The Impact of Music on Mental Health from Adolescence to Middle Adulthood

Music is a universal human experience with significant psychological relevance across the lifespan. This conceptual paper examines the relationship between adaptive music listening functions and mental health outcomes among individuals aged 12 to 45 years, covering adolescence through middle adulthood. Using the Adaptive Functions of Music Listening Scale (AFML) as the primary instrument, alongside validated mental health measures, the study proposes a correlational design with a stratified random sample of 200 participants drawn from three developmental cohorts. Grounded in theories of emotional regulation, self-determination, and psychosocial development, the framework investigates how music serves functions of emotional regulation, social connection, meaning-making, and entertainment, and how these functions correlate with well-being and psychological distress across age groups. Findings from this study are expected to inform music-based mental health interventions suited to different developmental stages.