concept that he adopted was “einfühlung,”

which evolved from German aesthetics, and was used to

discuss aesthetic cognition. It is, therefore, surprising that,

in contrast, the modern usage of the concept of empathy is

nearly always reserved for interpersonal contexts.

Additionally, the original concept of einfühlung emerged

from the study of aesthetics, rather than the field of social

human interaction.

 The German word einfühlung literally translates as “feel

into” in English, and is derived from the verb meaning “to

feel oneself in something” (Lee, 1913). According to Wind

(1963), the term einfühlung was initially used by Vischer in

1873. Vischer considered that one must project oneself into

the object to appreciate its aesthetics. Subsequently, the idea

of einfühlung spread widely throughout aesthetics research

by the late nineteenth century (Wispé, 1987). During this

time, Lipps (1897) and Wundt (1903) both adopted

einfühlung into their respective psychological terminologies

and furthered its usage in this context (Lee, 1913).

 Lipps applied the idea of einfühlung to the aesthetics of

visual form (Currie, 2011). For Lipps, einfühlung meant that

projecting oneself into a perceived object is the only way in

which one may appreciate certain aesthetical aspects of that

object (Wispé, 1987). Although today we do not consider

empathy to be a way in which we understand inanimate

objects, discussion of empathy in the context of non-human

objects would have been natural at that time (Currie, 2011).

Later, Lipps (1905) extended his usage of einfühlung

beyond aesthetic appreciation to explain how a person

understands the consciousness of others. Thus, the target of

einfühlung expanded from aesthetic objects to people

(Chismar, 1988). Titchener (1909) borrowed Lipps’s notion

of einfühlung, and translated it as “empathy” via the Greek

word “empatheia,” which means either “in suffering” or “in

passion” (en + pathos). This was the first usage of the term

“empathy.” Subsequently, the concept of empathy was

borrowed by many personality theorists during the 1930s

and by psychotherapists during the 1950s. At present, social

and developmental psychologists use empathy to explain

altruistic behavior (Wispé, 1987).

 Considering the way in which the term “empathy”

emerged, we predicted that empathic ability would be

associated with aesthetic emotional experience. This

suggests that emotion in art, not just in interpersonal

contexts, should be examined from the perspective of

empathic ability. In line with this, Garrido and Schubert

(2011), and Vuoskoski, Thompson, Mcilwain, and Eerola

(2012) showed that in adults, there was a positive

correlation between trait levels of empathic concern and the

degree to which they liked sad music. One of the reasons

that people like sad music could be a pleasure that is

induced by sad music. In fact, sad music provokes pleasant

emotions as well as sadness in listeners (Kawakami, 2013;

Kawakami et al., 2013a; Kawakami et al., 2013b;

Kawakami et al., 2014). However it has been unclear what

kind of person experiences pleasant affect by listening to the

sad music. So to speak, the relationship between trait

empathy and pleasant emotion generated by the sad music

remains unknown.

The concept of empathy also includes cognitive aspects

(Borke, 1971, 1973; Buckley, Siegel, & Ness, 1979;

Deutsch & Madle, 1975; Greenspan, Barenboim, &

Chandler, 1976). Therefore, in line with Hoffman’s (1987)

suggested relationship between the development and

properties of empathy, the ability to be empathetic would be

transformed depending on the degree of development of

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cognitive ability. Childhood represents the developmental

stage during which empathy emerges; we therefore

predicted that studying this age group would highlight

individual differences in empathy and allow us to examine

its influence.

 Hence, we examined whether the trait of empathy was

positively related to pleasant emotion as well as liking for

sad music in children. If there was such a relationship, we

aimed to clarify that what kind of trait empathy contributes

to pleasure and liking for sad music. In particular, we

examined the mediation effect of the emotional responses

linking trait empathy to liking for sad music. Our

hypothetical model suggests that sub-components of trait

empathy were differently associated with varying emotional

responses to sad music, and indirectly affect liking for such

music. We conducted an experiment in which participants’

emotional responses to sad music and trait empathy were

subjectively assessed.

Method

Participants

Participants were 42 female children and 43 male

children who were enrolled in Grade 6 at an elementary

school in Japan. The mean age of the participants was 11.9

years (SD = 0.32).

Materials

Musical Stimuli. Excerpts from the following two

musical pieces were used: (1) Glinka’s La Separation (F

minor), played at quarter note = 80; and (2) Granados’s

Allegro de Concierto (G minor), played at quarter note = 70.

We also used these pieces in an earlier study (Kawakami et

al., 2013b).

The sound level of the music excerpts ranged from

58.4dB (C) to 72.5 dB (C) for Allegro de Concierto (G

minor), and from 46.5 dB (C) to 70.5 dB (C) for La

Separation (F minor). Both music excerpts lasted

approximately 30 s.

Interpersonal Reactivity Index Scale. The modified

Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) for use with children,

developed by Hasegawa et al. (2009), was used to measure

the participants’ trait empathy. Hasegawa et al. (2009)

translated Davis’s (1980) original IRI into Japanese and

modified it so that children could understand and answer the

items. Since Hasegawa et al. (2009) recommended that this

scale be used with children older than Grade 4, the Grade 6

students who participated in our research were considered

mature enough to answer the scale. The modified IRI scale

for children contains 30 items, representing four sub-

components of trait empathy (Empathic Concern (EC):

seven items; Perspective Taking (PT): nine items; Personal

Distress (PD): seven items; and Fantasy (FS): seven items).

According to Davis (1980; 1983), EC assesses other-

oriented feelings of sympathy and concern for unfortunate

others, PT assesses the tendency to spontaneously adopt the

psychological point of view of others, PD measures self-

oriented feelings of personal anxiety and unease in tense

interpersonal settings, and FS taps respondents’ tendencies

to transpose themselves imaginatively into the feelings and

actions of fictitious characters in books, movies, and plays.

Emotional State Scale. This is a self-report scale

consisting of 50 emotion-related descriptive words and

phrases that are rated on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all)

to 5 (very much). After listening to each musical stimulus,

children were asked to rate their emotional state using this

scale. The descriptive words and phrases were almost the

same as the ones we used in a previous study (Kawakami et

al., 2013b), with some alterations because the participants in

the present study were children. Before creating the

questionnaire, we consulted a music teacher at an

elementary school to ensure that children could understand

and answer the words and phrases.

Procedure

The experiments were conducted in a music class at the

elementary school. The children listened to music coming

from a pair of speakers and engaged in two kinds of tasks.

First, the participants were asked to report their own

emotional state (including their liking for the music) after

listening to each music stimulus, on a scale of 1 (not at all)

to 5 (very much). Before rating their emotional states in the

formal experiment, children completed two practice sessions.

For the practice trials, we used two short excerpts of music

(approximately 15 s) that were different from the music

stimuli used in the rating task. On the basis of the music

teacher’s advice, we did not distribute the emotional state

questionnaire until after we had played the music, so that the

children could focus on the music. After all of the students

had answered the questionnaire for the first music stimulus,

we collected the questionnaire papers and then played the

next music stimulus.

After the rating task was completed, participants

answered the IRI. We explained to the children that these

questionnaires were not associated with their academic

results, and that there was no correct answer. We did not ask

the children to write their name on their questionnaires

because we wanted to obtain honest answers. Though

children did not write their names on both emotional state

and IRI questionnaires, we numbered the questionnaires and

children sat on the same seat throughout the study; therefore,

we could match the two questionnaires.

Statistical Analysis

 First, the relationship between trait empathy and liking

for sad music was examined. In addition, in consideration of

the correlations among IRI sub-components, partial

correlations with liking for sad music were investigated for

each sub-component. Second, a factor analysis was

performed on the data from the emotional state scale to

determine possible factors underlying participants’

600

emotional responses to the music stimuli. The relationships

among the identified factors and the study variables were

examined. All of the above statistical analyses were

completed using IBM SPSS Version 22. Finally, path

analyses were conducted to evaluate the model proposed in

the present study and to test the hypothesis that sub-

components of trait empathy influence liking for sad music

through emotional responses to music. The path analyses

were performed using IBM AMOS Version 22 with

maximum likelihood estimation. Model solutions were

assessed using the following fit indices: chi-square, adjusted

goodness of fit index (AGFI), comparative fit index (CFI),

and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA).

Results

Influence of Empathy on Liking for Sad Music

Correlation analyses were performed to investigate the

influence of trait empathy on liking for sad music.

Participants’ global empathy scores were calculated by

averaging the ratings of all IRI items. The scores for the

sub-components of trait empathy were calculated as

averaged ratings of items representing each sub-component.

Liking assessments for the two music excerpts were

averaged for each participant to obtain an overall liking

score.

Global empathy and two sub-components of trait

empathy (PT and FS) demonstrated significant correlations

with liking for sad music (Table 1). Further, there were

correlations among some of the sub-components of trait

empathy. Therefore, partial correlation analyses were

performed to assess the association between each sub-

component and liking for sad music, controlling for the

effects of the other sub-components (Table 2). There was no

significant association between any sub-component of trait

empathy and liking for sad music.

Table 1: Correlations among Variables.

Liking

Global

Liking

−

.20

−

-.04

.21

−

.26

.79

.11

−

.25

.48

.30

.66

−

Global

.23

−

*= p < .05, ** = p < .01

Table 2: Partial Correlation Coefficients among Empathy

Sub-Components and Liking for Sad Music.

Liking

.04

-.11

.04

.14

Emotional Responses to Music

 Factor analysis, using the principal factor method with

promax rotation, was performed on the responses of the 85

participants to the two musical stimuli (N = 170 responses)

to identify the underlying structure of the 50 items of the

emotional state scale. A three-factor solution explaining

53.95% of the total variance was revealed.

 The 50 emotion-related descriptive words and phrases

with their corresponding factor loadings are reported in

Table 3. Twenty-seven words and phrases, such as tender,

fascinated, and peaceful, were included in Factor 1, “Sweet

Emotion.” Ten other words and phrases, such as sad, lonely,

and gloomy, were included in Factor 2, “Tragic Emotion.”

In the third factor, “Heightened Emotion,” there were eight

words and phrases, such as panache, restless, and strong.

Model Testing

 Path analyses were performed to test the proposed

relationship between trait empathy and liking for sad music.

The model showed that the indirect effects of the sub-

components of trait empathy on liking for sad music were

mediated by the emotional response to music.

 Figure 1 shows the final model including standardized

regression weights. The fit indices were as follows: the chi-

square value was not significant, indicating that the

modified model was consistent with the data, and the AGFI

(.905), CFI (1.000) and RMSEA (.000) were also acceptable.

 Path analysis indicated that some sub-components of trait

empathy were associated with emotional responses to the

music stimuli, which were then associated with liking for

sad music. Regarding the relationships among the sub-

components of trait empathy and emotional responses, only

PT demonstrated an effect on emotional responses, in that it

was positively associated with all three emotional response

factors. Additionally, sweet emotion and heightened

emotion were positively associated with liking for sad music.

Though non-significant, the positive effect of PD on tragic

emotion and the negative effect of FS on sweet emotion

contributed to the amount of variance explained within the

model.

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Table 3: Factor Analysis of Emotional Responses to

Music.

Emotion-related items

Factor1

Factor2

Factor3

Tender

.944

.019

-.211

Fascinated

.941

.056

-.176

Peaceful

.939

.054

-.299

Serene

.925

.039

-.169

Feel easy

.904

.143

-.224

Relaxed

.883

.077

-.104

Tranquil

.852

.042

.017

Heartwarming

.810

-.051

.071

Warm feeling

.794

-.090

.038

Dreamy

.777

.030

.120

Familiar ease

.772

.196

-.008

State of lightness

.740

-.091

.010

Refreshing

.705

-.172

.131

Nostalgic

.704

.064

-.158

Happy

.697

-.175

.172

Soothed

.687

.235

.010

Generous

.666

.189

-.016

Gorgeous

.658

-.076

.018

Animated

.648

.106

.240

Shining

.647

-.023

.297

Joyful

.635

-.196

.274

Amused

.597

-.207

.280

Cheerful

.566

-.253

.283

Blithe

.540

-.061

.231

Yearning

.534

.155

.239

Feel like dancing

.533

.030

.137

Lively

.473

-.231

.423

Sad

.075

.840

-.192

Lonely

.203

.784

-.197

Gloomy

.033

.703

.117

Cold

.060

.697

.200

Disconsolate

-.231

.686

.009

Fear

-.244

.674

.283

Weird feeling

-.160

.674

.318

Heavy

-.129

.654

.181

Weak

.069

.636

-.051

Fearful

-.188

.584

.315

Panache

-.017

-.059

.670

Restless

-.262

.277

.663

Strong

.190

.087

.582

Bouncy

.463

-.137

.489

Filled with wonder

.083

.285

.461

Leap

.027

.393

.455

Lofty

.278

.192

.439

Jocular

.167

.351

.364

Correlations among factors

Factor1

Factor2

Factor3

Factor 1

-.189

.411

Factor2

.052

Factor3

Figure 1: Path analysis of the modified model.

With the exception of R

values, all values are

standardized regression weights. Dashed lines indicate non-

significant associations.

Discussion

Influence of Trait Empathy on Liking for Sad

Music

 Previous studies found that trait empathy was associated

with liking for sad music. For example, Garrido and

Schubert (2011) showed a correlation between EC and

liking for sad music. Vuoskoski et al. (2012) suggested that

the degree of liking for sad music was correlated with EC,

FS, and global empathy. In line with previous studies, we

found that liking for sad music was significantly correlated

with global empathy (r(85) = .23, p < .05) but its

relationship with EC was only marginally significant (r(85)

= .20, p = .067). Furthermore, liking for sad music was

significantly correlated with both FS (r(85) = .25, p < .05)

and PT (r(85) = .26, p < .05). Previous research did not find

an association between PT and liking for sad music. The age

of the present sample might have affected the results.

Notably, participants in the experiments of both Garrido and

Schubert (2011) and Vuoskoski et al. (2012) were adults,

while ours were Grade 6 elementary school children. The

difference in age might account for the differences that

emerged in how trait empathy is correlated with liking for

sad music.

The Model of Trait Empathy and Liking for Sad

Music through Emotional Responses to Music

 Path analysis of the modified model showed that the

indirect effects of the sub-components of trait empathy on

liking for sad music were mediated by the emotional

response to music. That is, we clarified that PT affected

liking for sad music indirectly, mediated by one’s emotional

response to the music (Figure 1). Our findings demonstrated

that children with high perspective-taking ability tended to

experience ambivalent emotions, such as a combination of

sweet and tragic emotions, as well as heightened emotions.

602

In addition, particularly pleasant emotions like sweet and

heightened emotions contributed to a preference for sad

music (Figure 1).

 The effect of PT on emotional responses to sad music is a

new finding obtained in the present study. According to

Eisenberg et al. (1991), when participants watched a film

that induced sympathy and focused on emotional content,

PT was positively correlated with vicarious emotional

reactions. If PT is a prerequisite or promotional factor of

vicarious emotions, emotional responses in this study were

also strengthened by perspective-taking ability.

Acknowledgments

We thank the elementary school that allowed us to

conduct our research with their students. We also

acknowledge the considerable assistance provided by Ms.

Endo, music teacher, and Ms. Oshimura and Ms. Maeda,

coordinators at the elementary school. This work was

supported by JSPS KAKENHI under grant numbers

26540149 (Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory

Research) and 24000012 (Grant-in-Aid for Specially

Promoted Research).

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