Cambridge Ideas - The Music In Me

Studies at the University of Cambridge have revealed that many of us use musical taste both as a means of expressing our own identity, and to form and refine our opinions about other people.

Researchers found that sample groups of subjects regularly make the same assumptions about peoples personalities, values, social class and even their ethnicity, based on their musical preferences. Rock fans, for instance, are commonly held to be rebellious and artistic, but emotionally unstable. Classical music-lovers, on the other hand, are seen as personable and intellectual, but unattractive and a bit boring.

The studies have been led by Dr Jason Rentfrow, from the Universitys Department of Social and Developmental Psychology, who is conducting ongoing research into the links between personality and musical taste.His work forms the subject of this short film.

[iwantsmith]

does the fact that it's obvious matter.

I see it as being pretty obvious that an apple falls downwards, yet this had one of the biggest impacts on science

[joebloggsgogglebox]

I did a similar analysis to this with one of my students a few years ago (I teach statistics). We also found that people who listen to hip hop & RnB tend to be more extroverted, and people who listen the rock & indie music tend to be more introverted.  We hypothesised that the results might be dependent on the current trends, i.e. extroverted people might be more attracted to whatever is currently the most popular style of music.

[Ibanezer]

This is really interesting and makes ALOT of sense!
I laughed at the end when he was on drums... Fair play! haha

[bennygblues]

Interesting video. Good idea for a research project.

[Knightn]

Rufus is on his way to a rave hahaha. The man's a legend.

[Flantastic]

What exactly makes happy music happy though, and what you might think of as happy music i might think isn't happy at all. It may seem like an obvious conclusion to you, but shouldn't be ignored entirely.

[keepinguptheday]

The ancient Greek modes were attributed with generating corresponding moods from rage to calm.

[vjpillay]

i never came across a dafted idea about music than the description above.Music and mathematics are related.I was brilliant in maths from young but the music side i simply ignored as my passion from the age of 5 was engineering and singing at temple in recent times lead to singing in sanskrit which is impossible for the likes of me who was not born to a bramin who traditionally trained in sanskrit from young to work in temples.My opinions are known worldwide for more than 3 decades..

[LastDanceSaloon]

I am watching this late at night due to insomnia based illness and have the sound really low. For a video about sound from sound experts, why does the presenter whisper every line and everyone else shout their lines. I had to watch the whole video playing with the volume button.

Anyway, can I ask the purpose of the study? What use will the data provide? And to who's benefit?

Continued in next post...

[floppydg]

The science of the "bleedin' obvious".

[NeglectedField]

This is more about subcultural affiliations than the music itself.

[LutxyKortinhas]

Of course music has to be with the personality. But there ar millions of possible combinations, as there are millions of personalities. Won´t be the same a person who like classic, hip hop, house and funky, that a person who like classic, hip hop, rock and pop. People don´t or shouldn´t like just one kind of music. The factors to see would be the combination of different music they like, how much they like, how they listen to each kind of music...

[nogert]

I don't think this gu iss on the verge of discovering something on par with the theory of gravity.

Maybe the theory of happy music makes you happy, and sad music makes you sad.. but that's it.

[owl]

hmm. id say the music reflects not who they are but who they perceive themselves to be after listening to and rating music they already have preconceived ideas about in terms of who listens to that type of music. So we apply stereotypes to ourselves favorably.

[nogert]

thanks for the info but all this stuff was pretty obvious without a study.

[xxxpistolpetexxx]

"I'm going to a rave" lol

[LastDanceSaloon]

It's a known fact that taste in music can change with the wind in pretty much any human being dependent on social circle, age, a change in the quality/attitude of the performers and a myriad of other factors.

This whole study is so backward. It was proven long ago that music helps shape your immediate personality state, not visa-versa. This is why shops and restaurants never play death metal or gangsta rap.

I'm going to have to stop until I find out the point of the study...

[Merivio]

not exactly millions of personalities...

there's introvert and extrovert,
and then theres the next step down and the next step and so on.

Ok, so there's a lot of combinations, but by finding out that someone likes a particular genre of music you can work out some of these.

You don't need to know everything about someone to know how they react to you and stuff.

[LutxyKortinhas]

Perharps we can discover the personality of people who don´t have to much personality. Only like one kind of music, they are closed to any other kind and disguise and act as the sterotype of these kind of music videoclips

[clanOT]

nothing new concluded from this, then