So there was a recent study done done by psychology professor Adrian North, from Hariot-Watt University (a survey of 36,000 people nationwide) that scientifically proves the direct correlation between musical preference and personality traits. I've always suspected this... but I guess now it's
legit that its scientifically supported.
Just like you can learn a lot about a person by their reading material or looking through their closet, you can definitely come to KNOW a person through their music collection. However, I do not believe you can
JUDGE a person by their musical tastes... we're individuals!! Disparities in musical preference are a sorry excuse to dislike someone. All in all, it's just as shallow as judging someone by the clothes they wear. Yes, certain people may be drawn to a particular genre of music, but nowadays with the amount of cross influence between musical and artistic styles, everyone is listening to a little bit of everything.
Music is forever changing. But if someone has good taste in music (in your opinion), by all means they are certainly deserving of some cool points.
So the research done suggests that your personality plays a major role in the music that you prefer to listen to. They've made conclusions including:- Country-western listeners are hardworking and shy.
- Rap/hip-hop listeners are generally outgoing.
- Pop fans are uncreative.
- Indie lovers lack self-esteem and motivation but are creative.
- Soul music lovers are creative, outgoing, gentle, at ease with themselves and have high self -esteem.
- Heavy metal and punk listeners are gentle.
- Those who listen to exciting music are more likely to be in a higher earning bracket and conversely those who listen to relaxing sounds tend to be lower down in the pay scale.
- Jazz and classical music fans are creative with high self-esteem, although the former are much more outgoing than the latter.
These conclusions are pretty ridiculous if you ask me. Yes, I do believe musical preference can reveal the social nature of a person (extrovert vs. introvert, open-mindedness, creativity and even political views) but as far as determining how much money one is capable of earning, or their self-esteem... that's completely illogical. There a number of variables that can confound these conclusions, and surely these findings have been inaccurately established. Saying that indie-listeners have low self-esteem is reaching... waaaaayy across the table (and I'm not just saying that because I'm an indie-lover myself). Today, indie incorporates so many different genres (indie hip-hop, indie folk, indie electronic)... it's simply much to broad to say that all indie lovers are insecure.I also came across some music-intelligence research done by a grad student from CalTech which studied the relationship between musical styles (artists & bands) and the SAT scores of the people who listened to them. He found that the smartest students listened to Beethoven (average SAT of 1371) and the students who rung in at the bottom of the SAT scores listened to Lil’ Wayne (average SAT of 889). The average SAT score is around the 1000-1100 mark, and unsurprisingly most bands’ listeners fit into this range. I must say that the results are hilariously predictable LOL!! The low scores are correlated with Lil’ Wayne, Beyonce, and Reggaeton and on the high score side there’s Radiohead, Sufjan Stevens (man after my own heart), and Beethoven.
See where your favorite bands/artists fall -
click the pic.
BEWARE: Your music might be making you DUMBER.
All the
Wayne-heads better watch out!!
