Social Functions of Music: The Eight Cs

    Transformation

    of the B0X 1 (“Social functions of music: The seven Cs” of „Towards a neural basis of music-evoked emotions“ by Stefan Koelsch, Cluster of Excellence ‘‘Languages of Emotion’’, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, Trends in Cognitive Sciences Vol.14 No.3, 132)

and Walter Alfred Siebel

Humans have a need to engage in social activities. Emotional effects of such engagement include fun, happiness, and joy, whereas exclusion from this engagement represents an emotional stressor and has deleterious effects on health [59,60],

    which I describe e.g. with the phenomenon „Appression“ in Noosomatik V, 1996 (no. 9.6.5), see also Siebel „Human Interaction“, 1995 (Chapter 7, 90-99): The nexus of worries.

Making music is an activity that involves several social functions:

(1) when we make music, we come in contact with other individuals (preventing social isolation);

(2) it engages co-pathy in the sense that interindividual emotional states become more homogeneous (e.g. reducing anger in one individual and depression or anxiety in another), thus promoting interindividual understanding and decreasing conflicts [62];

(3) music making also involves coordination of movements (requiring the capability to synchronize movements to an external beat) [65–67]. The coordination of movements in a group of individuals appears to be associated with pleasure (e.g. when dancing together), even in the absence of an explicit shared goal;

(4) music involves communication (notably, for infants and young children, musical communication during parent–child singing of lullabies and play songs is important for social and emotional regulation, as well as for social, emotional and cognitive development [63,64]);

(5) music making induces and engages social cognition [61];

(6) performing music also requires cooperation (involving a shared goal and increasing interindividual trust); notably, engaging in cooperative behavior is an important potential source of pleasure [68,69];

(7) as an effect, music making leads to increased social cohesion of a group [70], fulfilling the ‘‘need to belong’’ [71], and the motivation to form and maintain interpersonal attachments [60,72] and

(8) social cohesion strengthens the confidence in reciprocal care (see Ref. [64] for the caregiver hypothesis) and the confidence that opportunities to engage with others in the cited social functions will also emerge in the future. That is the effect of the experience by co-coming (united), lived as an adversive order.

Music making seems to be capable of engaging all of the ‘‘Eight Cs’’ at the same time, which is presumably part of the emotional power of music. In this regard, music making does serve a goal, namely the goal to fulfill social needs that are of vital importance for the individual.

Therefore, the notion that music evokes only aesthetic experiences without goal relevance is at least doubtful. Aesthetic experiences induce diffuse sentiments, which can be cognitiv or emotive as a reaction of self-understanding. Who means, he or she is ugly, does not estimate aesthetic outcomes and reacts cognitively by repulsing emotions. Others, who are able to estimate aesthetic experiences, enjoy them by hearing music or by making music, when they are alone. As soon as others are involved the 8 Cs occur, if adversiv engagements are (pro-)active.

References

    (taken from: Towards a neural basis of music-evoked emotions

    Stefan Koelsch
    Cluster of Excellence ‘‘Languages of Emotion’’, Freie Universita¨ t Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany
    Trends in Cognitive Sciences Vol.14 No.3, 137)

59 Cacioppo, J.T. and Hawkley, L.C. (2003) Social isolation and health, with an emphasis on underlying mechanisms. Perspect. Biol. Med. 46, S39–S52

60 House, J.S. et al. (1988) Social relationships and health. Science 241, 540–545

61 Steinbeis, N. and Koelsch, S. (2009) Understanding the intentions behind manmade products elicits neural activity in areas dedicated to mental state attribution. Cereb. Cortex 19, 619–623

62 Alcorta, C.S. et al. (2008) Ritual harmony: toward an evolutionary theory of music. Behav. Brain Sci. 31, 576–577

63 Fitch, W.T. (2006) The biology and evolution of music

64 Trehub, S.E. (2003) The developmental origins of musicality. Nat. Neurosci. 6, 669–673

65 Overy, K. and Molnar-Szakacs, I. (2009) Being together in time: musical experience and the mirror neuron system. Music Percept. 26, 489–504

66 Patel, A.D. et al. (2009) Experimental evidence for synchronization to a musical beat in a nonhuman animal. Curr. Biol. 19, 827–830

67 Kirschner, S. and Tomasello, M. (2009) Joint drumming: social context facilitates synchronization in preschool children. J. Exp. Child Psychol. 102, 299–314

68 Rilling, J. et al. (2002) A neural basis for social cooperation. Neuron 35, 395–405

69 Tomasello, M. et al. (2005) Understanding and sharing intentions: the origins of cultural cognition. Behav. Brain Sci. 28, 675–691 discussion 691–735

70 Cross, I. and Morley, I. (2008) The evolution of music: theories, definitions and the nature of the evidence. In Communicative Musicality (Malloch, S. and Trevarthen, C., eds), pp. 61–82, Oxford University Press

71 Baumeister, R. and Leary, M.R. (1995) The need to belong: desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychol. Bull. 117, 497–529

72 Hillecke, T. et al. (2005) Scientific perspectives on music therapy. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 1060, 271–282

Social Functions of Music: The Eight Cs

    Transformation

    of the B0X 1 (“Social functions of music: The seven Cs” of „Towards a neural basis of music-evoked emotions“ by Stefan Koelsch, Cluster of Excellence ‘‘Languages of Emotion’’, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, Trends in Cognitive Sciences Vol.14 No.3, 132)

Walter Alfred Siebel

Conflict Research Center, Dornum

Alte Poststr.12 - 26553 Dornum, Germany

Humans have a need to engage in social activities. Emotional effects of such engagement include fun, happiness, and joy, whereas exclusion from this engagement represents an emotional stressor and has deleterious effects on health [59,60],

    which I describe e.g. with the phenomenon „Appression“ in Noosomatik V, 1996 (no. 9.6.5), see also Siebel „Human Interaction“, 1995 (Chapter 7, 90-99): The nexus of worries.

Making music is an activity that involves several social functions:

(1) when we make music, we come in contact with other individuals (preventing social isolation);

(2) it engages co-pathy in the sense that interindividual emotional states become more homogeneous (e.g. reducing anger in one individual and depression or anxiety in another), thus promoting interindividual understanding and decreasing conflicts [62];

(3) music making also involves coordination of movements (requiring the capability to synchronize movements to an external beat) [65–67]. The coordination of movements in a group of individuals appears to be associated with pleasure (e.g. when dancing together), even in the absence of an explicit shared goal;

(4) music involves communication (notably, for infants and young children, musical communication during parent–child singing of lullabies and play songs is important for social and emotional regulation, as well as for social, emotional and cognitive development [63,64]);

(5) music making induces and engages social cognition [61];

(6) performing music also requires cooperation (involving a shared goal and increasing interindividual trust); notably, engaging in cooperative behavior is an important potential source of pleasure [68,69];

(7) as an effect, music making leads to increased social cohesion of a group [70], fulfilling the ‘‘need to belong’’ [71], and the motivation to form and maintain interpersonal attachments [60,72] and

(8) social cohesion strengthens the confidence in reciprocal care (see Ref. [64] for the caregiver hypothesis) and the confidence that opportunities to engage with others in the cited social functions will also emerge in the future. That is the effect of the experience by co-coming (united), lived as an adversive order.

Music making seems to be capable of engaging all of the ‘‘Eight Cs’’ at the same time, which is presumably part of the emotional power of music. In this regard, music making does serve a goal, namely the goal to fulfill social needs that are of vital importance for the individual.

Therefore, the notion that music evokes only aesthetic experiences without goal relevance is at least doubtful. Aesthetic experiences induce diffuse sentiments, which can be cognitiv or emotive as a reaction of self-understanding. Who means, he or she is ugly, does not estimate aesthetic outcomes and reacts cognitively by repulsing emotions. Others, who are able to estimate aesthetic experiences, enjoy them by hearing music or by making music, when they are alone. As soon as others are involved the 8 Cs occur, if adversiv engagements are (pro-)active.

References

    (taken from: Towards a neural basis of music-evoked emotions

    Stefan Koelsch

    Cluster of Excellence ‘‘Languages of Emotion’’, Freie Universita¨ t Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany

    Trends in Cognitive Sciences Vol.14 No.3, 137)

59 Cacioppo, J.T. and Hawkley, L.C. (2003) Social isolation and health, with an emphasis on underlying mechanisms. Perspect. Biol. Med. 46, S39–S52

60 House, J.S. et al. (1988) Social relationships and health. Science 241, 540–545

61 Steinbeis, N. and Koelsch, S. (2009) Understanding the intentions behind manmade products elicits neural activity in areas dedicated to mental state attribution. Cereb. Cortex 19, 619–623

62 Alcorta, C.S. et al. (2008) Ritual harmony: toward an evolutionary theory of music. Behav. Brain Sci. 31, 576–577

63 Fitch, W.T. (2006) The biology and evolution of music

64 Trehub, S.E. (2003) The developmental origins of musicality. Nat. Neurosci. 6, 669–673

65 Overy, K. and Molnar-Szakacs, I. (2009) Being together in time: musical experience and the mirror neuron system. Music Percept. 26, 489–504

66 Patel, A.D. et al. (2009) Experimental evidence for synchronization to a musical beat in a nonhuman animal. Curr. Biol. 19, 827–830

67 Kirschner, S. and Tomasello, M. (2009) Joint drumming: social context facilitates synchronization in preschool children. J. Exp. Child Psychol. 102, 299–314

68 Rilling, J. et al. (2002) A neural basis for social cooperation. Neuron 35, 395–405

69 Tomasello, M. et al. (2005) Understanding and sharing intentions: the origins of cultural cognition. Behav. Brain Sci. 28, 675–691 discussion 691–735

70 Cross, I. and Morley, I. (2008) The evolution of music: theories, definitions and the nature of the evidence. In Communicative Musicality (Malloch, S. and Trevarthen, C., eds), pp. 61–82, Oxford University Press

71 Baumeister, R. and Leary, M.R. (1995) The need to belong: desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychol. Bull. 117, 497–529

72 Hillecke, T. et al. (2005) Scientific perspectives on music therapy. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 1060, 271–282