Influence of Sociocultural Proximity on Emotional Induction through Music.Perspectives for Therapeutic and Educational Interventions

Abstract

Music-based interventions consist of the implementation of musical experiences for educational and/or therapeutic purposes, and their effect resides mainly in the emotional states they generate.(1) Based on the evidence on the mechanisms underlying Emotional Induction through Music (EIM), European musical pieces are usually used which, due to their acoustic characteristics, are classified as arousing and relaxing.(2)  These have been tested and validated in other sociocultural contexts, but it is unknown if they can induce the same states in our population, or if it would be more effective to work with local pieces. With the purpose of knowing if EIM depends only on musical characteristics, or if other sociocultural factors intervene in the process, an experiment was carried out comparing the psychophysiological response (heart rate variability, dermal conductance and subjective assessment) of 28 participants (M = 27.45; SD = 1.31) while listening to musical pieces of Latin American and European origin, both arousing and relaxing. Subjectively, the arousing pieces were rated as more exciting and positive than the relaxing Latin American piece; and this, more than the relaxing European piece. Likewise, the pattern of physiological activity suggests that there was greater sympathetic activity during listening to the arousing Latin American piece, and greater parasympathetic activity during the relaxing pieces, especially the Latin American one. These findings show that sociocultural proximity to music is a central factor in EIM, and it should be considered when designing music-based educational and/or therapeutic intervention strategies