Our enjoyment of sad music is paradoxical – we go out of our way to avoid sadness in our daily lives, but in the arts, themes such as loss can be safely experienced, profoundly enjoyed and even celebrated. Researchers have long been puzzled about this phenomenon and it’s not until fairly recently that we have started to gain some insight into how we enjoy music. Now, a new study has discovered why some of us enjoy sad music more than others – and it’s got a lot to do with empathy. Findings suggest that the key to the enjoyment is not only the ability to empathise with the sad emotions expressed by the music, but also the ability to self-regulate and distance oneself from this process. This specific component of empathy is known as “empathic concern”. While empathising means responding to somebody’s perceived emotion by experiencing a similar feeling, empathetic concern means also feeling tenderness, compassion and sympathy for them. This specific trait best predicted whether our participants reported being moved by the sad music. https://theconversation.com/why-sad-songs-say-so-much-to-some-people-but-not-others-65365 Study: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01176/full#h1
