Auditory rhetoric in music: a perceptual framework for music-induced prosocial behavior

Music has been widely associated with prosocial behavior, including empathy, cooperation, and social bonding. Existing research has often explained these effects through specific mechanisms such as emotional responses, interpersonal synchrony, and neurophysiological processes. This study offers an alternative perspective by conceptualizing auditory rhetoric as a perceptual framework through which music organizes experience in ways relevant to prosociality. Drawing on research in music perception, attention, and emotion, this paper argues that music can be understood as a structured perceptual system that shapes how individuals attend to, interpret, and experience their environment. Within this framework, auditory rhetoric operates through three interrelated dimensions: structural organization, affective shaping, and attentional guidance. These dimensions help account for forms of perceptual alignment, including temporal, affective, and attentional alignment across individuals. Such alignment can support a shift toward relational orientation, characterized by a shared experiential frame and a reduced distinction between self and others. From this perspective, empathy, cooperation, social bonding, and prosocial decision-making become more likely when music helps establish these interpersonal conditions. By integrating perceptual, affective, and social processes within a more connected explanatory structure, this study provides an empirically informed framework for understanding how music contributes to prosocial behavior. This perspective contributes to the psychological understanding of music by framing prosociality in relation to perceptual organization rather than isolated mechanisms. It also highlights the importance of cultural context and musical features in shaping these processes, suggesting directions for future research in music psychology, social cognition, and cross-cultural studies.