Journal article
Love songs and serenades: a theoretical review of music and romantic relationships
- Abstract:
- In this theoretical review, we examine how the roles of music in mate choice and social bonding are expressed in romantic relationships. Darwin’s Descent of Man originally proposed the idea that musicality might have evolved as a sexually selected trait. This proposition, coupled with the portrayal of popular musicians as sex symbols and the prevalence of love-themed lyrics in music, suggests a possible link between music and attraction. However, recent scientific exploration of the evolutionary functions of music has predominantly focused on theories of social bonding and group signaling, with limited research addressing the sexual selection hypothesis. We identify two distinct types of music-making for these different functions: music for attraction, which would be virtuosic in nature to display physical and cognitive fitness to potential mates; and music for connection, which would facilitate synchrony between partners and likely engage the same reward mechanisms seen in the general synchrony-bonding effect, enhancing perceived interpersonal intimacy as a facet of love. Linking these two musical functions to social psychological theories of relationship development and the components of love, we present a model that outlines the potential roles of music in romantic relationships, from initial attraction to ongoing relationship maintenance. In addition to synthesizing the existing literature, our model serves as a roadmap for empirical research aimed at rigorously investigating the possible functions of music for romantic relationships.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
Actions
Access Document
- Files:
-
-
(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1020.6KB, Terms of use)
-
- Publisher copy:
- 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1302548
Authors
- Publisher:
- Frontiers Media
- Journal:
- Frontiers in Psychology More from this journal
- Volume:
- 15
- Article number:
- 1302548
- Publication date:
- 2024-02-14
- Acceptance date:
- 2024-01-23
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
1664-1078
- ISSN:
-
1664-1078
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
1617241
- Local pid:
-
pubs:1617241
- Deposit date:
-
2024-02-14
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Bamford et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2024
- Rights statement:
- Copyright © 2024 Bamford, Vigl, Hämäläinen and Saarikallio. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
- Notes:
- For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) version arising from this submission.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record