Empathic processes in the musical improvisations of couples: a pilot study

Abstract: This is an exploratory study in an attempt to find a correlation of the capacity for empathy as measured by Mehrabian and Epstein's (1972) Measure of Emotional Empathy and the Kiefel Interactional Empathy in Music Form (KIEMF) which was developed by this author. This study was undertaken with couples who have been involved in a relationship with one another at least six months prior to this study. The process of the empathic exchange and of musical interactions seem to have qualities in common: the use of a common experience to communicate emotion, an understanding of what the elements or issues are that are being experienced by all parties involved, a narrowed focus so that the relationship takes on a new importance. Because of these similarities, it was hypothesized that there would be a relationship between empathy scores on the Measure of Emotional Empathy and the Kiefel Interactional Empathy in Music form. Using the Pearson-product moment correlation cofficient, it was demonstrated that there was no significant correlation between these two tests. However, the KIEMF had high interrater reliability. Different aspects of this test were examined in an effort to explore the relationships of the areas covered in the test. These areas are 1) shared emotion, as indicated by the Hevner Adjective Circle; 2) similarities of formal elements of music, and 3) synchrony in the players participation. It was found that there was a slightly higher percentage of shared taxture and higher shared emotion in improvisations, and that there was a slightly higher correlation of synchrony scores with melodic contour scores. These could indicate areas for further research. It appeared that there might be an inverse relationship between a agreement of mood ratings and a degree of shared formal elements of music. This may indicate some basis to examine differences in empathy as it appears in music--i.e. cognitive and emotional empathy.

Keyword(s): Improvisation, empathy, couples, measure-of-emotional-empathy.

Zurück | Weiter