The influence of social situations on music listening

The aim of this study was to investigate whether listening to music in a group setting influenced the emotion felt by the listeners. We hypothesized that individuals hearing music in a group would experience more intense emotions than the same individuals hearing the same music on their own. The emotional reactions to 10 musical excerpts (previously shown to contain chill-inducing psychoacoustic parameters) were measured in a within-subjects design. We found, contrary to our hypothesis, that the participants (all musicians) did not experience more chills when listening to music in a group than when listening alone. These findings may be explained by a lesser degree of concentration on the music in the group condition.