Jenefer Robinson's guest appearances

Jenefer Robinson

Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture

Jimmy Carter

Gordon Ramsay

Salman Rushdie

Jinho Choi

Joseph Ledoux

Anjan Chatterjee

Robert Frank

Melanie Mitchell

Matt Ridley

Chris Martin

Andy Clark

John Dunne

Dan Reynolds

Fiery Cushman

Molly Crockett

OwlTail

Broadly speaking, empathy is “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another” (Iacoboni). More narrowly, an emotion is usually deemed empathic only when “the agent is aware that it is caused by the perceived, imagined, or inferred plight of another, or it expresses concern for the welfare of another” (Maibom). In the broad sense, the tender reciprocal relationship that develops between mother and infant when the mother sings to the baby and the baby responds is a species of empathy through music. In the narrower sense listeners may empathize with the music itself when they are affected by music via emotional contagion – a kind of low-level empathy – to adopt the musical gestures they experience and thereby share the emotion expressed by the music. If, in addition, it’s possible for music to express the emotions of a persona – the performer, the composer or simply a “character” in the music – then listeners can engage in high-level empathy for the persona, imagining feeling the emotions of the persona that are expressed in the music and coming to share them. (February 9, 2016)

<p>Broadly speaking, empathy is “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another” (Iacoboni). More narrowly, an emotion is usually deemed empathic only when “the agent is aware that it is caused by the perceived, imagined, or inferred plight of another, or it expresses concern for the welfare of another” (Maibom). In the broad sense, the tender reciprocal relationship that develops between mother and infant when the mother sings to the baby and the baby responds is a species of empathy through music. In the narrower sense listeners may empathize with the music itself when they are affected by music via emotional contagion – a kind of low-level empathy – to adopt the musical gestures they experience and thereby share the emotion expressed by the music. If, in addition, it’s possible for music to express the emotions of a persona – the performer, the composer or simply a “character” in the music – then listeners can engage in high-level empathy for the persona, imagining feeling the emotions of the persona that are expressed in the music and coming to share them. (February 9, 2016)</p>

Lecture | Jenefer Robinson | Empathy through/with/for Music