Does singing enhance cooperation more than speaking does? A global experimental Stage 1 Registered Report

Resumen

The evolution of music, language, and cooperation have been debated since before Darwin. The social bonding hypothesis proposes that these phenomena may be interlinked: musicality may have facilitated the evolution of group cooperation beyond the possibilities of spoken language. Although dozens of experimental studies have shown that synchronised rhythms can promote cooperation, it is unclear whether synchronous singing enhances cooperation relative to spoken language, particularly across diverse societies that differ in their musical/linguistic rhythms and social organisation. Here, we propose a Registered Report to test this hypothesis through a global experiment in diverse languages aiming to collect data from 1500 participants across 50 sites. The social bonding hypothesis predicts that cooperation will increase more after synchronous singing than after spoken (sequential) conversation or (simultaneous) recitation, while alternative hypotheses predict that song will not increase cooperation relative to speech. Regardless of outcome, these results will provide an unprecedented understanding of cross-cultural relationships between music, language, and cooperation.

Juan F. Ariza

Asistente de investigación desde 2023 / Supervisión docente desde 2023 / Educación Musical | Supervisión de investigación 2018-2019 (Trabajo de grado meritorio)

Asistente de investigación en el Laboratorio de Evolución y Comportamiento Humano desde 2023, y estudiante de investigación de Pregrado entre 2018 y 2019 (Trabajo de grado meritorio).

Juan David Leongómez

Profesor Asociado

Mis intereses de investigación incluyen los procesos de selección de pareja y la comunicación vocal en humanos, con una aspiración hacia la comprensión de la musicalidad. También estoy interesado en bioacústica y psicoacústica, así como en estadística y programación en .

Katarzyna Pisanski

Investigadora Permanente

Investigadora Permanente (CNRS y University of Lyon, Francia).