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Music across the love-span: a mixed methods study into the use of music in romantic relationships

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October 31, 2025

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https://doi.org/10.12688/openreseurope.19016.2

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December 15, 2025 (Version of Record 2.0)
October 31, 2025 (Version of Record 1.0)
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The Research Council of Norway

Grant ID(s): 262762
Research Council of Finland

Grant ID(s): 346210
European Commission

Grant ID(s): 101045747
Österreichische Forschungsgemeinschaft

Grant ID(s): 06/16599

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Music, romantic relationships, social bonding, mate selection, compatibility, attractiveness

Abstract

Background

Music is known to be a powerful tool for social bonding, but its role in romantic relationships remains poorly understood. The present study explored the perceived relevance of music to three core aspects of love (intimacy, passion and commitment) across three relationship stages: attraction, building, and maintenance.

Methods

Using a mixed-methods approach, 174 participants (83% female, 14% male, 3% other) responded to self-report ratings assessing the role of music for the three aspects of love across the three relationship stages, as well as open-ended questions reflecting on their music-related experiences at each relationship stage.

Results

Results from quantitative ratings showed that music promotes intimacy and passion, particularly during the attraction and building phases, with less impact on commitment and during the maintenance phase. Participants with greater musical expertise and sensitivity to music-related reward rated music as more important overall and as contributing more strongly to aspects of love, with this pattern remaining consistent across relationship phases and aspects of love. This suggests that musical ability and preference may be used across relationship stages as tools to assess compatibility between partners, rather than being generally attractive traits. Qualitative analysis of 351 coded open responses revealed a set of 55 key musical actions (e.g., listening, sharing and making music) and outcomes (e.g., bonding, (re)connecting and assessing compatibility) related to participants’ use of music throughout the three relationship stages. Themes such as signalling attraction and emotional communication were most prominent in the attraction phase, whereas bonding through shared musical activities was more common in later phases.

Conclusion

The present study provides a first systematic investigation of the role of music for different phases and aspects of romantic relationships. The findings provide valuable insights for music research, relationship studies, and therapeutic practice, highlighting the role of music in fostering connection and intimacy in romantic relationships.

Plain Language Summary

Music plays an important role in relationships, especially in the early stages of getting to know someone and building a connection. It can help people express identity, share emotions and bond through shared experiences. But how does music contribute to romantic love at different stages of a relationship, namely initial attraction, building a relationship and maintaining it over time?

This study asked people to rate how important music was at different stages of a relationship, and about the ways they used music in their relationships. It was found that music is most important for fostering intimacy and passion in the early stages, but has less impact on commitment in long-term relationships. People with greater musical ability or enjoyment of music valued it more in their relationships, suggesting that music may signal compatibility rather than simply attractiveness. Participants' personal stories revealed that music-related activities, such as listening to, sharing or creating music together, helped couples to connect and communicate. For example, in the attraction phase, music is often used to signal compatibility or express feelings, while in later phases can be used to bond through shared activities.

This research highlights the power of music in romantic relationships and offers new insights into how couples use music to foster connection and intimacy throughout their shared journey.

Corresponding author

Julia Vigl

0000-0003-2152-7584

julia.vigl@uibk.ac.at

Grant information

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. [101045747]). This study has also received funding from the Research Council of Finland (346210), Österreichische Forschungsgemeinschaft (06 / 16599) and the Research Council of Norway through its Centres of Excellence scheme (project number 262762).

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

First version published

December 24, 2024 (https://doi.org/10.12688/openreseurope.19016.1)

Latest version published

December 15, 2025 (https://doi.org/10.12688/openreseurope.19016.3)

Revised

Amendment

In this revised version of the article, we have tried to integrate all the suggestions of the reviewers and make additional minor stylistic improvements throughout the text. The main changes are as follows:
- Introduction: We have clarified the rationale behind Research Question 2 (RQ2) and expanded the theoretical background to explain why the study of music and bonding in romantic relationships is particularly interesting from an evolutionary perspective.
- Methods: We added a table listing all self-generated questions (Table 1), and expanded he descriptions of the sample and the questionnaires used.
- Quantitative results: Given the ordinal nature of most variables, we now report Spearman correlations and have applied Benjamini–Hochberg correction to all correlational analyses. Additionally, we conducted a new analysis comparing participants with low versus high BMRQ (music-related reward sensitivity) scores, as suggested by Reviewer 2. This analysis examined the main effects and interaction effects regarding the perceived role of music overall and across the three aspects and phases of romantic relationships (Table 2).
- Qualitative results: Instead of percentages based on all identified codes, we now report the percentage of participants mentioning each code, theme or aggregate dimension. The theme 'Memories' has been renamed 'Making and recalling memories', and all figures have been updated accordingly. We also added a subsection detailing the frequency and content of negative experiences with music, and we moved Figure 4, which was previously in the supplementary material, into the main text.
- Discussion: We included percentages when summarising first-order codes to provide more detailed descriptions. Several paragraphs, particularly those addressing RQ2, were rephrased for greater clarity and precision as suggested by Reviewer 2. The limitations section was also expanded based on feedback from both reviewers.

Introduction

Music plays an important role in everyday life and serves not only personal purposes (e.g. mood regulation, evoking positive memories or helping with event processing), but also social functions (e.g., Dingle et al., 2021; Tarr et al., 2014). For example, musical preferences are among the most frequent topics of conversation when strangers initiate relationships (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2006), and social bonding was found to develop more rapidly in singing groups than in those engaged in crafts or creative writing (Pearce et al., 2015). While most research to date has concentrated on music's social functions in contexts involving strangers or friends, a recent comprehensive theoretical review by Bamford et al. (2024) explored the potential role of music in the specific case of romantic relationships, addressing mate selection and social bonding functions of musical experiences over different relationship stages. Building on this work, the aim of the present study was to explore the role of music at different stages of romantic relationships and to examine which musical activities and their outcomes influence partner choice and facilitate or inhibit romantic feelings.

Aspects of romantic love

Romantic love has been widely portrayed in literature, film and music, leading to a common understanding of the concept despite different definitions. Key elements include longing for an enduring bond with a specific individual (Hatfield & Rapson, 1993), strong emotional attachment combined with sexual desire (Goode, 1959), and interdependence, in which partners influence each other's behaviours and decisions (Bradbury & Karney, 2019). A prominent research framework is Sternberg's (1986) Triangular Theory of love, which identifies three key components: intimacy, passion, and commitment. Different levels of these components differentiate different forms of love, ranging from non-love (absence of all components) to consummate love (strong presence of all three components).

Within this framework, intimacy represents the 'warm' components of love, involving mutual interactions and self-disclosure, deep affective feelings, and an inclination towards and pursuit of closeness (Sternberg, 1986). Passion embodies the 'hot' component of love and includes cognitive (e.g., persistent thoughts), affective (e.g., sexual attraction and intense emotions), and behavioural (e.g., seeking physical closeness) aspects (Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986; Sternberg, 1986). The third component, commitment, is the 'cold' component of love, involving the decision to enter into and maintain a long-term relationship and behaviours aimed at achieving this goal, such as devaluing alternatives, making sacrifices for the partner, and accommodating negative partner behaviour (Sternberg, 1986).

The triangle theory of love has significantly influenced subsequent theories of romantic love, has been empirically validated (e.g., Acker & Davis, 1992; Lemieux & Hale, 2002), and shows potential universality across cultures (Sorokowski et al., 2021).

Romantic relationship stages

According to Levinger's (1980) concept of long-term relationships, as adopted in the theoretical framework of Bamford et al. (2024), three primary stages of romantic relationships can be distinguished: attraction, relationship building and, if there is no deterioration or termination, a maintenance phase. These stages align well with other influential models of relationship development, such as the Staircase Model (Knapp, 1978), Social Penetration Theory (Altman & Taylor, 1973), and Uncertainty Reduction Theory (Berger & Calabrese, 1975).

During the attraction stage, potential partners get to know each other, leading to emotional and cognitive evaluations of each other. The emergence of attraction is influenced by a variety of internal and external factors, including personality traits, values, physical appearance, mutual liking, and perceived similarities in personality, values, and attitudes (e.g., Buss & Barnes, 1986; Luo, 2017; Montoya & Horton, 2020). Communication at this stage is typically superficial and guided by social norms, with limited personal disclosure (e.g., Berger & Calabrese, 1975; Knapp, 1978)

The phase of building a relationship is characterised by a rapid increase in self-disclosure, allowing for deeper communication and the sharing of personal opinions and attitudes (e.g. Altman & Taylor, 1973). As communication intensifies and bonds strengthen, partners may form a relational identity, make the relationship public, or take significant steps such as marriage (Knapp, 1978).

Once partners define themselves as couples or romantic partners, the relationship process continues into the maintenance phase. Individual strategies for maintaining the relationship may include positive illusions, idealisation, and expressions of gratitude, while interactive strategies include effective communication, conflict management, dyadic coping, mutual support, humour, and engaging in joint activities (Ogolsky et al., 2017).

The relative importance and prominence of the three components of the triangle of love - intimacy, passion, and commitment - changes at different stages of a relationship. The attraction phase (which typically lasts up to six months) is characterised by a rapid increase in passion for a potential partner. As the relationship moves into the building phase, and for about the first four years, couples experience increased intimacy, with a slight decrease in passion. Beyond this period, commitment becomes more central, with intimacy remaining at medium to high levels, while passion continues to decline (Acker & Davis, 1992; García, 1998; Wojciszke, 2002).

Music for mate choice and social bonding

The potential for music to foster social connection has been widely studied; however, most studies focussed on groups of strangers or friends, but not couples. For example, musical preferences are important expressions of identity (e.g., Shepherd & Sigg, 2015) and are often used to initiate conversations with strangers (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2006). Having similar tastes can strengthen in-group bonds and encourage the development of friendships (Lonsdale & North, 2009; Selfhout et al., 2009). Singing together elicits sociobiological bonding responses (Bowling et al., 2022; Kreutz, 2014), and compared to groups engaged in other activities, singing has been shown to be associated with accelerated bonding processes (Pearce et al., 2015). Collective musical activities, such as drumming and improvisation, were further associated with prosocial behaviour, feelings of belonging, and commitment (Kokal et al., 2011; Kokotsaki & Hallam, 2007; Verneert et al., 2021). These effects are often attributed to synchrony, as interpersonal temporal coordination of actions commonly leads to increased feelings of social affiliation, trust, and prosocial behaviour (Bamford et al., 2023; Hove & Risen, 2009; Mogan et al., 2017; Rennung & Göritz, 2016; Vicaria & Dickens, 2016). Music provides a temporal scaffolding that makes it easier to coordinate actions in time (Tarr, 2017), while also creating a social space that aligns the intentions and emotions of participants (Cross, 2014). These mechanisms can be understood through the Access-Awareness-Agency model of music-based social-emotional competence. This model posits that the capacity of music to allow such non-verbal, embodied access to emotional and shared experiences is a fundamental building block for the development of social-emotional competence (Saarikallio, 2019).

However, while there is substantial research on the capacity of music to foster bonding between groups or strangers, there is little work specifically looking at how music-related experiences might influence partner choice or enhance feelings of intimacy, passion, or commitment in romantic relationships. Exploring these questions is particularly interesting from an evolutionary perspective, given that the evolutionary function of music has been linked not only to social bonding and coalition signalling in groups (Mehr et al., 2021; Savage et al., 2021), but also to the mating context. Specifically, it has been suggested that music serves to attract potential partners by signalling fitness or compatibility (e.g., Miller, 2000). In many species, including birds and gibbons, vocalisations and musical displays are associated with pair bonding (e.g., Fitch, 2005; Geissmann, 2000). This supports the theory that music evolved, at least in part, through sexual selection.

Some research has already shown that musical traits - such as being a musician, improvisational skills, or dance ability – are perceived as attractive (Hagen & Bryant, 2003; Madison et al., 2018; Marin & Rathgeber, 2022), consistent with evidence that creativity is generally considered attractive in mate choice (e.g., Karamihalev, 2013). However, other studies have found no significant associations between musical ability and mating success (Mosing et al., 2015) or reported such effects only among highly musical individuals (Bongard et al., 2019).

Beyond its role in attracting potential partners, a prominent example of music in romantic contexts is the 'couple-defining song'. Harris et al. (2020) found that 60% of 200 U.S. participants reported having songs they associate with their romantic relationships, which were associated with greater intimacy, a stronger sense of "we", and the retrieval of positive shared memories.

In terms of relationship maintenance, couples often report engaging in musical activities together (Campbell et al., 2011). However, to the best of our knowledge, only one study has specifically examined the effects of engaging in dyadic musical activities, such as listening to music together, sharing and exploring music, or making music as a couple. This study found that even when controlling for other non-musical dyadic activities, couples who engaged in dyadic musical activities (as opposed to structured group activities with others) experienced higher levels of commitment, mediated by interpersonal coordination and self-disclosure (Harwood & Wallace, 2021). Notably, two thirds of the dyads in the study were non-musicians, suggesting that the positive effects of engaging in musical activities are not solely dependent on both partners being musically inclined.

Overall, research on how music affects different aspects of romantic love at different stages of relationships is limited. Apart from one study examining the impact of shared musical activities on commitment (Harwood & Wallace, 2021), little research has been conducted into how music influences intimacy or passion. It remains unclear how couples use music in their relationships, whether and how these actions influence love-related outcomes, and which individuals are more or less influenced by music during the development and maintenance of romantic feelings.

The present study: Aims and research questions

The present study aimed to empirically test the role of music in romantic relationships as proposed by Bamford et al. (2024). We used a mixed-methods design that employed both quantitative and qualitative questions. This combinations allows us to explore the nuances of participants' experiences with music in relationships, potentially uncovering themes and patterns that may not emerge from quantitative measures alone. The following three research questions guided this study:

RQ1: How important is music in the context of romantic relationships, and does it contribute to strengthening intimacy, passion, and commitment at different stages of romantic relationships?

According to the model outlined by Bamford et al. (2024), we expect that the role of music for passion should be most important in the attraction phase, intimacy to be most important in the building phase, and commitment to be most important in the maintenance phase. However, these predictions are based on limited prior research.

RQ2: Does the perceived importance of music in romantic relationships, both overall and in contributing to specific aspects of love (passion, intimacy, commitment), vary with individual differences in musical expertise and sensitivity to musical reward?

Two contrasting hypotheses can be considered. On the one hand, people often seek similarity in romantic partners (Luo, 2017), so musical expertise and sensitivity to music-related reward may correlate with the perceived importance of music in romantic relationships overall, as well as in different aspects of love. On the other hand, musicality may be generally attractive because it signals overall fitness (Miller, 1999), implying that music should be equally important to everyone. Examining these associations could help to clarify whether the role and potential benefits of music in romantic relationships are universal, or whether they are primarily characteristic of individuals with higher musicality.

RQ3: What is the nature of music-related experiences that individuals recall in the context of romantic relationships across three relationship phases?

While RQ1 and RQ2 will be addressed with quantitative data, RQ3 is purely exploratory and will be analysed qualitatively with data-driven template analysis using participants' open responses.

Methods

Participants

A total of 174 individuals (out of 402 individuals that visited or started the survey) completed all parts of the study (145 females, 25 males, 3 non-binary, 1 other), with a mean age of 27.18 years (SD = 9.27, range = 18–63). Most participants reported Finland (n = 49), Austria (n = 40), and Germany (n = 38) as their nationalities; the other nationalities reported by more than one participant were Italy (18), the United Kingdom (4), and Australia (4). In terms of education, 56% held a university degree, 34% a high school diploma, 9% vocational training (9%), and 1% compulsory education.

Regarding musical background, the sample was quite diverse. Slightly more than half of the participants identified themselves as non-musicians (57%), while 35% described themselves as amateurs or serious amateur musicians, and 8% as (semi-)professional musicians. At the same time, 61% of the sample play an instrument or sing (97% of amateur and (semi)professional musicians; 34% of non-musicians). Of these musically active participants, they sing/play already for an average of 15.80 years (SD = 11.20, range = 0–55) and about 3.41 hours per week (SD = 4.40, range = 0–24).

Most participants were in a romantic relationship at the time of participation (n = 118, 68%); 36 (21%) were single, and the remaining 20 (11%) were in the dating stage. Of the participants who were not single (n = 13), 116 (84%) were in the maintenance phase of a relationship, 13 (9%) were in the building phase, and 9 (7%) were in the initial attraction phase. Participants in romantic relationships had been together with their partner for a mean of 5.28 years (SD = 2.38, range = 0.08 - 40.42).

Procedure

The study was conducted as an online survey using the open access software LimeSurvey (Limesurvey GmbH, 2022). Participants were recruited through email invitations sent to all students at the University of Innsbruck (Austria) and the University of Jyväskylä (Finland). In addition, the study invitation was shared on social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. The only inclusion criterion was that participants had to have experienced at least one romantic relationship of any kind (e.g. monogamous, polyamorous, open, heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual) at some point in their lives. After giving informed consent and completing demographic questions, participants were presented with explanations of the three relationship phases (attraction, building and maintenance) and aspects of love (intimacy, passion, and commitment). They were then asked to provide information about their experiences with music in the context of romantic relationships, answering quantitative and qualitative questions separately for each phase. Finally, participants provided information about their musical background, current relationship status, sensitivity to musical reward, and answered additional questions about the importance of music in the context of love. The survey was distributed on 12 pages with approximately 3–10 questions per page. The data collection took place between November 2023 and February 2024.

Quantitative measures

Participants could complete the survey in either English or German. The exact wording of all questions and answer labels is available in the OSF repository (in the quantitative data section). Item wordings are presented in English, and German versions are available upon request.

Role of music in romantic relationships. Separately for each of the relationship phases (attraction, building, maintenance), participants rated the overall importance of music and how much they feel music contributed to strengthening the three components of the Triangle Theory of Love (Sternberg, 1986), namely passion, intimacy, and commitment (see Table 1 for exact question wordings and answer labels). At the end of the survey, they answered a few more questions about the integration of music in their relationships (all on a 5-point scale; 1 = No, not at all, 5 = Yes, totally): If they talk about music with (potential) partners, if a (potential) partner's musical taste and musical ability is important to them, if they ever had a song that represented the relationship ("our song"), and if they think musical compatibility is more important than compatibility in other areas of leisure.

Table 1. Self-generated questions regarding the role of music in romantic relationships.

Construct	Question text	Answer format
Overall role of music	At this stage of the relationship, is/was music important to you?	1 = No, not at all; 5 = Yes, totally
Music strengthening passion	At this stage of the relationship, did music contribute to strengthening the passion you feel towards each other?	1 = No, not at all; 5 = Yes, totally
Music strengthening intimacy	At this stage of the relationship, did music help you to feel more connected to each other?	1 = No, not at all; 5 = Yes, totally
Music strengthening commitment	At this stage of the relationship, did music contribute to the decision to continue the relationship with this person?	1 = No, not at all; 5 = Yes, totally

Note: Participants answered each question three times, once for each of the three relationship phases (attraction, building and maintenance).

Musical Expertise. To assess participants' musical background, we used a single item from the Ollen Musical Sophistication Index (Ollen, 2006) on self-reported musical status (1 = non-musician, 2 = music-loving non-musician, 3 = amateur musician, 4 = serious amateur musician, 5 = semi-professional musician, 6 = professional musician), supplemented by self-generated questions on whether they played an instrument or sang, for how many years, and how many hours per week they practised. To adjust for age differences, we re-coded years of practice to indicate the percentage of life spent playing an instrument or singing (years of practice/age). As the four items (self-reported musical status, whether or not they play an instrument/sing, years of playing/singing, weekly practice hours) were internally consistent (Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.86), they were z-transformed and combined into a continuous composite score for musical expertise.

Sensitivity to Musical Reward. Sensitivity to musical reward experiences was assessed using the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire (BMRQ; Mas-Herrero et al., 2013). It assesses different facets of music reward and had high internal consistency in our sample: music-seeking (α = 0.61; e.g., “I inform myself about music I like”), emotion evocation (α = 0.63; e.g., “I sometimes feel chills when I hear a melody that I like”), mood regulation (α = 0.70; e.g., “Music calms and relaxes me”), sensory motor (α = 0.73; e.g., “Music often makes me dance”), social reward (α = 0.54; e.g., “Music makes me bond with other people”), and an overall musical reward score (α = 0.82). All items were measured on a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). As we are not aware of a validated German version of the BMRQ, three bilingual translators independently translated the scale into German and selected the best translations for all items.

Demographic and relationship questions. We further asked about age, gender (1 = female, 2 = male, 3 = non-binary, 4 = other), education (1 = compulsory school without vocational training, 2 = compulsory school with vocational training, 3 = vocational school with A-levels/high-school diploma, 4 = academic high school/grammar school, 5 = Bachelor’s degree, 6 = Master’s degree, 8 = Doctorate/PhD degree), and nationality. Furthermore, we assessed whether participants were in a romantic relationship, and, if so, at what stage (attraction, building, or maintenance) and for how many years.

Qualitative measures

For each of the three relationship phases (attraction, building, and maintenance), we provided participants with an empty text box to list their experiences with music that were relevant to their romantic relationships at that stage. The wording was:

“Please list any experiences with music that have been relevant to the relationship during the phase of [attraction/building/maintaining] a relationship. These can be positive activities that have strengthened the relationship, or negative experiences that have contributed to drifting apart”.

Data analysis

All analyses were conducted using R Studio (version 2025.05.0), and both the data and the analysis code are available in the OSF repository.

Quantitative analysis. We conducted quantitative analyses to address the first two research questions concerning participants' perceptions of the role of music in romantic relationships and its association with personal characteristics. Two repeated measures ANOVAs assessed whether the importance of music overall and in strengthening different components of love varied across relationship stages or love aspects. We tested the sphericity assumption using Mauchly’s test and, where violated, applied Greenhouse-Geisser corrections (evident from decimal degrees of freedom). The first analysis predicted the perceived positive contributions of music based on aspects of love (intimacy, passion, commitment; see Table 1 for item wordings), different relationship stages (attraction, building, maintaining), and their interactions. The second analysis predicted the overall role of music (see Table 1 for question wording) based on the relationship stage. To explore associations between music-related individual characteristics and the perceived role of music for romantic relationships, overall and for specific aspects of love, we ran additional correlation analyses. Given that most variables were measured on ordinal scales, Spearman’s rank-order correlations were used. To account for multiple testing, the Benjamini-Hochberg procedure was used to correct the p-values, controlling the false discovery rate at 0.05. For the correlational analysis involving gender, participants identifying as non-binary or other genders (n = 4) were excluded. For all other analyses, we relied on the complete dataset.

Qualitative analysis. We used template analysis (Brooks et al., 2015; Crabtree & Miller, 1992) to analyse participants' responses to three open-ended survey questions about their experiences of music in romantic relationships. Following the methodology outlined by Brooks et al. (2015), we first created a collaborative template among all authors. The template for the current analysis was inductively defined based on empirical observations from the initial screening of responses. The initial template delineated two main categories: 'action', which included activities such as making, sharing and listening to music, and 'outcome', which included signalling attraction or compatibility, bonding and regulating emotions and affect. Once a basic code structure was established, two authors independently and parallelly coded all responses, meeting periodically to refine or expand the template, as needed. Each response could be assigned multiple codes, but each code was counted only once per response in order to avoid overrepresenting participants who provided more detailed answers. Ultimately, we arrived at a final set of 55 codes organised into four second-level categories for action and five for outcome. An overview of the codes, higher-order themes, and dimensions identified is shown in Figure 2, and Table S3 (see OSF repository) provides the descriptions of all codes. Inter-rater agreement was assessed using Cohen's kappa coefficient (McHugh, 2012).

Results

Quantitative results

To address RQ1, we conducted a repeated-measures ANOVA to examine the perceived importance of music, with aspect of love (intimacy, passion, commitment) and relationship phase (attraction, building, maintenance) as within-subject factors. This analysis revealed significant main effects for both aspect, F(1.39, 240) = 195.75, p < .001, ηp² = 0.53, and phase, F(1.62, 280) = 13.44, p < .001, ηp² = 0.07, and no interaction effect, F(3.56, 616) = 0.87, p = .475, ηp² = 0.01. Pairwise comparisons using Bonferroni correction indicated significant differences between all relationship aspects (p < .001). Regarding relationship phases, there were no differences between the attraction and building phases (p = 1.00), but there were differences between the maintenance phase and both the attraction and building phases (ps < .001). In a second ANOVA, the perceived general role of music did not differ across relationship phases, F(1.85, 319.2) = 0.77, p = .462, ηp² < 0.01. As shown in Figure 1, participants reported a high general role of music in all three phases (M = 4.00, SD = 0.89). The importance of music for the three components was higher in the attraction (M = 3.61, SD = 1.08) and building (M = 3.59, SD = 1.02) phases than in the maintenance phase (M = 3.31, SD = 1.05), while it appeared to be most important for intimacy (M = 3.96, SD = 0.97), followed by passion (M = 3.76, SD = 0.99), and commitment (M = 2.79, SD = 1.18).

Figure 1. The importance of music across the three phases of romantic relationships.

Note. Boxplots summarise the distribution of the data, while the responses of individual participants are shown as jittered points. Mean values are indicated by larger black circles. Questions regarding the general role of music, as well as its perceived contribution to strengthening the three aspects of love, were measured on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 5 (totally).

Figure 2. Full list of codes and higher order themes.

Note. Negative valence codes are shown in grey. Code descriptions can be found in the extended data (see OSF repository).

To explore whether music-related individual traits moderate role of music in romantic relationships (RQ2), we correlated musical expertise and sensitivity to music-related reward with the perceived overall role of music and its contribution to strengthening the three aspects of love (aggregated across phases). As an exploratory analysis, we also included demographics (gender, age, and education) in the correlation analysis. As detailed in Table 2, sensitivity to musical reward was positively associated with all outcomes except commitment, whereas musical expertise correlated only with the overall role of music. Table S1 in the Extended Data (see OSF repository) shows the same correlations for all BMRQ subscales. The strongest correlations with the overall role of music and its contribution to the three aspects of love appear for the social reward subscale, while the weakest correlations appear for the sensory-motor subscale.

Table 2. Correlations between the role of music overall and in contributing to the three aspects of love (intimacy, passion, commitment) and personal characteristics, including means and standard deviations.

	Variables assessing personal characteristics
Variables assessing the role of music	Musical expertise (M = 0.00, SD = 0.83)	BMRQ Total Score (M = 4.04, SD = 0.46)	Gender::female	Age (M = 27.18, SD = 9.27)	Education (M = 4.77, SD = 1.17)
Overall role of music	.22*	.47***	.02	.07	-.01
Music strengthening passion	.09	.38***	-.06	.04	-.06
Music strengthening intimacy	.03	.34***	.03	.03	-.05
Music strengthening commitment	.14	.25**	-.04	.18	.06

Note. Education was measured by the highest level of education achieved (1 = compulsory education without vocational training; 7 = doctorate/PhD; see the Methods section for all answer options). BMRQ = Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire.

*p < .05, ** p < .01, ***p < .001, with all p-values corrected using the Benjamini-Hochberg method.

As the BMRQ showed moderate correlations with all outcomes, we conducted an additional analysis to examine whether music-related reward sensitivity influenced the importance people attach to music across different relationship phases and aspects of love. Specifically, we ran a repeated-measures ANOVA including the BMRQ group (low versus high, based on a median split) as the between-subjects factor. The analysis revealed significant main effects of love aspect (F(1.38, 238) = 197.17 p < .001, ηp² = 0.53) and phase (F(1.62, 279) = 13.35, p < .001, ηp² = 0.07), as well as a main effect of BMRQ (F(1.00, 172) = 23.21, p < .001, ηp² = 0.12). These results suggest that individuals with higher BMRQ scores consistently rated music as more important than those with lower scores, across all phases and love aspects. There were no significant interactions between BMRQ and phase (F(1.62, 279) = 0.01, p = .991, ηp² < 0.01) or between BMRQ and aspect (F(1.38, 238) = 1.76, p = .184, ηp² = 0.01). Thus, the relative pattern of music's contribution to different love aspects across phases was unaffected by BMRQ. Figure S1 in the Extended Data (OSF repository) illustrates these results, showing music importance across phases and love aspects separately for low and high BMRQ groups.

In response to additional 5-point scale questions, participants indicated that they typically discussed their musical preferences with their (potential) partners (M = 4.28, SD = 0.86) and placed moderate importance on their partner's musical taste (M = 3.52, SD = 1.06), but less importance on their partner's musical ability (M = 2.19, SD = 1.14). On average, participants tended to have songs that they considered defining their relationships with (M = 3.70, SD = 1.37). Overall, the participants did not perceive musical compatibility as more important than compatibility in other leisure activities (M = 2.54, SD = 1.05). Consistent with findings regarding the role of music in romantic relationships, musical expertise was positively correlated with talking about preferences and placing importance on a partners’ musical ability, while musical reward was associated with all five additional questions (see Table S2 in the Extended Data (OSF repository) for more details).

Qualitative results

Out of 174 participants, 147 answered at least one of the three open-ended questions. Responses were provided by129 participants for the attraction phase, 119 for the building phase, and 103 for the maintenance phase, resulting in a total of 351 coded responses. Qualitative template analysis, as described in the Methods section, yielded 55 distinct codes grouped into nine higher order themes (making and recalling memories, listening to music, sharing and discussing music, active musical activities, attraction, compatibility, self-disclosure and communication, bonding and (re)connecting, emotion/affect, and regulation) and two aggregate dimensions (action and outcome), as shown in Figure 2. We recognise that readers may be surprised to see 'memories' categorised as an action rather than an outcome code. Unlike our outcome codes, which reflect emotional or relationship-related processes, the theme 'memories' occupies a somewhat intermediate position. We have placed it in the action dimension because it primarily refers to the active process of creating and recalling memories in later phases of a relationship, which can then lead to emotional or relational outcomes.

Inter-coder reliability was substantial, with κ = 0.62, z = 104, p < .001 across all codes and phases. Agreement was similarly high for the attraction (κ = 0.62, z = 60.27, p < .001), building (κ = 0.60, z = 58.65, p < .001), and maintenance (κ = 0.63, z = 61.65, p < .001) phases. Tables S4 and S5 in the Extended Data (see OSF repository) further show that all Kappas for second-order themes were consistently above 0.40, indicating at least moderate agreement (M = 0.57, SD = 0.12, range = 0.40 - 0.65). Of the 55 first-order codes, 76% showed at least moderate agreement (> 0.40), and 96% achieved at least fair agreement (> 0.20) (M = 0.58, SD = 0.21, range = 0.12 - 1.00). The code with the lowest agreement was 5C ('Attracted by shared musical experiences', κ = 0.12), followed by 6C ('Extra-musical compatibility', κ = 0.19).

Given the high level of agreement between the coders, we present the qualitative responses based only on those codes on which both coders agreed, to increase the robustness of the findings. Consequently, only the codes that both coders identified as present in a participant's response were included in the analysis. Below, we present the frequency with which each aggregate dimension, second-order theme and first-order code was referenced, expressed as a percentage of participants who mentioned it at least once, either across all three open-ended questions or within a given phase.

Aggregate dimensions: Action and Outcome. Regarding the two aggregate dimensions of action and outcome (the latter subdivided into bonding, signalling, and emotions), 72.4% of participants mentioned musical actions in at least one of their responses, which included activities such as listening to music, sharing music, and creating music. Bonding as an outcome, involving the themes connection/reconnection and self-disclosure, was mentioned by 39.7% of participants. Signalling was mentioned by 40.2% of participants and referred to indications of attraction (e.g., being attracted by the musical ability of a potential partner) or compatibility (e.g., finding out about shared musical tastes or extra-musical compatibility). Emotion as an outcome appeared in 13.2% of participants’ responses and involved (co)regulation of emotions, such as setting the mood or processing emotional experiences.

Across all relationship phases, musical actions show a consistent presence, being present in 58.0%, 56.9%, and 44.8% of participants’ responses in the attraction, building, and maintenance phases, respectively. Similarly, bonding was observed across all phases with 18.4%, 19.0% and 19.5% in the attraction, building and maintenance phases respectively. Signalling was most pronounced in the attraction phase (27.0%), followed by the building phase (14.4%), and maintenance phase (13.2%). Finally, emotions were less pronounced in all phases, with 7.5%, 5.2%, and 2.9% in the attraction, building, and maintenance phases, respectively.

Second-order themes. The heatmap in Figure 3 provides an overview of theme frequencies, based on the percentage of participants who mentioned codes belonging to each theme, both overall and across phases. Overall, the most frequent theme was listening to music in public and private contexts (Theme 2), followed by sharing and discussing music (Theme 3) and engaging in active musical activities (Theme 4). We also observed variations in the prominence of themes across phases. For example, 'listening to music' increased in frequency from the attraction phase to the maintenance phase, while 'sharing and discussing music' was more common in the attraction and building phases and decreased in the maintenance phase. The theme of 'making and recalling memories' (Theme 1) was most prevalent in the attraction and, to a lesser extent, maintenance phases, where participants referred to creating shared memories early on and recalling them later. These participant responses include quotes such as, “Having that song as a reminder of all the good in the relationship and why you love the other person, having positive memories tied to that and other songs that are brought up when you listen to them[...]” (Participant 116), and

Figure 3. Frequencies of second-order themes across relationship phases, shown as percentages of participants (color) and absolute participant counts (numbers).

“Certain songs discovered and consumed during that period (especially when they were relationship pop [songs]) connect with that time and reinforce the feeling of attraction. I've always felt that the songs I've consumed a lot tie in with important events in my life during the listening period, as well as the seasons.” (Participant 168)

Feelings of attraction through music were the most prevalent in the attraction phase (Theme 5), whereas references to compatibility through music (Theme 6) were present in all phases, but again mostly in the attraction phase. The themes 'Self-disclosure and communication' (Theme 7) and 'Emotion/affect & regulation' (Theme 9) were more prominent in the early stages of the relationship. Regarding self-disclosure, participants detailed instances in which they revealed personal information to their partners, including their musical preferences and experiences, and used songs or song lyrics to communicate their feelings and intentions to their partners. Quotes exemplifying this theme include, “we shared playlists of music that we like. also we exchanged playlists with music in our native languages, as we are an international couple (finnish and spanish).” (Participant 17), “You can also ask which songs you listened to as a child and find out something about your family environment.” (Participant 326), Regarding emotion/affect & regulation, participants wrote about experiences in which music was used either intentionally or unintentionally to set the mood or affective tone while together or independently. Examples of this theme in participants’ responses include quotes such as,

“We both have a playlist of songs that the other one has suggested to us. I've added ‘extra’ songs to mine that remind me of him/our relationship. And when I miss him or am generally just having a bad day or am sad, I listen to this playlist. It calms me down.” (Participant 386)

Many participant responses in which this theme was observed discussed the importance of music before, during, and/or after sex. These participants’ responses shared ideas such as:

“I think that the choice of music is extremely important during sex. In my experience, the type of music has a significant effect on sex and therefore also determines whether it vibes. What I've also noticed personally in this context is that "more relaxed" and "romantic" music only feels good with people you really like. So music can also be an indicator of how comfortable I feel with a person and how vulnerable I can be.” (participant 238)

First-order codes. In the action dimension, three of the most frequent codes were related to listening to music: listening to music together (2F, n = 88, 15.6%), listening to music in public (2A, n = 52, 29.9%) and listening to music in private (2B, n = 37, 21.3%). In addition, 28.2% of participants mentioned sharing and talking about music (3A, n = 49), and 19.5% mentioned making music together (4A, n = 34). In the outcome dimension, the most prevalent codes were compatible musical tastes (6A, n = 37, 21.3%) and strengthening bonds/deepening connections (8A, n = 33, 19.0%), followed by realising incompatibility through music (6E, n = 16, 9.2%).

Table 3 provides an overview of the top three codes in each relationship phase, separately for the action and outcome dimensions. Across all phases, the most common action codes consistently involve listening to music together (together, in public, and in private; 2F, 2A, 2B), whereas the outcomes of musical activities vary according to the relationship phases. In the attraction and building phases, participants primarily mentioned compatibility (e.g., having compatible tastes or musical abilities, 6A) and to a smaller extent incompatibility (e.g., finding out to have different tastes, 6E), followed by deepening bonds through music (8A). In the maintenance phase, coping with differences becomes more prominent (e.g., finding a way to deal with differences in musical preferences, 6D), as do topics such as incorporating music into future plans and commitments (e.g., planning dance lessons or choosing of music for a wedding, 8D).

Table 3. Most prevalent (top three) first-order codes across relationship phases.

Code	Frequency	Percentage (by phase)
*Attraction Phase*
Action
2F - Together (music listening)	40	23.0
3A - Sharing or talking about music	38	21.8
2A - Public (music listening)	17	9.8
Outcome
6A - Compatible musical tastes	25	14.4
8A - Strengthening bonds / deepening connection	17	9.8
5A - Attracted by musical ability & 5B - Attracted by shared taste	8	4.6
*Building Phase*
Action
2F - Together (music listening)	46	26.4
3A - Sharing or talking about music	20	11.5
2A - Public (music listening) & 4A - Making music	19	10.9
Outcome
8A - Strengthening bonds/deepening connection	17	9.8
6A - Compatible musical tastes	14	8.1
6E - Incompatibility	8	4.6
*Maintaining Phase*
Action
2F - Together (music listening)	53	30.5
2A - Public (music listening)	35	20.1
2B - Private (music listening)	22	12.6
Outcome
6D - Coping with differences	12	6.9
8A - Strengthening bonds/deepening connection	8	4.6
6E - Incompatibility, 8D - Future plans & commitment, & 8H - Losing connection	7	4.0

A more detailed heat map of the frequency of all 55 first-order codes across the relationship phases is provided in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Frequencies of first-order codes across relationship phases, shown as percentages of participants (color) and absolute participant counts (numbers).

Note. The text colors of the codes indicate the nine higher order themes to which the codes were assigned: 1 = making and recalling memories, 2 = listening to music (public and private), 3 = sharing and discussing music, 4 = active musical activities, 5 = attraction, 6 = compatibility, 7 = self-disclosure and communication, 8 = bonding and (re)connecting, 9 = emotion/affect and regulation.

Negative experiences. Overall, the majority of participants (n = 139, 79.9%) described positive experiences with music, whereas a smaller proportion (n = 36, 20.7%) reported negative experiences. Negative experiences were most frequently mentioned in the maintenance phase (11.5% of the sample), followed by the building phase (9.2%) and the attraction phase (4.0%). In the maintenance phase, these negative experiences most often concerned realising incompatibilities (4.0%, 6E; e.g., discovering differing musical tastes) and a loss of connection (4.0%, 8H; e.g., spending less time together due to one partner being too absorbed in music). Quotes from participants' responses exemplifying these negative experiences shared ideas such as,

“Different music preferences led to us growing apart (he never really wanted to listen to music, but it was important to me) - even with the songs we listened to, when we listened to music we became estranged (I think) because we only ever listened to his songs.” (Participant 370).

Similarly, both in the building phase and attraction phase, the most mentioned negative code was realizing incompatibility (6E), with 4.2% of participants mentioning the code in the building phase, and 1.7% of participants mentioning it in the attraction phase.

Co-occurrence of codes. To explore whether certain action and outcome codes were frequently mentioned together, we conducted a thematic co-occurrence analysis following the method outlined by Scharp (2021). As shown in Figure 5, outcome codes belonging to compatibility (Theme 6) and bonding (Theme 8) mostly co-occurred with action codes. Of the compatibility codes, compatible tastes (6A) showed the most co-occurrences, specifically listening to music codes (2F together, n = 19; 2C active, n = 7; 2A in public, n = 7), sharing music (3A, n = 15), and actively making music (4A, n = 5). Participant responses illustrating these co-occurrences included descriptions of actions such as, “Discussing musical preferences, and finding common interests, setting up a date location based on mutual musical interests (e.g. jazz bar), meeting up at a festival.” (Participant 110). The codes belonging to bonding (Theme 8), specifically strengthening bonds (8A), mostly co-occurred with listening to music (2F, n = 8) and sharing music (3A, n = 8). Responses such as, “Going to concerts together and generally listening to songs that both partners like was a nice experience. I feel more connected to my partner when he has at least some idea of what music I like [...].” (Participant 245- 8A and 2F) demonstrate the co-occurrence of these codes.

Figure 5. Co-occurrences of action and outcome codes across all relationship phases.

Circle sizes indicate the frequency of individual codes, and line thicknesses indicate how often the two codes (absolute numbers) were mentioned in the same responses.

A full matrix of co-occurrences overall and separately by relationship phase can be found in the Extended Data (see OSF repository).

Discussion

The present study is the first to explore the role of music for different aspects of love across the stages of romantic relationships. In our sample of 174 participants, who were mostly female and musically oriented, the quantitative results suggest a medium to high overall importance of music, which is stronger for intimacy and passion than for commitment, and for the attraction and building phases than for the maintenance phase. In addition, music-related personal characteristics (particularly sensitivity to music reward and, to a lesser extent, musical expertise) were associated with higher ratings for the overall role of music and its contribution to the three aspects of love. However, the general pattern of results, such as the relatively lower contribution to commitment, did not change with reward sensitivity.

From the 351 qualitative responses, two aggregate dimensions (action and outcome) emerged, comprising nine second-order themes and 55 first-order codes. Participants frequently mentioned musical actions, with listening to music (54% of participants), sharing or discussing music (46% of participants), and making music together (38.5% of participants) as the most common first-order codes. Outcomes were less frequently mentioned but centred on bonding and (re)connecting (38.6%), and learning about compatibility through music. Notably, second-order themes such as signalling attraction and compatibility and using music for emotional communication and regulation were most common in responses for the attraction phase, whereas bonding through music and engaging in musical activities were more commonly reported for the building and maintenance phase.

Music across the love-span

Using a mixed-methods approach, the present study aimed to provide an overview of how important music is at different relationship stages, and whether it is perceived as strengthening different facets of love. Quantitative responses indicated that music was perceived as playing a similar role in fostering intimacy and passion. In contrast, commitment was clearly differentiated, with participants reporting that music played a smaller role in strengthening this facet.

The open-ended qualitative responses allowed participants to elaborate on the musical behaviours they associate with each stage and why they were important. Consistent with the theoretical framework guiding this study, some parallels can be observed between the generated codes and Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love (Sternberg, 1986). Most notably, participants often reported second-order themes involving music as a bonding experience, which could correspond to an increased level of ‘intimacy’ in Sternberg’s model, while second-order ‘attraction’ codes could correspond to the passion dimension. Codes relating to ‘commitment’ were less frequent. In fact, only one code, 8E (Future plans and commitment), directly addressed this dimension and was mentioned by 5.7% of participants in at least one of the phases. Similarly, in the quantitative results, music was rated as being least contributing for this facet, although some exceptions will be discussed in the maintenance phase below.

In the quantitative results, there was a general trend of music being less important over time, particularly towards the maintenance phase. When looking at the types of activities being mentioned in the qualitative data, listening to music together seems to be done throughout a relationship, but becomes more common over time. Meanwhile, sharing and discussing music becomes less common; as people get to know each other’s music tastes better, there is less need to talk about it. Making music with a partner slightly peaked during the building phase. Although emotion regulation was not mentioned as often as other codes, it seems that music is used more for regulation mostly at the start of a relationship. Certain trends emerge when looking at which codes are mentioned together, which enables actions to be matched to outcomes. Assessing signals of compatibility with a partner was often mentioned, along with shared music listening, discussing music, and active music making. Meanwhile, people often mentioned increased bonding and connection as an outcome of joint listening and discussing music. Overall, throughout the course of a relationship, music seems to be used less to assess compatibility, and more to deepen relationships.

Attraction. In the attraction phase, music was considered to be of high importance, particularly for intimacy and passion. Participants were most likely to mention discussing music (32.8%) and listening to music together (24.7%) in this phase. Previous literature has also suggested that talking about music is a common activity during dating, as it is an easy early conversation to learn about strangers (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2006). Our participants also mentioned feeling attracted to those with compatible music tastes (4.6%) or to note compatibility in tastes (14.4%), which is consistent with assortative mating strategies, that is, that people seek out mates who are like themselves (Luo, 2017). Simultaneously, some participants also said that they found musical ability to be attractive to a potential partner (4.6%), which appears to be consistent with the theory that musicality is a sexually selected trait (Miller, 1999). At the same time, our quantitative analyses revealed that individuals with higher musical expertise and music-related reward sensitivity placed significantly higher importance on a partner’s musical ability. Overall, in this phase participants seemed to evaluate potential partners based on musical compatibility, especially music preferences and to a smaller extend, musical ability. There were also some people who already mentioned deepening the connection with a potential partner through music during the attraction phase, although this becomes more prevalent in the next phase.

Building. Most participants rated music as equally important during the building phase as in the attraction phase, and again music was rated to contribute mostly to the intimacy and passion facets of Sternberg’s (1986) triangular theory of love. In the qualitative responses, sharing and talking about music (11.5%) as well as shared music listening (26.0%) were just as common as in the attraction phase. Shared music making was mentioned most in this phase (10.9%). In these instances, shared music making may have been used as a means of increasing feelings of social closeness, as suggested by previous research (Dunbar, 2012; Savage et al., 2021). Correspondingly, increasing connection with a partner became a much more frequent outcome in this phase; attraction may have already been established, but at this stage people were getting to know each other more. Nevertheless, many participants were still assessing their partners for compatibility, and some also reported noticing incompatibilities more as they got deeper into the relationship (4.6%). This could reflect the ending of what may be referred to as the ‘honeymoon phase’ or ‘new relationship energy’, which often occurs at the start of a relationship (Huston et al., 1986; Lucas et al., 2003), as participants moved towards the maintenance phase of their relationships.

Maintaining. In general, music was seen as less important during the maintenance phase. Contrary to our hypothesis (Bamford et al., 2024), self-report ratings indicated that music was not seen as more important for enhancing commitment at this phase. Nevertheless, in the qualitative responses, some participants did mention that music played an important role in their future planning (4.0%) when reflecting on the maintenance phase, which was less common in prior stages. The most prevalent responses were around choosing music for weddings, for example, “to try and blend our eclectic and different tastes in music into a cohesive couple story” (Participant 49), while others mentioned discussing the songs that they would sing to their future children (participants 33 and 208), or even dreams of “owning a record store together” (Participant 271). It seems that, although participants did not report that music was important for commitment in their relationship on average, there were specific ways in which music was involved in future planning and commitments for some participants.

Other activities mostly decreased in frequency during this phase, except for music listening, which was reported more frequently (30.5%). Bonding and compatibility were the most common outcomes in this phase, just like in the building phase, although here bonding was more frequent (see Figure 3). The way participants discussed compatibility seemed to be different in the maintenance phase, as participants were more likely to talk about how they had overcome differences, or had grown apart, rather than discovering shared musical preferences as they did in earlier phases. As with the previous stages, many participants mentioned that music helped strengthen their bond with their partner, but it also became more common at this stage to begin losing connection, sometimes connected with diverging musical interests.

Individual differences

Our quantitative analysis suggests that music plays a greater role overall and in terms of the three aspects of the Triangular Theory for individuals with higher levels of musical reward sensitivity and, to a lesser extent, musical expertise. Similarly, individuals with higher expertise and music reward reported talking more about music preferences when they met a potential partner, they tended to place more importance on having similar music tastes and on the partner having high musical ability. The BMRQ further correlated with having an “our song” and seeing music as more important than other leisure areas. Exploratory analyses further revealed a main effect of BMRQ when examining the importance of music in strengthening the three facets of love across different relationship phases. The absence of interaction effects indicates that music reward sensitivity primarily prompts individuals to value music more in their relationships overall, rather than linking it to the enhancement of specific facets of love or particular phases of a relationship.

These findings tend to support the idea that music serves as a way to measure similarity with a partner (e.g., Luo, 2017), rather than being a universally attractive trait (e.g., Miller, 2000). Thus, music appears to be particularly important in romantic relationships of individuals who place a high value on it or have strong musical skills themselves. Nevertheless, participants at all levels of expertise and musical reward reported engaging in musical activities and described related outcomes in their qualitative responses. Therefore, music has some value for all, for example, in terms of providing insights into other people's personalities, values, arousal preferences, and desire for cognitive stimulation (Boer et al., 2011; Getz et al., 2014; Vella & Mills, 2017).

Limitations and future directions

While the strengths of this study include the mixed-methods design and a diverse sample in terms of musical background, some limitations should be noted. Most participants were female, young, and well educated, which may limit the generalizability of our findings. For example, bonding behaviours through music and the qualitative themes we identified may reflect female perspectives more strongly. Younger participants may emphasise experiences from the early stages of relationships rather than those from later maintenance phases. Participants with less musical training, or who are older, might report different patterns, such as less frequent shared music-making, or a different balance of positive and negative music-related experiences. Finally, as our sample was drawn from a Western cultural context, the ways in which music is used in romantic relationships, and the meanings attributed to it, may differ in other cultures. In terms of measurement, we assessed the role of music in intimacy, passion and commitment using three simple, self-generated questions. As these questions were not based on pre-existing scales, the results should be interpreted with caution. In addition, participants were asked to retrospectively report on their experiences with music in the context of past relationships and relationship stages, which limits causal claims from the co-occurrence analysis, as some responses included multiple experiences or relationships. Consequently, co-occurrence only indicates that actions and outcomes were mentioned together, and not that one caused the other. To overcome this limitation, future research could include recruiting participants who are currently in different phases of a romantic relationship, collecting dyadic data from both romantic partners, or using designs such as experience sampling methods.

Regarding the moderating effect of music-related individual differences, the present study provides an initial exploration of how such traits relate to the role of music in romantic relationships. Further research could investigate additional moderators, such as traits associated with musical tendencies (e.g. openness and empathy), to clarify under what circumstances and for whom music shapes romantic connections. Finally, as this study focused specifically on the role of music in romantic relationships, it remains unclear whether similar results would emerge for other shared leisure activities or for other types of relationships, such as close, non-romantic friendships. Existing research suggests that discussing musical preferences is among the most frequent topic when initiating a relationship with a stranger (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2006). This indicates that music may play a particularly important role in social bonding, although this has yet to be tested directly.

Conclusion

Considering the relevance of music for social bonding as well as the vast number of songs that address love, it is astonishing how little attention has been paid to study the role of music in romantic relationships. The current study provides a first systematic investigation of the relevance of music for the three core aspects of love across the three major phases of romantic relationships. Based on the results the core affordance of music appears to relate to intimacy: learning about, getting closer, and feeling more connected to a partner. The capacity of music to facilitate social intimacy resonates well with the literature on music as social-bonding in general (e.g., Saarikallio, 2019; Savage et al., 2021; Tarr et al., 2014). This raises the important question of whether the role and purpose of music in romantic love truly differs from the role that music serves for human social behaviour in general. Activities such as music listening during sex, music that inspires future plans for family, or the use of music to ignite passion are perhaps special for romantic relationships, but testing the broader similarities with other types of relationships could be an interesting avenue for future research. Overall, this study offers important new insights into how music is present in romantic relationships, which can be meaningful from music research to couple therapies and broader approaches of studying human relationships.

Ethical approval and consent

This study was considered exempt from ethics committee approval in accordance with the guidelines of the local university ethics committee. Prior to participation, the participants were fully informed about the study and provided informed consent in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Participants gave their written consent to the following statement by clicking on a on the 'I agree' button:

I am at least 18 years old and freely agree to participate in this research study. I have been informed about the purpose, procedures, and nature of the study and understand them fully. I am aware that my participation is voluntary, and I have the right to withdraw from the study at any time without any penalty or consequences. I understand that the data collected during the study will be kept strictly confidential and anonymized, ensuring my privacy. I hereby grant permission for the data generated from my participation to be used in the researcher's publications on the topic of the study.

Data were securely stored on the university's server to ensure the anonymity and confidentiality of all participants.

Data availability

The dataset and analysis code for this study are available in the following OSF repository:

Vigl, J., Bamford, J. S., Saarikallio, S., & Fleckenstein, A. M. (2024, November 22). Music Across the Love Span. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/EH8WN (Vigl et al., 2025).

This projects contains the following underlying data:

• Extended data:
- extended_data.docx: This document contains five additional tables (Tables S1–S5) and one figure (Figure S1).
- co-occurenceMatrix_full.xlsx: Full co-occurrence matrix of action and outcome codes overall and separately for the relationship phases.
• Quantitative data:
- data_wide.csv: Anonymized answers to the quantitative questions in wide format.
- data_long.csv: Anonymized answers to the quantitative questions in long format.
- Codebooks for both datasets are provided in the same location
∉ Qualitative data:
- qualitativeData_wide.csv: First-order codes assigned by two coders in wide format. The ID column in this dataset refers to the participant index number that is also provided in the quantitative datasets
- qualitativeData_long.csv: First-order codes assigned by two coders in long format. The responseID column in this dataset refers to the participant index number that is also provided in the quantitative datasets
- openResponses.xlsx: This file contains the qualitative data (responses to the open-ended questions) in a de-identified format (i.e., without the participant ID), together with the phase for which the response was given, as well as the first-order codes and second-order themes assigned by both coders.
• Data analysis:
- dataAnalysis.R: All quantitative and qualitative analysis performed for this article.

Data are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Zero “No rights reserved” data waiver (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication).

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Marcel Zentner for his advice in the planning of this study, and all of the participants for contributing their stories.

Faculty Opinions recommended

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October 31, 2025

DOI

https://doi.org/10.12688/openreseurope.19016.2

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December 15, 2025 (Version of Record 2.0)
October 31, 2025 (Version of Record 1.0)
December 24, 2024 (Published Manuscript Under Review 1.0)

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The Research Council of Norway

Grant ID(s): 262762
Research Council of Finland

Grant ID(s): 346210
European Commission

Grant ID(s): 101045747
Österreichische Forschungsgemeinschaft

Grant ID(s): 06/16599

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Music, romantic relationships, social bonding, mate selection, compatibility, attractiveness

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Julia Vigl

Psychologie, Universitat Innsbruck Fakultät für Psychologie und Sportwissenschaft, Innsbruck, Tyrol, 6020, Austria

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Corresponding Author, Co-Author, Conceptualization, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Funding Acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing – Original Draft Preparation, Writing – Review & Editing

0000-0003-2152-7584

julia.vigl@uibk.ac.at

Joshua S. Bamford

Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Central Finland, 40014, Finland

Centre of Excellence in Music, Mind, Body and Brain, Jyväskylä, Finland, 40014, Finland

Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion, University of Oxford School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, Oxford, England, OX26PE, UK

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Co-Author, Conceptualization, Formal Analysis, Funding Acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Writing – Original Draft Preparation, Writing – Review & Editing

0000-0002-8204-7915

joshua.s.bamford@jyu.fi

Abbigail Fleckenstein

Department of Psychology; RITMO Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway, 0316, Norway

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Co-Author, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Funding Acquisition, Validation, Writing – Original Draft Preparation, Writing – Review & Editing

0009-0003-1835-2098

a.m.fleckenstein@psykologi.uio.no

Suvi Saarikallio

Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Central Finland, 40014, Finland

Centre of Excellence in Music, Mind, Body and Brain, Jyväskylä, Finland, 40014, Finland

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Co-Author, Conceptualization, Funding Acquisition, Methodology, Project Administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Writing – Original Draft Preparation, Writing – Review & Editing

suvi.saarikallio@jyu.fi

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Music across the love-span: a mixed methods study into the use of music in romantic relationships

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Julia Vigl

Joshua S. Bamford

Abbigail Fleckenstein

Suvi Saarikallio

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