AI Insight
This article presents a three-level conceptual model explaining how music supports resilience during adversity. The model integrates musical structure (temporal patterns that mirror adaptive coping), personal meaning (connections to autobiographical memory and identity), and dialogical-social sharing (exchange of meaningful music that fosters belonging and mutual support). The framework unifies previously fragmented research areas into a comprehensive explanation of music's role in both individual and collective resilience.
Why it matters
This integrated model provides a theoretical foundation for applying music therapeutically and in community settings to strengthen resilience capacities. It could inform interventions for trauma recovery, mental health support, and building social cohesion in vulnerable populations by clarifying the specific mechanisms through which musical engagement promotes adaptive coping.
Understand the Science
BackgroundMusic is widely recognized as a resource in times of adversity, yet the mechanisms by which it supports resilience are frequently discussed in fragmented ways. Existing scholarship has highlighted music’s roles in emotion regulation, autobiographical memory, and social connection, but these dimensions are rarely integrated within a single conceptual framework.ObjectivesThis article develops an integrative conceptual model explaining how music may support personal and social resilience across structural, intrapsychic, and interpersonal dimensions.Conceptual approachDrawing on research in emotion regulation, resilience theory, music psychology, music-evoked autobiographical memory, and prior integrative frameworks in the field, the article advances a three-level conceptual analysis. The model is situated alongside related frameworks in order to clarify its distinctive contribution.ModelsThe article develops a three-level conceptual model through which music may contribute to resilience: (1) musical structure, where tension, containment, ambiguity, continuity, and release may function as experiential analogues of adaptive coping; (2) personal meaning, where music becomes linked to autobiographical memory, identity, continuity, and narrative integration, with songs constituting a particularly important case because lyrics may help consolidate and articulate meaning; and (3) dialogical-social sharing, where the exchange of personally meaningful music and the stories associated with it may foster recognition, belonging, prosocial agency, and mutual support.ConclusionMusic may be understood not merely as an emotional medium, but as a structured experiential space in which individuals and groups can engage capacities central to resilience. The article’s main contribution is a three-level integrative model that explicitly connects temporal musical structure, autobiographical meaning, and dialogical-social sharing within one unified framework of personal and social resilience, while also specifying possible transitions and interactions among these levels.
Source: Music as a tool for personal and social resilience: a three-level conceptual model