Year: 2025
Type: preprint
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Early adversity generates disparities in mental health and wellbeing. Understanding scalable factors that promote resilience is critical to supporting individuals following adversity. One avenue to resiliency may be through music listening, which involves affective and reward-related processes targeted by early adversity. Little is known about how early adversity affects musical engagement and its relation to adult resilience. Across two studies (Study 1: n=254; ages 18-65; Study 2: n=288; ages 18-55) we examined effects of exposure to dimensions of early adversity (unpredictability, threat, deprivation) on musical engagement and resiliency in adulthood. Individuals exposed to early unpredictability showed increased emotional absorption into music. Increased absorption mediated associations between early unpredictability and adult resilience. Absorption was associated with escapism, specifically adaptive motivations to seek positive affect, offering a mechanism for music’s adaptive effects. These findings posit musical absorption as an accessible tool for resilience, especially following early life unpredictability.
Institutions: Brown University, Northeastern University, Northeastern University
Language: English
Topic: Music Therapy and Health
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: Multimodal Musical Stimulation for Healthy Neurocognitive Aging, G4124402759, Reward Prediction in Creative Perception and Production, G6671297155, CAREER: Prediction and Reward in Auditory Statistical Learning, Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), Gamma-Music Based Intervention for Mild Alzheimer's Disease
OpenAlex ID: W4414319611