Examining the relationships between musical sophistication, musical engagement, and empathy in samples of Italian and Spanish preadolescents

Music and empathy are intrinsically linked, both fostering communication. Research has shown that music serves as a nonverbal medium for mutual understanding and synchronization and that musical training and music-induced emotions correlate with empathy skills. In this study, we explored if musical sophistication and musical engagement can be predictors of the four Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) empathy subcomponents (i.e., Personal Distress, Perspective Taking, Empathic Concern, and Fantasy Scale), also in relation to gender and the musical cultural environment. We compared two samples of Italian (from Bari, Apulia; N = 260) and Spanish (from Valencian Community; N = 94) preadolescents (aged 10–14) of Italian music middle schools or Spanish extracurricular music schools of marching bands. Results showed positive, significant relationships of musical sophistication with all empathy subscales except for Personal Distress in both samples. For musical engagement, the two countries again reported similar results with some nuanced differences possibly due to the features of the two different types of training. In addition, in both samples, females displayed higher scores than males in all empathy domains. These findings suggest the importance of promoting music in preadolescence and the strong link between music and empathy traits regardless of context.