Music And Personality: What Connection Do They Have?
Every urban tribe or youth ideological movement is established on the basis of certain characteristic signs: aesthetics, some more or less outlined ethical principles, but mainly some well-defined musical tastes
The beat generation danced to jazz, the hippie movement listened to folk and sixties rock at festivals like Woodstockthe yuppies with Love Over Gold by Dire Straits. Goths and emos thrill with dark songs. And these are just a few examples. Music that marked a generation, or music that a youth social movement made its own.
Despite what we usually believe, music does not explain our way of being we use music to see ourselves identified with the vital and political positions that we consider most valid, but there is no close link between that identification and our actions.
Dismantling clichés
Let’s take an example: the harsh aesthetics and violence that surrounds heavy metal do not correspond to the personality of its followers: Most of them are kind, peaceful people and even have a tendency towards introversion, as pointed out by a study carried out at Heriot-Watt University, through a survey that was answered by 37,000 people around the world through the Internet (North, AC & Hargreaves, DJ, 2005).
This is how he tells it Christopher Drösser in his book The seduction of music :
“The respondents defined their preferences regarding more than 100 musical styles (from classical music to soul) that in theory were a reflection of their personality traits. These traits were, for example: low or high self-esteem, creative character/ uncreative, introverted/extroverted, docile/aggressive, hard-working or lazy.”
Whether we grant a greater or lesser degree of credibility to the study, the truth is that when linking musical style with personality we fall into generalizations and inaccuracies. If we acted like this, we would be playing in a field of cheap demagoguery and we would use the prejudices imposed by the media and youth television series.
Curious coincidences: ‘heavies’ and ‘classics’ are similar
From the survey designed by North and Hargreaves, it could be highlighted that lThe personality of heavy metal fans is very similar to classical music fans, although their study does clarify that the latter have a higher self-esteem than the former, on average. So, despite the fact that musical styles differ to a great degree, not to mention the clothing that each musical style proposes, the classics and the hairy ones could be categorized within the same psychological profile.
Another research carried out at the University of Queensland, Australia, led by F. Baker and W. Bor (2008)support the previous conclusions, thus ruling out that music or musical style plays a causal role in antisocial behavior, for example. They do suggest, however, that identification with a musical style is an indicator of emotional vulnerability.
Preference for musical styles and personality
North and Hargreaves’ study yielded the following data:
It is worth remembering that these data were obtained by cross-referencing data from personality tests and musical preferences, and they only indicate statistically significant trends ; correlations. Obviously, this does not mean that listening to certain musical styles “transforms” our personality.”
Personality: a complex and multicausal concept
Consequently, the psychic state is a priori, and from this each individual allows themselves to be conquered by the music that fits their personality. Sometimes, listening to music with depressing melodies or lyrics to someone’s ears does not mean that it is a triggering factor to depress many of its listeners, but, on the contrary, sometimes this type of music helps to overcome low moments of spirit. .
Most people remain faithful to the musical styles they listened to between 14 and 26 years of age and this happens because youth marks our identities, which will no longer be so plastic for the rest of our lives.
