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“Tell me what’s on your headphones and I’ll tell you who you are.” So, in any case, say the authors of the study, which showed the connection between our musical preferences and the ability to empathize and the desire to systematize the world.
Do your neighbors behind the wall turn on hard rock at full volume until late at night? Try to reason with them why they shouldn’t do it. They must be very susceptible to logical reasoning. In any case, such a conclusion follows from the just published scientific work of the University of Cambridge psychologist David Greenberg (David Greenberg)1. Greenberg decided to correlate musical tastes with the personality type model proposed by his senior colleague (and one of the co-authors of the study) Simon Baron-Cohen (Simon Baron-Cohen).
Feelings and logic
Baron Cohen offered to divide people into «empathic» и «taxonomists». The first category includes individuals who are better able to understand the emotions of others, as well as to understand the behavior of complex and non-linear systems that do not lend themselves to obvious patterns. In a word, people with high emotional intelligence, but not always getting along with logic. “Systematics”, on the other hand, are distinguished by a higher IQ coefficient and the desire to discover patterns and cause-and-effect relationships in everything. The Baron-Cohen theory is perceived by the scientific community ambiguously, critics note that many of his conclusions are not supported by sufficient experimental material. Nevertheless, she also has enough supporters.
This theory formed the basis of David Greenberg’s research. It was attended by 4 thousand people. They filled out several questionnaires designed by Baron-Cohen to determine if they were empathic, systemic, or intermediate. And then they listened to fragments of 50 pieces of music. And the difference in taste was very noticeable.
According to Greenberg, people of an empathic disposition turned out to be more inclined to music that is not too complex, but very melodic, relatively modern, with an accentuated sound of string instruments – and sometimes sad, with a certain emotional depth. Among the favorite genres of “empathists” are light rock, rhythm and blues, pop music, country and folk, as well as electronic music. “Systematics” prefer music that is much more energetic, with a whimsical and not always correct rhythmic pattern, pronounced drum sound – and generally more complex. Their favorite genres turned out to be heavy rock, punk rock and heavy metal, and – oddly enough – classics.
Read more:
- What does our favorite music say about us?
Who likes what
The researchers even made something like playlists for the first and second types. According to them, among people prone to empathy, for example, Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah compositions, Queen’s Crazy Little Thing Called Love, as well as songs performed by Norah Jones and Billy Holliday are especially popular. For people of a “systematic warehouse”, the first lines of this curious hit parade are The Sex Pistols with the composition God Save the Queen and Metallica with Enter Sandman, as well as Antonio Vivaldi’s violin concerto in C major and Alexander Scriabin’s piano etudes (although the last two composers seems to be difficult to suspect of a special passion for percussion instruments).
The authors of the study believe that their results can be applied in a variety of areas. For instance, autism is interpreted by Baron-Cohen as an extreme degree of “systematization”. And using appropriate music could, in theory, help connect with autistic people.. However, online music services that seek to predict the tastes of their users will most likely show particular interest in the researchers’ conclusions.
One can only regret that the musical fragments used by David Greenberg and his colleagues did not include samples of Russian chanson. It would be extremely interesting to know what type of people his fans belong to and how to talk to them when they turn on music behind the wall at two in the morning.
Read more:
- What kind of music helps us think?
mini test
To find out which Baron-Cohen type you are, take our mini music test by listening to two songs.
Do you like Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah? So you are an empath.
Do you like Metallica’s Enter Sandman? So you are a “systematic”.
1 DM Greenberg et al. “Musical Preferences are Linked to Cognitive Styles”, online posting on the PLoS One website, July 22, 2015.