Narrative Imaginings Mediate the Relationship Between Perceived Emotions and Social Connectedness During Music Listening: Evidence from a Study with Western and Chinese Instrumental Excerpts

This research examined how perceived emotions in music influence social connectedness through music-induced narrative imagining across three studies in China. Using mixed-effects linear models, Study 1 (N = 47) showed that perceived emotional valence, but not arousal, significantly predicted social connectedness. Study 2 (N = 70) found that negative and high-arousal music increased the likelihood of vivid narrative imagining; music with similar valence elicited more consistent imagining across listeners, and low-arousal music produced higher similarity than high-arousal music. Study 3 (N = 242) examined a serial mediation model, indicating that narrative imagining was reliably associated with social connectedness and partially account for the association between perceived emotional arousal and social connectedness. These findings provide empirical evidence from a collectivist cultural context, extending models of how emotional response and imaginative engagement in music jointly shape social connectedness.