The psychology of personality is fascinating. Everything
that defines a person—they’re appearance, interests and hobbies, likes and
dislikes, hand dexterity, place in birth order, genetics, ethnicity, gender,
age and so forth—they all work together to create an individual’s personality.
Or, at least, they certainly help, but whether they define personality, or
personality defines them, that’s an argument for a psychology blog :)
You’re probably wondering where I’m going with this. Well, I
decided not to write about a piece of music today, because I stumbled on
something else quite interesting that I think will grab your interest.
Have you ever wondered what draws people to certain types of
music?
Did you know that you can tell a lot about a person’s inner
personality by their musical preference?
I wasn't quite sure until just a few months ago, when my stubborn curiosity led me to search and find out if my own musical interests had anything to do with my personality. Like I guessed, it does. But what I learned was more than I would have expected...
Credit goes to a study conducted at Heriot-Watt University, where
a very large group of individuals (mostly young adults, around 18) from all over
the world were asked to rate their favorites styles of music. This study was able to very accurately predict certain characteristics over
others, based on music preference alone. (If you want to know more details of the study you can go to this link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/belle-beth-cooper/8-surprising-ways-music-a_b_4353122.html)
These were the results, which I find very intriguing:
I just thought the visuals were cool. But in English:
- Blues fans have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing, gentle and at ease
- Jazz fans have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing and at ease
- Classical music fans have high self-esteem, are creative, introvert and at ease
- Rap fans have high self-esteem and are outgoing
- Opera fans have high self-esteem, are creative and gentle
- Country and western fans are hardworking and outgoing
- Reggae fans have high self-esteem, are creative, not hardworking, outgoing, gentle and at ease
- Dance fans are creative and outgoing but not gentle
- Indie fans have low self-esteem, are creative, not hard working, and not gentle
- Bollywood fans are creative and outgoing
- Rock/heavy metal fans have low self-esteem, are creative, not hard-working, not outgoing, gentle, and at ease
- Chart pop fans have high self-esteem, are hardworking, outgoing and gentle, but are not creative and not at ease
- Soul fans have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing, gentle, and at ease
When I saw this, it really got me thinking. I discovered that, based on the interests and personalities of many
people I’ve met, and my own musical preference, most of these predictions are
pretty accurate. (Although, I must point out, one characteristic, “hard-working”, in my opinion
does not fit as well as others....)
I almost laughed when I saw this, because thinking of everyone I’ve come across as well as myself and family members, most of the
results seem on the dot.
However, every person is different, and you really need to know someone before you can tell if their favorite music accurately reflects their true personality. I'm sure we've all had some
pre-assumed ideas like "Oh, he likes that music? He must be this way..."
about certain people we've met. After reading this study, are those assumptions as true as we thought, or is music preference alone too vague to define identity?
Hm....
What do you think? Does your personality match those
associated with your musical style?
I am quite curious to know how many people find it accurate....
