This video and thousands like it are quite popular on YouTube. The concept is that you have to listen to a song, and fight your urge to sing along.
What’s the psychological mechanism that causes that almost-irresistible urge to sing along (when you know the song, of course)? Is this some evolutionary vestige? Did H. Sapiens communicate with each other over distance by singing, like wolves do, at some point in our evolutionary history?
I thought that was a joke on south park.
(terrible camera work in that video).I have no idea about the mental aspects of it. I know that singing and dancing are meant to be social activities, so maybe we feel a compulsion to do it when in an environment calls for it. But that is baseless speculation.
WAG, I’d say it’s a variation of the mechanism responsible for the pee dance. Some songs make you feel happy and energetic (i.e. highly stimulated). If the lyrics and tune are easily learnable (as most pop songs are) singing along is a natural outlet for that stimulation.
While it’s impossible to really know the evolutionary origins of certain urges (and I don’t think highly of evolutionary psychology, so forgive me for briefly going there), some neuroscientists think speech likely evolved from song. Most singing animals, especially the most social ones, have some sort of call-and-response or choral behavior, which probably serves simply to tell the others roughly how large the community is. That urge is probably rooted in something like that, but I’m unaware of any neuroimaging research on it.
Obligatory Monty Python clip (at 0:52): Guards! Make sure the Prince doesn't leave this room ... - YouTube
And Toy Story 2 (at 1:55): - YouTube