How intelligence and musical preferences are related: theories and research
The connection of musical taste with the level of intellectual development is a popular stereotype. Many people think that smart people listen only to Bach and Mozart, and pop and rap are the favorite music of people who are simple and less educated. But is it?
Does this stereotype have a scientific basis? What do psychologists, neuroscientists and sociologists say about this? Today we decided to understand the basic research.
Photo by Erik Drost CC
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Music is part of our identity, and many believe that favorite music can say a lot about their character. The University of Texas conducted a study in which they tried to find a correlation between favorite musical genres and character traits of the respondents. Students passed several tests - on musical preferences, personality type and IQ level. Then psychologists compared the test results and found some correlations between the results.
In total, they identified four groups (in the later versions of the test, the fifth group also appeared):
The music from the first group is loved by “complex” people who are prone to reflection: liberals, intellectuals, not very athletic, but open to new experiences.
The second group is preferred by “assertive and rebellious” natures - they have much in common with the previous group, but they are more athletic and do not like to seem smarter than everyone.
In the third group - optimists and extroverts, more conscientious and inclined to agree with others. They see themselves as sporting, wealthy, beautiful and politically conservative. This group is least prone to depression, but its IQ test results are lower than those of all others.
The music from the fourth group is preferred by energetic and rhythmic people, who share many views of respondents from the third group, are notable for the lack of conservatism, higher income level and IQ. Interestingly, the representatives of the latter group are less inclined to emotional impulses and prefer not to listen to their feelings.
Photo by Tony Smith CC
A similar study was conducted at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. Scientists asked 36 thousand people to evaluate a variety of musical styles and pass a personality test.
It turned out that “honest and not very creative” love pop music, rap fans have high self-esteem, and heavy metal lovers - gentle, but not self-confident people. Indies prefer “not very hardworking introverts”, and jazz and classical music are people with high intelligence and self-esteem.
Personality tests are not the only metrics. There is another group of studies where cognitive tests are used - they make it possible to assess a person’s thinking style on a scale from purely empathic to purely systematic. The first want and know how to understand the feelings and emotions of other people. The latter tend to look for patterns of behavior and analyze relationship systems.
This study was conducted among four thousand respondents - they filled out online questionnaires and learned their style of thinking. Then they listened to 50 pieces of music from different genres and rated them on a scale from 1 (I really didn’t like it) to 9 (very much).
It turned out that those who are more inclined to think empathically like softer music (RnB, soul, soft rock). People with systematic thinking prefer punk, heavy metal and hard rock.
This is an interesting statistic - people really listen to music in different ways: someone perceives it exclusively at the level of emotions, while others, for example, are keenly interested in its compositional device. Hence the connection between the type of thinking and genre preferences can flow.
It is considered that a person at the biological level prefers harmonic sound. But there are studies that suggest the opposite - however, they use quite unusual data.
Josh McDermott from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his colleagues went to the Tsimane tribe in the forests of the Amazon. This is one of the last human settlements, practically unrelated to the outside world.
These people are not familiar with Western music, which is based on melody, harmony and polyphony. They like many sounds that our ears find unpleasant, upset and ugly. Scientists asked 64 local residents to evaluate how pleasant sounds from a wide selection of consonant and dissonant sounds seem to them. A similar test scientists conducted among those who were familiar with Western music: American musicians, American non-musicians and residents of the capital of Bolivia, La Paz.
Representatives of the Chimani tribe did not show obvious preferences - both consonant and dissonant sounds seemed to them equally pleasant (scientists had previously made sure that the inhabitants of the tribe understood the difference between consonant and dissonant sounds and had certain musical preferences). Those who were familiar with Western music preferred the consonant sounds.
Photo by Steve Snodgrass CC
Therefore, researchers have suggested that musical taste is not a biological category, but a cultural one. We listen to music, arranged according to certain principles, all our lives. Harmonic music most often sounds in movies and commercials at happy, joyful and inspiring moments. It is likely that musical preferences are the result of “education, not nature.”
A group of scientists from the University of British Columbia conducted a large study in which they were looking for another connection - this time between social categories and musical preferences. 1600 respondents took part in telephone interviews.
It turned out that lovers of country music, disco, heavy metal and rap are poorer and less well-educated. The richer and more educated prefer classical music, blues, jazz, opera, pop, reggae, rock and musicals. This study is an important part of the general discourse relevant to the sociology of culture: are certain cultural tastes simply “attributed” to the social class, or are different preferences a real tool for distinguishing social elites? Sociological schools offer different answers - there is no consensus on this.
Stereotypes appear due to unscientific research - for example, Virgil Griffith (Wrgilner), created a map that showed the connection of students' musical tastes (he took data from Facebook) with their level of intelligence (namely, marks for the SAT exam) . It turned out that Lil Wayne fans did the worst of the exam (fans of genres in general - whether it is “pop music” or “classics” - they also could not boast high marks), while Beethoven fans got the best marks. This is an example of a non-scientific and non-representative experiment with a populist result.
Scientific studies reveal some correlations between different cultural, personal, or sociological entities and musical taste, but the results are not so straightforward. Not all studies show the presence of causal relationships between phenomena, but the ambiguity of the results is a clear reason to leave the “genre wars” in the past.
Our historical rubric is additional reading:
Does this stereotype have a scientific basis? What do psychologists, neuroscientists and sociologists say about this? Today we decided to understand the basic research.
Photo by Erik Drost CC
')
Psychology: the relationship of musical taste and personality type
Music is part of our identity, and many believe that favorite music can say a lot about their character. The University of Texas conducted a study in which they tried to find a correlation between favorite musical genres and character traits of the respondents. Students passed several tests - on musical preferences, personality type and IQ level. Then psychologists compared the test results and found some correlations between the results.
In total, they identified four groups (in the later versions of the test, the fifth group also appeared):
- Blues, classical music, folk, jazz
- Alternative, heavy metal, rock
- Country, pop, religious music, soundtracks
- Electronics, hip-hop, rap, soul
The music from the first group is loved by “complex” people who are prone to reflection: liberals, intellectuals, not very athletic, but open to new experiences.
The second group is preferred by “assertive and rebellious” natures - they have much in common with the previous group, but they are more athletic and do not like to seem smarter than everyone.
In the third group - optimists and extroverts, more conscientious and inclined to agree with others. They see themselves as sporting, wealthy, beautiful and politically conservative. This group is least prone to depression, but its IQ test results are lower than those of all others.
The music from the fourth group is preferred by energetic and rhythmic people, who share many views of respondents from the third group, are notable for the lack of conservatism, higher income level and IQ. Interestingly, the representatives of the latter group are less inclined to emotional impulses and prefer not to listen to their feelings.
Photo by Tony Smith CC
A similar study was conducted at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. Scientists asked 36 thousand people to evaluate a variety of musical styles and pass a personality test.
It turned out that “honest and not very creative” love pop music, rap fans have high self-esteem, and heavy metal lovers - gentle, but not self-confident people. Indies prefer “not very hardworking introverts”, and jazz and classical music are people with high intelligence and self-esteem.
Personality tests are not the only metrics. There is another group of studies where cognitive tests are used - they make it possible to assess a person’s thinking style on a scale from purely empathic to purely systematic. The first want and know how to understand the feelings and emotions of other people. The latter tend to look for patterns of behavior and analyze relationship systems.
This study was conducted among four thousand respondents - they filled out online questionnaires and learned their style of thinking. Then they listened to 50 pieces of music from different genres and rated them on a scale from 1 (I really didn’t like it) to 9 (very much).
It turned out that those who are more inclined to think empathically like softer music (RnB, soul, soft rock). People with systematic thinking prefer punk, heavy metal and hard rock.
This is an interesting statistic - people really listen to music in different ways: someone perceives it exclusively at the level of emotions, while others, for example, are keenly interested in its compositional device. Hence the connection between the type of thinking and genre preferences can flow.
Cultural mobility against evolutionary predetermination
It is considered that a person at the biological level prefers harmonic sound. But there are studies that suggest the opposite - however, they use quite unusual data.
Josh McDermott from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his colleagues went to the Tsimane tribe in the forests of the Amazon. This is one of the last human settlements, practically unrelated to the outside world.
These people are not familiar with Western music, which is based on melody, harmony and polyphony. They like many sounds that our ears find unpleasant, upset and ugly. Scientists asked 64 local residents to evaluate how pleasant sounds from a wide selection of consonant and dissonant sounds seem to them. A similar test scientists conducted among those who were familiar with Western music: American musicians, American non-musicians and residents of the capital of Bolivia, La Paz.
Representatives of the Chimani tribe did not show obvious preferences - both consonant and dissonant sounds seemed to them equally pleasant (scientists had previously made sure that the inhabitants of the tribe understood the difference between consonant and dissonant sounds and had certain musical preferences). Those who were familiar with Western music preferred the consonant sounds.
Photo by Steve Snodgrass CC
Therefore, researchers have suggested that musical taste is not a biological category, but a cultural one. We listen to music, arranged according to certain principles, all our lives. Harmonic music most often sounds in movies and commercials at happy, joyful and inspiring moments. It is likely that musical preferences are the result of “education, not nature.”
Is sociology the right answer?
A group of scientists from the University of British Columbia conducted a large study in which they were looking for another connection - this time between social categories and musical preferences. 1600 respondents took part in telephone interviews.
It turned out that lovers of country music, disco, heavy metal and rap are poorer and less well-educated. The richer and more educated prefer classical music, blues, jazz, opera, pop, reggae, rock and musicals. This study is an important part of the general discourse relevant to the sociology of culture: are certain cultural tastes simply “attributed” to the social class, or are different preferences a real tool for distinguishing social elites? Sociological schools offer different answers - there is no consensus on this.
Stereotypes appear due to unscientific research - for example, Virgil Griffith (Wrgilner), created a map that showed the connection of students' musical tastes (he took data from Facebook) with their level of intelligence (namely, marks for the SAT exam) . It turned out that Lil Wayne fans did the worst of the exam (fans of genres in general - whether it is “pop music” or “classics” - they also could not boast high marks), while Beethoven fans got the best marks. This is an example of a non-scientific and non-representative experiment with a populist result.
Scientific studies reveal some correlations between different cultural, personal, or sociological entities and musical taste, but the results are not so straightforward. Not all studies show the presence of causal relationships between phenomena, but the ambiguity of the results is a clear reason to leave the “genre wars” in the past.
Our historical rubric is additional reading:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/374443/
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