Hands up. We admit it. We are not regular readers of the Public Library of Science, better known in academic circles as PLOS. However it was through their publication PLOS ONE that we discovered this interesting bit of research conducted by Cambridge University.
Did you know that your taste in music can be an indicator of how you think? No nor did we but those are the findings of a study published last September by a team of psychologists. They show that your thinking style – whether you are an ‘empathizer’ who likes to focus on and respond to the emotions of others, or a ‘systemizer’ who likes to analyse rules and patterns in the world—is a predictor of the type of music you like.
The project was led by David Greenberg who says:
Although people’s music choices fluctuates over time, we’ve discovered a person’s empathy levels and thinking style predicts what kind of music they like.
The researchers conducted multiple studies with over 4,000 participants, who were recruited mainly through the myPersonality Facebook app. The app asked Facebook users to take a selection of psychology-based questionnaires, the results of which they could place on their profiles for other users to see. At a later date, they were asked to listen to and rate 50 musical pieces. The researchers used library examples of musical stimuli from 26 genres and subgenres, to minimise the chances that participants would have any personal or cultural association with the piece of music.
People who scored high on empathy tended to prefer mellow music (from R&B, soft rock, and adult contemporary genres), unpretentious music (from country, folk, and singer/songwriter genres) and contemporary music (from electronica, Latin, acid jazz, and Euro pop). They disliked intense music, such as punk and heavy metal. In contrast, people who scored high on systemizing favoured intense music, but disliked mellow and unpretentious musical styles.
The results proved consistent even within specified genres: empathizers preferred mellow, unpretentious jazz, while systemizers preferred intense, sophisticated (complex and avant-garde) jazz.
Based on their findings, the following are songs that the researchers believe are likely to fit particular styles:
High on empathy
Hallelujah – Jeff Buckley
Come away with me – Norah Jones
All of me – Billie Holliday
Crazy little thing called love – Queen
High on systemizing
Concerto in C – Antonio Vivaldi
Etude Opus 65 No 3 — Alexander Scriabin
God save the Queen – The Sex Pistols
Enter Sandman – Metallica
