What type of music do you listen to? Better question: do you have a favorite type of music that you always turn to whenever you are given a chance to do so?
Now, take a look at your friends’ iPods and playlists. Chances are, your closest friends share your same taste in music. Have you ever wondered why that is?
Well, it may be because your friends SHARE THE SAME PERSONALITY TRAITS as you do, not that the two of you have the same musical inclinations.
In other words, it’s not the music that brought you together — it’s the music that defines the type of person you are.
That’s the findings of a RECENT STUDY ABOUT MUSIC AND PERSONALITY TRAITS done by Adrian North, a professor at Heriot-Watt University.
After surveying over 36,000 people about their individual music interests as well as having them take some in-depth personality tests, Professor North was able to pinpoint the following PERSONALITY TRAITS THAT MATCH MUSICAL PREFERENCES. For a given type of music, here’s what was found:
- Rap fans have high self-esteem and are outgoing
- Country fans are hardworking and outgoing
- Reggae: have high self-esteem, are creative, not hardworking, outgoing, gentle and at ease
- People who love dance are creative and outgoing … but not gentle
- Those who like rock/heavy metal have low self-esteem, are creative, not hard-working, not outgoing, gentle, and at ease
- Like pop music? You have high self-esteem, are hardworking, outgoing and gentle, but are not creative and not at ease
Want to throw your own hat into this particular research project? Dr North is asking for participants to join an upcoming survey at PEOPLE INTO MUSIC.