- The Adaptive Mind
- Posts
- Music Alone: How Your Solo Playlists Create Social Connection and Wellbeing with Dr. Elaine Paravati, PhD
Music Alone: How Your Solo Playlists Create Social Connection and Wellbeing with Dr. Elaine Paravati, PhD
The science behind how music fulfills our need for connection even when we're by ourselves
Brady Dowling
May 07, 2025
In this episode of The Adaptive Mind, I talk with Dr. Elaine Paravati Harrigan, a social psychologist whose groundbreaking research reveals something surprising: listening to music alone isn't just entertaining—it actually fulfills our basic human need for social connection.
After listening to this episode you'll learn:
How music acts as a "social surrogate" through three pathways: parasocial relationships with artists, immersion in the music experience, and reminders of connections to others
Why you don't need musical talent to benefit from music's social connection effects
How creating intentional playlists ahead of time can provide emotional support during difficult moments
Why music offers social benefits without the comparison traps of social media
How just five minutes of your favorite songs can make a measurable difference in your feeling of connection
Join us as we explore the science behind music's remarkable ability to fill our "social bucket" even when we're completely alone, offering an accessible wellbeing tool that requires minimal effort, costs little, and has virtually no side effects.
Episode Transcript
Brady Dowling: Thanks for joining this episode of The Adaptive Mind. Today I have Dr. Elaine Paravati. We're gonna be talking a lot about music and kind of the effects it has on us socially. The other day I saw a really interesting headline, which is related to Dr. Paravati's research. said, finds solo music listening boosts social wellbeing. So we're gonna dig into that a little bit, talk about kind of what the research was and implications.
for our general social well-being and then also for breaking habits as well. But thanks for coming on Elaine. I'm excited to chat.
Elaine Paravati Harrigan: Yeah, thank you for having me.
Brady: Yeah, so to jump in, can you give like maybe just a baseline of what the study was about?
Elaine: Yeah, so I know when a lot of people think about their basic needs, thinking about things like food, clothing, shelter. But when I went into psychology, what I was really interested in is the basic need to connect with other people, the need to belong. And over and over again, through decades of research, they've shown that this is a basic need. That's why solitary confinement hurts so bad. That's why being isolated and excluded hurts so badly. This is something on a very deep.
primitive level we all want to do and we need to do in some way. But that doesn't look the same for everybody the way we feel that. So traditionally we think about you feel social needs by spending time with family members, by being in a romantic relationship, by hanging out with friends or even small interactions with a barista or a bus driver day to day just clicking with people in person. But I wanted to look more into what are some things we do that might not look outwardly social but actually do fill our social bucket in a similar way.
And that's when I was drawn to looking at that in terms of music, because I've always been a big music lover. And I thought, well, obviously we do feel connected to people when we are listening to music with them, or when we're maybe in a choir or band with them and we're playing music together, or we're going to a concert together. But less had been done on looking at what about when we're listening to music by ourselves. And what my work did find was that we actually can feel social connection and feel those well-being things from just listening to music in isolation.
Brady: Awesome. And you use the term, which I think sounds really cool, but you use the term social surrogacy. Can you talk, you touched on it briefly, but can you talk a little bit more about what social surrogacy is?
Elaine: Yeah, so social surrogacy, there are these three different pathways that you can use to help feel fulfilled with these non-traditional types of strategies. And all those apply to music, and they also do apply to lots of other things that we do day to day. So the first one is parasocial relationships. That's this one-sided bond you might have with a celebrity or a musical artist or a band where you listen to music and you feel like, wow, they really understand me. They know what I'm going through. It's like I'm a friend with them.
So if somebody's a really big Taylor Swift fan, they might be listening to the music and feeling social connection because they feel like they have a friendship with Taylor Swift. Outside of music, we've found this also in terms of like movie stars or just basic celebrities that you want to be reading tabloids about or following Instagram influencers because you feel like they're your friends. You feel like you know them, you can relate to them and so on. Second pathway is immersion into this world of that environment. So
In terms of music, you are listening to music and you're just kind of swallowed up in that music. You're no longer thinking about what's going around you. You're just really enveloped in that. In the past, we've also found that in terms of listening to, watching different TV shows or rereading books. So if you're reading Harry Potter, you might really feel like you're in that world during the time that you're reading it or watching the movie. And so you're immersed in that social world. And then the third one is these reminders of others. So you are...
perhaps more traditionally reading old letters that somebody wrote you or looking at pictures of a trip you took together. Or in terms of like throughout the lifespan, a baby holding their blanket might be thinking about their mom and feeling connection through that. Or as you're older, having some family heirloom that someone gave you before they passed away. And when you spend time near that heirloom, you think about them. So you're thinking about that person through that object. So you're not face to face with that person, but you feel social connection as you're utilizing that thing. In terms of music.
That seems very intuitive too, right? That it's, I'm putting on a wedding song that reminds me of my significant other. Or I'm listening to music that was the soundtrack I listened to when I was freshman year of college going on a road trip with my friends. So those songs that you listen to that bring you right back to that moment, that's helping you remember that connection you have with people, that's gonna help you feel that social connection even when you're not with them.
Brady: Right, that makes sense. it's the three different ones, which is one is like the connection that you feel with that person you said the parasocial connection to is the immersion almost like being taken out of your current environment and put into this other place. And then the third is being reminded of probably people that you know, or maybe situations or events and these three kind of coming together and building this social surrogate. And is that, those three, are those specific to music as a social surrogate or is that just kind of social surrogacy in general?
Elaine: Yeah, it's definitely social surrogacy in general. So when I had gone into grad school, they had looked at it in terms of those comfort objects like the baby blankets or even religious objects. They looked at old letters, old photos, they had looked at rereading books and rewatching movies and TV shows. And then when I was thinking about my own life and my own experiences and how much I felt connection when I listened to music, I thought this does seem very applicable to this as well. And so that research that you're referencing that came out recently, that was where I was experimentally
looking at that and seeing and verifying that people do experience these same type of things with music that they do with other known social surrogates. So now this kind of puts music on the map as being another strategy that we can put in our toolbox and know it can give us those social connections.
Brady: Yeah, I mean, this is exciting for me. I'm not necessarily musically inclined. don't like playing a band or, you know, make music necessarily unless, you know, I think no one's around and then I'll sing to myself. to be able to experience some of these benefits just through listening, I would imagine is exciting in the, like in this space. Is that right?
Elaine: Yeah, and I actually, had thought similarly, like coming from a background that's opposite yours of I've played instruments, I've sang in choirs, I've been in musicals, it's been a very heavy part of my life, my whole life. I was wondering, is this just because I'm a music person that I feel this way? So something I did in my work is ask people to answer the scale of how much musical skill they had, how much musical experience they had, wondering if those who are higher on the scale would have more benefit. And actually, just like you mentioned, not at all. So it seems like a
across the board, people can get these benefits. It's not just people who play 15 instruments and are little Einstein's here that can do this and then feel better. It seems like this is something that can really benefit everybody, even if you can't hold a tune to save your life, which I think also is very cool that it's accessible to everybody.
Brady: Right, and so just to clarify, even for people who play music and sing and are like versed in that kind of way, it's still, there's not any kind of loss of like, I should be singing or I should be playing, you still can get those benefits, is that right?
Elaine: Yeah, yeah. So this is something that's kind of a separate tool of in those moments when you're by yourself listening to music in your car on the way to work or you're laying in bed or you're walking on the treadmill, whatever it is that you're listening to music on your own. It's just showing you don't have to be with other people and sharing that music experience in order to get those innately social benefits and then those benefits to your wellbeing. This is something that even when you're by yourself and you might not even think you're doing it to help you feel less lonely or feel more connected.
but you can be getting those benefits anyway, which is very, very cool.
Brady: Cool. And so how in the research you did, how did you actually measure this uptick in social wellbeing?
Elaine: Yeah, so you want to be putting people in some type of situation that you can make sure they do feel bad, right? Not necessarily you want to make people feel bad, but you want to show they feel some type of social need that needs to be filled. You want them to feel excluded. And then you want to introduce your variable, which in this case is your favorite music, and see if that helps them feel better. And the big thing about social psychological research is that it is hard to tease apart, well, is this just somebody saying this? Or how do I measure this? Because it's not something like,
your white blood cell count that you can very easily measure in a very standard way. So you have to get creative and think about how can I create these situations in a lab that still will translate to what I want them to. So what we did is first we used this experiment condition called cyberball, which is used very often in psych research. Essentially, you're playing a computer game and you're told that you're playing with other people, but it's actually a set up computer.
and they're passing a ball back and forth to you and another player. And after a few passes, they just stop passing to you and they pass to the other players. So you think you're playing with these other people and then suddenly they're completely excluding you. And what's amazing about cyberball is even when you know what it is, like as a researcher, when you play it, you start like, wow, this feels real lousy. Like it's just very well known in the literature to over and over again, pull us into feeling those social needs, feeling exclusion.
And fortunately, it's very low risk. Like you tell them afterwards and they feel a little better. So we like to use that to help people feel bad temporarily, but not do long-term damage. So we have the participants playing cyberball. We ask them afterwards, how are you feeling? They're reporting to us. I do feel like I'm not connected with other people. I don't feel like I belong. I'm feeling lonely. So we know it worked. And then we allow half the participants to listen to some of their favorite songs for a brief amount of time.
And then the other half, is the control condition that we're gonna compare to, we had listened to uplifting music, but it was like an unknown music that I'd found on YouTube. So didn't have words that they would necessarily be.
Elaine: really into or offended by wasn't something they would be familiar with necessarily. So I said, okay, I want to make sure they're still listening to something. They're not just bored. And I want to make sure it's something still somewhat uplifting. But then we can compare that to listening to your favorite music and see if it's just music in general having an effect. Is it happy music in general? Or is it something about your favorite songs? And when we compared this, we then let them listen to the music and then ask them more about how they're feeling.
The group that got to listen to their favorite songs felt way more connected, felt way more like they belonged to other people. It was like the cyber ball game hadn't happened and they wiped out those effects. So it showed a really cool buffering effect that if you're listening to music after you have this social exclusion, it can help you to not feel those negative feelings. And that was compared to that control group, which shows us it's not just any music that's doing this. It is something about your favorite songs, your connection to the artist or remembering other people or feeling immersed in it rather than just
having a happy beat in your ears that's going to help you to feel social connected.
Brady: Yeah, yeah. So I know there are, if you go on YouTube, you can find like brain science, like happy music, stuff like that. Do you know, or do you have any thoughts about how your favorite music might compare to like a brain science music? I wonder maybe what kind of music was in your control group, if you have any more specifics about that.
Elaine: Yeah, so it sounds like it probably was similar to that, but again, that shows that what we're looking at here is really specific to social needs rather than just positive mood. And that was true with my data as well, that when I controlled for just their mood in general, the social effects were above and beyond that. So this is this special component in your brain that we're looking at of.
you having that primal need to belong and that leads to your sense of wellbeing and fulfillment. That's a separate bucket in your, all your toolbox here that you wanna be filling to help you feel overall wellness compared to just being distracted or having a positive mood that maybe those brain things might be tapping more into.
Brady: Right. And so when you think about kind of the implications or the benefits or when you might want to use this in your toolbox, what kind of is the effect of this research?
Elaine: Well, what I think is so neat about this is that...
especially when you're doing something like breaking habits and you're going to have yucky feelings in that process. The yucky feeling part is part of it and that's okay. You don't enjoy it, it doesn't feel good, but knowing that that's part of it and trying to push through it can kind of help us to think, okay, how can I strategize in those moments so I'm not leaning back into those habits or forming new habits that are also going to be detrimental? So that's where we come in and we think about what strategies can I have in my toolbox that are accessible to me?
affordable to me, don't have a lot of negative potential side effects. And that's where I think this hits all those targets. If you're laying in bed and somebody tells you a great way to feel better when you're breaking a habit is go for a 10 mile run, that's great. But that's a lot of effort before I can get to the endorphin part and I might not be there or I might be.
sick or disabled or be doing childcare or be having weird work hours that don't allow me to just jump up and run 10 miles anytime I want to. So the idea that you can make a playlist on any platform, whether it be
on YouTube or listening on Spotify or whatever. There's some way that you can access music relatively inexpensively and you can be laying in bed, listening to that music, minimal effort. All you're doing is pressing play and minimal potential bad side effects compared to starting some type of supplement or something that might biologically not sit well with you or putting in the 10 mile run and realizing your body does not kick in with endorphins, not very pleasant. This is something that the worst side effects I can imagine here is your earbuds hurt your ears a little
Elaine: bit or you spent three minutes listening to a song that you love that you decide I don't really feel that much better after all so I think this is a strategy people can really utilize and for me in my own life I thought about times like when I switched into staying home with my first child compared to being in a workplace that I'm around people all the time
Those 2 a.m. diaper changes, you're feeling lonely, you're feeling like nobody else is in the world with you out right now. And you can listen to music, it's accessible, put your earbuds in, you get that boost of social connection, you feel more positive benefit. That was not a time that I wanted to be running 10 miles or starting some new supplement or something like that. So to have this in my toolbox, very accessible, very affordable, minimal side effects, I think it's worth people trying out and seeing if it does benefit them.
Brady: Yeah, I think a couple of thoughts that I have from that. One is that you mentioned being up at night at 2 a.m. with your baby, and I know what that's like. And yes, it feels like nobody else in the world is awake and you're the only person there. And nobody, maybe even feel like nobody knows what you're going through, which of course is objectively false. Like there are millions and probably billions of people that know exactly what you're going through.
And so to be able to have something like this, where you can be taken away from that feeling and that thought, which in the moment, for me to say like, other people know what I'm going through, that's not going to overcome the feeling, even though that's objectively correct. And my feeling is based in like a false idea, but to be able to have this kind of tool and like take me out of this kind of entrenched thinking.
Brady: I can see how there would be so much value in that. And then the other thing I think about is you kind of compared it to going on a 10 mile run, which could be really inaccessible. But when you're talking about parasocial connection and connecting maybe to influencers or people like that, that kind of connection, of course, is
potentially fraught with difficulties and challenges. And like, there are lots of challenges that accompany social media. And so to be able to have this kind of connection in a place and in a setting where maybe you're not as susceptible to like envy and other things that you might experience in like a social media setting, it also just seems like...there's so much value in being kind of protected from that other world.
Elaine: Yeah, I think that's important to bring up too, because the work is so mixed about social media because it can be used so differently. So it's great when you're connecting with a high school friend that lives states away or your grandparents or somebody that understands you with your medical condition that is so rare in your hometown that no one else has. There's so many great, awesome benefits for it. And then there also is this black hole of doom that like you're talking about where you're social comparing to other people that you know or influencers.
or celebrities and you're just getting sucked into feeling worse about yourself. It really is a hard tightrope to walk and think psychology research is constantly struggling with
how do we explain that it can be really good and it also can be really bad and it depends on so many factors. But I think intuitively we do recognize when it feels bad for us. And even when we recognize it, it still is very addicting and it can be hard to pull away from. And that's one of the habits that a lot of people do try to work on is spending less time on their phone or being diligent about what apps they're using or who they're following, what media content they're consuming. And it's really, really difficult.
And like you said, if you want to get that social connection, but you're working on using Instagram less, that does put you in a bit of a bind. So if you can get that social connection by listening to your celebrity's music rather than following their account and looking at their Instagram stories, just like you mentioned, that kind of prevents you from slipping back into those habits that you're trying to work on without it being, you don't get any sense of connection at all.
And there's something to be said too with being able to plan ahead with this is really nice that you can make the playlist ahead of time and just have it ready to go. So when you're having that bad day, you're not using the cognitive effort of how do I pull myself out of this? What do I do? You already have it set up. You're just pressing play and continuing to clean the kitchen or continuing to drive home or continue to do whatever you are. And you can be getting those social benefits while you are still in your life. You don't have to put forth the effort of running the 10 miles.
Brady: Yeah, yeah, I mean that that preparation, I think that tip is really key because I know I'm not alone when I say this, but how many times do we go on our phones to do one little tiny thing and then 20 minutes later, I've done seven things in like I've done half of seven. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. So having that thing ready, no matter what arena it's in, but right now in terms of having that music ready, like having a playlist, a like distraction or happy or whatever that playlist is, like that's the thing that can get you into that mode and get you like away from being distracted and you know those other things.
Elaine: Yeah, and I think you could even think about too, if this is really working for you, personalizing what type of playlist and seeing what works the best for you, because it could be different for everybody. You might want some really romantic place that reminds you of romantic partner. You might not want that at all. You might say, you know what, freshman year house party songs from whatever year you graduate. That's what I want to be listening to when I'm cleaning the kitchen. It makes me feel connected to my frat days. You might say, I want that road trip that my family and I took when I was in middle school and I'm listening to these songs that my dad loved and it reminds me.
of him or what my grandfather used to listen to at his house before he passed on or you know something about completely different that's just you and when you went and studied abroad and you're listening to music of the people that you spent time with abroad there's so many different ways that you could create playlists that remind you of these connections or again remind you of your
connection to the musical artist and you just have a playlist that's all of Taylor Swift's greatest hits. There's so many different ways you could create playlists that could help you with feeling that social connection and getting that well-being and you can really tailor it to what works best for you, which is very cool.
Brady: Yeah, yeah. So in a little peek into my life, in my Spotify playlist, I sort them by date. So I just named the playlist the date. And so I know like, you know, 2004, that's when I was a freshman in high school or 2008, whatever. And so sometimes when I'm listening to music in my car with my four year old and my two year old, I'll be like, oh yeah, this is my middle school, you know, this is my middle school song, or this is my high school song. And so sometimes my four year old will say like, oh, let's, let's listen to your high school songs.
Elaine: like that you give your children context because I just sing my son Britney Spears songs as if they are lullabies and he doesn't know any better. So that's just the way he's being raised.
Brady: My four year old the other day said, how do you know all the words to these songs? And I was like, I've listed them hundreds and thousands of times. But yeah, I mean, I think that speaks to the second point that you said, which is like the immersion and kind of the escape from the current place you're in and kind of going to that other place and finding that. that place where that song is for you. Okay, great. So we've talked about kind of the three big benefits of and the three aspects of social surrogacy and how music hits on those. So solo music listening, especially for your favorite songs and thinking about these different periods in someone's life and you talking about how the music that affects somebody is different for me and it's gonna be different for you. And I would imagine that it's also gonna be different for one person at different periods in your life. Do think that's true as well?
Elaine: Yeah, that's something I would like to look at more specifically in future work, but I definitely believe that could be the case of what works for you this year might be very different from the stage you're at and the way you feel a couple years from now. I think music could work throughout the lifespan because throughout time we have seen people love music at all ages from baby to elderly. But that being said, just like you said, I think future work really could look into are there patterns that we see throughout the lifespan where people are drawn to different things and they work more effectively? That would be very interesting.
Brady: Yeah, yeah. Is there anything else that you imagine could be on the horizon or things that you would be interested in exploring more that's kind of in this arena?
Elaine: Yeah, I wonder too about the specifics of the type of music. So one of my students had thought about, she was really drawn to what we categorize best as emo music, which I also loved at some point of my life. And she was saying, you know, why do I love this so much and my friends don't? Is there something about different genres of music, different tempos, different styles that might be more effective in general? Or again, this idea for specific people.
So there's so many types of music and so many things we could look at in terms of that of looking for patterns or again, perhaps finding that it really is so person specific. When you look at the social surrogacy work in general, not just music, but again, things like TV shows, books, and so on, what over and over again the work has shown is that this is really beneficial for everybody and it's beneficial in very different ways, which is good. So it's not.
one size fits all, you need to have four different non-traditional routes of social connection and three traditional order field maximum good in your life. What we're finding is people fill their social gas tank very differently. And that's awesome because it works very differently for everyone. It's not a matter of how many strategies you use. If it's a relative and friend and social connection to the musical artist and having a romantic partner, you have to have seven different things.
not the amount of things, it's how much those things fill your bucket, which tells us if you feel like you're not social connected as much, you can just add in some more strategies or swap out the ones you're trying to use. And then you can get to a better place where you're feeling more well-being. So I think it's really amazing that regardless of things like attachment style, which relates so much to your types of relationships you have, regardless of how introverted or extroverted you are, regardless of male or female,
regardless of age group that you are in in your lifespan, these social traditional strategies and non-traditional strategies all work in tandem to help us fill our buckets and feel better, which means there's so many options for us. And so if one thing isn't really working for you or you're in a place of your life that you can't access those things, again, this is something that you can put in your toolbox, seems very accessible, very affordable, low risk. And that's what I think is so exciting about it, something that we really can apply and should be beneficial to a lot of people.
Brady: Yeah, that's amazing. think it also fits really well in line with a lot of the episodes and a lot of the things that we've talked about on this podcast, which is that this is a great tool and it's very individual and personal and figuring out how it applies to you almost requires you to be like a scientist in your own world and figuring out like, okay, when is this going to work? How is this going to work? And, you know, how can I make the most of this?
Elaine: And that's something empowering. I want people to listen and think, I can do things that make me feel better. I'm not powerless to the situation, especially when you're doing something like breaking a deep rooted habit. That's difficult work and it's great that you're doing it. So to think, oh, I just have to slog through this and it's going to stink the whole time. This is something that can help you during that process and nobody does know you better than you. So it's very empowering that you can be the person to figure out what works, tinker with it and reap those benefits. don't have to wait for.
an expensive therapy appointment or going to some other person and asking them to kind of figure out what's going on in your brain. You can actually implement this and then have the benefits happen like we saw in our work right away that you are feeling better after just five minutes.
Brady: Amazing. Okay, awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining, Elaine. I'm gonna go open up Spotify and make some playlists.
Elaine: There you go and have your son jam out with you the whole time. Thanks for having me.