Musical taste "defines personality"

cockoloco

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Musical taste "defines personality"

Reuters - Friday, September 5 10:51 amLONDON (Reuters) - Fans of classical music and jazz are creative, pop lovers are hardworking and, despite the stereotypes, heavy metal listeners are gentle, creative types who are at ease with themselves.
[FONT=Verdana,arial,sans-serif][/FONT]
So says Professor Adrian North of Scotland's Heriot-Watt University who has been studying the links between people's personalities and their choice of music.


"People often define their sense of identity through their musical taste, wearing particular clothes, going to certain pubs, and using certain types of slang," North said.


"It's not surprising that personality should also be related to musical preference."


In what North said was the largest study ever conducted into individuals' musical preference and character, researchers asked 36,518 people from around the world to rate how much they liked 104 different musical styles before taking a personality test.
"Researchers have been showing for decades that fans of rock and rap are rebellious, and that fans of opera are wealthy and well-educated," North said.


"But this is the first time that research has shown that personality links to liking for a wide range of musical styles."
The study concluded that jazz and classical music fans are creative with good self-esteem, although the former are much more outgoing whereas the latter are shy.


Country and western fans were found to be hardworking and shy; rap fans are outgoing and indie lovers lack self-esteem and are not very gentle.
Those who like soul music can take heart as the research concluded they are creative, outgoing, gentle, at ease with themselves and have a high self-esteem.


And if you've ever wondered why people driving expensive sports cars often have music blaring from their vehicle, North could have an explanation.
Those who choose to listen to exciting, punchy music are more likely to be in a higher earning bracket, he says, while those who go for relaxing sounds tend to be lower down the pay scale.
North is still looking for volunteers to take part in the research. Details on peopleintomusic.com






What do you think of this? Do you agree? Or do you believe the descriptions given are simply stereotyped?


I still don't know what to think: Do we listen to a certain type of music because of our personality or do we have a certain personality because of the music we listen to?
 
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Phil Ayesho

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sounds just like astrology.

Define each "type" in broad, positive, terms that ANYONE would like to think applies to them.

So what kind of music do violent jerks listen to?
What kind of music denotes a pedophile?
What kind of music bespeaks of a cheat?


Undoubtedly music appeals to different people on the basis of its content, mood, etc...

But for this kind of analysis to hold water, it has to address negative traits accurately...

Not just happy chat blowing feel good self esteem smoke up your ass.
 

rbkwp

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WHY .. has the Cat stopped Spinning'?
Have you changed yr Muscial tastes Cocko'
Well .. they may be onto something there..altho Scientitists Academics Professors etc are not my Favourites with what they come up with ..at times)

I Love the Teenish Station 6-10am 4-6pm (Very Humourous Announcers/Take the Piss out of everything in Life)
I LOVE The Concert FM Opera on Sunday (my absolute Favourite-Total Realaxtion)
and in between i listen to Talkback..hahaa KIDDING re THAT
naaaah in between its always the Concert FM Station (especiially a bonus is the NO Ads)

Personailty:
Well i geuss it does sort of reflect my Wayward/all over the place Attitude with life these days
(be it walking/talking/writing or w...k..g)
GOOD Thread'
enz
 

cockoloco

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WHY .. has the Cat stopped Spinning'?
Have you changed yr Muscial tastes Cocko'
Well .. they may be onto something there..altho Scientitists Academics Professors etc are not my Favourites with what they come up with ..at times)

I Love the Teenish Station 6-10am 4-6pm (Very Humourous Announcers/Take the Piss out of everything in Life)
I LOVE The Concert FM Opera on Sunday (my absolute Favourite-Total Realaxtion)
and in between i listen to Talkback..hahaa KIDDING re THAT
naaaah in between its always the Concert FM Station (especiially a bonus is the NO Ads)

Personailty:
Well i geuss it does sort of reflect my Wayward/all over the place Attitude with life these days
(be it walking/talking/writing or w...k..g)
GOOD Thread'
enz

The cat's soon back. It was Different Avatar Day today.:biggrin1:
 
D

deleted213967

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Another Study by a Loco Pseudo-Researcher

I say "Bull"!

Those armchair social "science" types should be required to pass at least 20 units of advanced post-baccalaureate Statistics and Mathematics before they're even allowed to type anything, let alone publish it.

I suspect most would give up before the first mid-term. This would cut down on Internet pollution.

I especially like the conclusion that just about everybody on the planet is creative and hard-working.

Awwww!

:rolleyes:


 

rbkwp

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hah Ok thought it was because i threatened to catch the cat .. and tie his/her legs up'

Geuss i could have asked
WHY is the members who are viewing .. names NOT Showing up at the bottom of the threads'
(2/3 days now?)
but..
dare not start a thread re that..?
enz
 

cockoloco

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hah Ok thought it was because i threatened to catch the cat .. and tie his/her legs up'

Geuss i could have asked
WHY is the members who are viewing .. names NOT Showing up at the bottom of the threads'
(2/3 days now?)
but..
dare not start a thread re that..?
enz

I did open a thread in the Questions forum. Rob disabled the features.
 

Calboner

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sounds just like astrology.

Define each "type" in broad, positive, terms that ANYONE would like to think applies to them.

Yup.

This sort of social "science" (with big, fat, heavy quotation marks around that word) puts me in mind of a phrase used by the physicist Wolfgang Pauli to characterize certain kinds of woolly thinking: "not even wrong." Such claims are so indeterminate in meaning that most any set of facts can be made to fit them. To ask whether they are "true" or "false" is therefore pointless.

Edited to add: On the other hand, speculating about connections between one's musical tastes and one's personality can be an amusing pastime.
 

jason_els

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I say wait until the study passes a peer-review and gets published in a real journal (if it gets that far). He may be prematurely publicizing his work for funding purposes or some other political reason and dumbing it down for the press.

I see no reason to jump to a conclusion just because the professor, via a news story, appears to have.
 

whatireallywant

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Musical taste "defines personality"

Reuters - Friday, September 5 10:51 amLONDON (Reuters) - Fans of classical music and jazz are creative, pop lovers are hardworking and, despite the stereotypes, heavy metal listeners are gentle, creative types who are at ease with themselves.

So says Professor Adrian North of Scotland's Heriot-Watt University who has been studying the links between people's personalities and their choice of music.


"People often define their sense of identity through their musical taste, wearing particular clothes, going to certain pubs, and using certain types of slang," North said.


"It's not surprising that personality should also be related to musical preference."


In what North said was the largest study ever conducted into individuals' musical preference and character, researchers asked 36,518 people from around the world to rate how much they liked 104 different musical styles before taking a personality test.
"Researchers have been showing for decades that fans of rock and rap are rebellious, and that fans of opera are wealthy and well-educated," North said.


"But this is the first time that research has shown that personality links to liking for a wide range of musical styles."
The study concluded that jazz and classical music fans are creative with good self-esteem, although the former are much more outgoing whereas the latter are shy.


Country and western fans were found to be hardworking and shy; rap fans are outgoing and indie lovers lack self-esteem and are not very gentle.
Those who like soul music can take heart as the research concluded they are creative, outgoing, gentle, at ease with themselves and have a high self-esteem.


And if you've ever wondered why people driving expensive sports cars often have music blaring from their vehicle, North could have an explanation.
Those who choose to listen to exciting, punchy music are more likely to be in a higher earning bracket, he says, while those who go for relaxing sounds tend to be lower down the pay scale.
North is still looking for volunteers to take part in the research. Details on peopleintomusic.com






What do you think of this? Do you agree? Or do you believe the descriptions given are simply stereotyped?


I still don't know what to think: Do we listen to a certain type of music because of our personality or do we have a certain personality because of the music we listen to?

Uh-oh! I lack self esteem and am not very gentle! :biggrin1: My favorite music is indie rock. My second favorite was not mentioned on the list - world music, especially African music. Not sure what that says about me, except maybe that I'm musically adventurous? (which I am).

Actually, I do think these descriptions are stereotypes and really not based in reality. There are more likely all kinds of people who listen to all kinds of music.

However, I do have a kind of amusing story/observation related to this. A few years ago I did a fundraising project for Team in Training for the Leukemia Society (I didn't raise enough money to do the marathon I was training for, though). One of the things a couple of us did was a road-block to collect donations. An observation that I made was that well-off, middle aged and older people almost never donated. But kids in used cars blaring rap music? They ALMOST ALWAYS gave a donation!
 

Meniscus

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I took one of the surveys at peopleintomusic.com and I thought it was poorly designed. (But that's also my opinion of most surveys.)

I'm not anything close to being an expert in survey methodology, but I do have some professional experience in the area. Questions should be clear, unambiguous, and answerable. In most cases, all possible response options should be allowed. If it's possible that a question doesn't apply to a particular person, "not applicable" should be an option. For example, several of the questions were about my best friend. Well, I don't have a best friend. Several other questions were about my marital partner or significant other. The survey instructed single respondents to answer based on a previous romantic relationship. But what if the respondant has never been in a romantic relationship?

Also, there were a lot of faulty "either/or" questions, such as:

A: I often wish I could be a mountain climber.
B: I can't understand people who risk their necks climbing mountains.​

Problem: I don't want to be a mountain climber myself, but I DO understand why someone else would do it.

The pair should be something like this:

A: I wish I could be a mountain climber.
B: I do not wish I could be a mountain climber.

-OR-

A: I understand why people engage in risky recreational activities such as mountain climbing.
B: I don't understand why people engage in risky recreational activities such as mountain climbing.​

I think this question is trying to assess whether or not you're adventurous or willing to take risks, or something like that, but it's a clumsy way to do it.

The first problem with most surveys, including this one, is that the constructs aren't well defined. By "construct" I mean the thing that you are trying to measure, like someone's assertiveness, self-esteem, or level of introversion/extroversion.

The second problem is that the person who writes the survey often has no idea about how to ask questions that accurately measure the construct, and often try to measure more than one construct with one question (which can't be done with any degree of reliability).

The third problem is that not enough questions are asked for each construct. If you only ask 2 or 3 questions (or maybe only 1) on a particular construct, your results won't be reliable. From what I could tell from this survey, it's trying to measure at least 6 constructs with about 16 questions.

Finally, the survey I took asked me to rate on a scale of 1 to 10 how much I liked or disliked several genres of music. That was extremely difficult. When it comes to "pop" music, for example, some of it I love, much of it I hate. I did the best I could, but if I took it multiple times, I'd probably answer differently each time.
 
M

Mr Ed in Mass

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I love the Blues! I'd answer the survey,but I'm too depressed!