Research correlates preferred musical genres with personalities.
The University of Cambridge and Bar-Ilan University in Israel came up with an online quiz designed to ferret out details on the musical preferences and personalities of more than 285,000 people across 53 countries. There was also a website that saw 71,000 visitors from 34 countries rate clips of various types of music. So yeah, n=HUGE in this study. According to Inc., here’s what they found.
- Extroverts tend to like danceable, upbeat, contemporary music.
- People who are neurotic to some degree enjoy “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and other intense grunge tracks.
- Conscientious types avoid the heavy stuff
- Agreeable people tend to like mellow music. There was a strong correlation between liking mellow music and being agreeable.
- People known for their openness tend to move towards sophisticated music.
The Inc article points out that this information could be helpful when it comes to hiring a new employee.
Full study: Musical preferences unite personalities across the globe at Musical preferences unite personalities across the globe
Survey instrument at The Do-Re-Mi's of Personality - What your music tastes say about your personality: take an online personality psychology quiz about music
