A new study from the University of Bern, Switzerland, seems to confirm what many music lovers feel they know from experience: that with the right stimuli, the many can become as one.

According to research led by psychologist Dr Wolfgang Tschacher, audience members’ heartbeats, rates of breathing and even sweating synchronise when they watch a classical music concert.

Photo © Luis Quintero/Pexels

Tschacher and his colleagues monitored 132 people (18–85 years of age) who were separated into three groups to watch different string quintet performances of the same pieces of music – Ludwig van Beethoven’s Op. 104 in C minor, Australian composer Brett Dean’s Epitaphs and Johannes Brahms’s Op. 111 in G major – while wearing body sensors.

During the concerts, data showed that participants’ heart rates, breathing speeds and skin conductance became synchronised.

Prior to the concerts (which all took place in Berlin), the researchers asked the participants to undergo a personality test. Once that data was interpolated, the researchers found that synchronisation was more likely to occur among people who considered themselves to be ‘agreeable’ or ‘open’.

“Openness is a personality trait of welcoming new experiences – liking art, travel and exotic things,”...