| Music is a creation of human consciousness,and it exists extensively in all currently known human cultures.Music is not necessary for human survival.Why is it so important to us? Social bonding has long been regarded as an important function of music that influences the evolution of human musicality.The recent music-social bonding hypothesis provides a framework for understanding the evolution of biological and cultural evolution of music,suggesting that music can enhance social cohesion by coordinating emotions,feelings,behaviours or perspectives between people to strengthen their intimate relationships.Prosocial behaviour is an embodiment of human social bonding.It refers to the behaviour that is beneficial to others,groups and society,such as helping behaviours.Although previous studies have shown that listening to prosocial songs and their induced prosocial emotions can promote prosocial behaviours,it is not clear whether the music without lyrics and its corresponding emotional experiences are sufficient to influence prosocial behaviours.Furthermore,although some studies have suggested that prosocial behaviours are related to factors such as individuals’ theory of mind and cognitive abilities,it has also not been verified whether the effect of music on prosocial behaviours is mediated by theory of mind and cognitive abilities.Therefore,this study aimed to investigate whether music and its induced emotional experience influence individuals’ prosocial decision-making,based on the classical two-dimensional model of emotion,and to explore the mediating mechanisms of theory of mind and cognitive ability.This study consisted of three experiments.First,Experiment 1 examined the influence of music and the type of emotion it evokes(happiness and sadness)on prosocial decision-making.Thirty-six undergraduate students without musical expertise listened to happy music(positive and high arousal),sad music(negative and low arousal),and white noise(control condition)while reading helping stories and then assessed their willingness to help.The results showed that music listening induced corresponding emotional experience.More important,participants showed a stronger willingness to help in the sad music condition compared to the happy music and white noise conditions,indicating that music and its induced emotional experiences influenced individuals’ prosocial decision-making.However,theory of mind and memory strength did not mediate this effect,suggesting that music may facilitate individuals’ prosocial decision-making through the influence of immediate prosocial emotions(e.g.,empathy).To further explore the role of different dimensions of emotion(valence and arousal)and specific acoustic/structural factors of music,Experiment 2 and 3 manipulated the mode(major vs.minor)and tempo(fast vs.slow)of the music,respectively,to dissociate the effects of the experience of emotional valence(positive vs.negative)and arousal(high vs.low).The results showed that only mode and its induced emotional valence influenced prosocial decision-making,while tempo and its induced arousal had no effect.Moreover,consistent with Experiment 1,theory of mind and memory strength did not mediate the effect of emotional valence.These findings suggest that the effect of music and its emotional experience on prosocial decision-making can be explained by emotional valence associated with tonal structure of music.This study reveals the influence of pure music listening and the emotional experiences it evokes on prosocial decision-making,and demonstrates the effect of specific emotional dimension and musical structure.The findings help to explain the function of music in facilitating human social bonding and its underlying mechanisms,and provide empirical evidence to support the music-social bonding hypothesis. |
