Researchers looking at group education sessions for 8 to 11 year old children have shown that engaging in regular music-based activities with others \u2013 from ensembles to simple rhythmic exercises \u2013 can conspicuously advance empathy development, increasing a child\u2019s capacity to recognise and consider the emotions of others<\/strong>.<\/p>\n A total of 52 children \u2013 boys and girls \u2013 were split into three groups at random. One of these groups met on a weekly basis to interact through musical games devised by the researchers, while the other two acted as control groups \u2013 one met with the same regularity but activities focused on words and drama but not music, the other received no additional activities.<\/p>\n Using standard and novel techniques such as answering questions designed to test compassion, and responding to emotion in facial expressions and movies, each child\u2019s level of emotional empathy was evaluated at the start of the study and then again after a year. The researchers found that children in the music-based activity group showed a substantial increase in empathy scores and a higher average score compared to the other groups<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cThese results bear out our hypothesis that certain components of musical interaction may enhance a capacity for emotional empathy, which continues outside the musical context,\u201d says Tal-Chen Rabinowitch, from the Centre for Music and Science, who led the study.<\/p>\n \u201cWe feel that the program of musical activities we\u2019ve developed could serve as a platform for a new approach to music education \u2013 one that helps advance not just musical skill but also social abilities and, in particular, the emotional understanding of others.\u201d<\/p>\n The activities used in the study were developed to emphasize the components of musical interaction that the researchers believed would promote empathy \u2013 fostering greater understanding of shared mental states.<\/p>\n These empathy-promoting musical components include imitation<\/strong>, where children were asked to mimic or match other players\u2019 movements and musical motifs \u2013 such as in the \u2018Mirror Match\u2019 game \u2013 and entrainment<\/strong>, where the researchers used rhythm to encourage synchronised performance \u2013 so that children learnt to align and adjust themselves through attending to others.<\/p>\n By engaging with these musical activities, the children were regularly experiencing states of what the researchers describe as \u2018shared intentionality<\/strong>\u2019 \u2013 an understanding of each other\u2019s intentions through a common aim or object of attention<\/strong> \u2013 creating an emotional affinity among the children.<\/p>\n The team, which also included Professor Ian Cross, head of the Centre for Music and Science at the Faculty of Music, and Dr. Pamela Burnard of the Faculty of Education, came up with increasingly complex music games to explore \u2018shared intentionality\u2019 \u2013 activities included creating music that reflected the perceived emotion of others, or composing music together with a clear theme.<\/p>\n According to the researchers, music and rhythm allows a sense of mutual \u2018honesty\u2019 that goes beyond the more precise expression in verbal communication<\/strong>. In essence, everyone can feel a rhythm and respond \u2013 sharing an experience regardless of linguistic skills.<\/p>\n \u201cThe point about music is that it can make you feel as though you are sharing the same experience, when you don\u2019t need to be doing the same thing or feeling the same way<\/strong>,\u201d says Cross. \u201cThere is a strong sense in communal music that you simply do feel you are experiencing the same thing as everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n The researchers believe that teaching emotional intelligence should become part of school curriculums, and that music might be a very good way to do it. \u201cIncreased ability to empathise may lead to altruistic behaviour that benefits educational environments such as patience and cooperativeness<\/strong>,\u201d says Rabinowitch. \u201cPrevious studies have shown that children who score higher on an empathy scale are more likely to help others being bullied for example.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWorking with children on social and emotional communication allows them to gain confidence in experiencing another person\u2019s emotional state \u2013 and producing a supportive emotional response<\/strong>. We believe music to be one of the most welcoming and enjoyable \u2013 as well as extremely effective \u2013 mediums through which \u2018empathy education\u2019 can be achieved.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe hope to build on the suggestive results of this study and to replicate its findings with larger groups and in different cultural settings. One of the areas I\u2019m keen to explore is its effectiveness on populations that are seen to have less capacity for empathy \u2013 such as those on the autistic spectrum.\u201d<\/p>\n Adds Cross: \u201cConventional primary music education is thought of as skill or craft based, but in the context of a musical interaction program such as ours it\u2019s not just learning to do something \u2013 it\u2019s learning to interact with others. The findings show that music as a group medium can give rise to and sustain the development of empathy \u2013 but at the same time it is still artistic education, and there\u2019s no reason it can\u2019t be both.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the Cambridge University press release via MedicalXpress: A year-long study on children\u2019s music-making indicates that playing music in groups on a regular basis greatly improves a child\u2019s ability to… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,9],"tags":[45,13,116,73,67,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3729"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3729"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3759,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3729\/revisions\/3759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/PlayingMusic.jpg\" "\\"playing")
A year-long study on children\u2019s music-making indicates that playing music in groups on a regular basis greatly improves a child\u2019s ability to empathise with others.<\/strong><\/p>\n