Have you ever listened to a song and found yourself mesmerised? Feeling as if the song is in tune with your emotions or can reflect who you are? There have been multiple studies that suggest our music preferences and personality correlate! Music has been used throughout history for assessments, health, improving the mood and more. It is also common for people around the world to use music to express their inner feelings or to further understand them (Rasheed and Rauf, 2017). Curious to know what your music preferences say about you? Take a look at the following list taken from the article ‘Music Preferences and Your Personality’ by Kendra Cherry (2022) stating three music genres and a brief description of a personality attributed to it!
Pop
If you like listening to pop music, the article suggests that you are an extroverted person, conventional, and can be honest!
Hip Hop and Rap
Research has shown that people whose music preferences are mainly those of Hip Hop and Rap are people who have high confidence and are easily outgoing compared to the rest.
Classical
People who are a fan of classical music tend to be more introverted than extroverted but are fully content with themselves. They are known to be creative and have a healthy level of confidence.
Now that we’ve got a brief idea of some of the most popular music preferences, do these relate to you? What about those who don’t listen to music? Or those whose music preferences contain a broader range of genres and simply one is not enough to describe their music preferences?
Despite the large number of studies that have been produced to establish a relationship between people’s music preferences and their personality, this leads us to wonder whether music preferences are reliant on a person’s attitude and personality or if the attitude and personality of an individual are influenced by the music they listen to.
There is no question that people feeling a certain way tend to play some music that corresponds to what they are feeling at the moment. Feeling sad? Most people would put on Billie Eilish or Powfu. Feeling nostalgic? Most would turn on their speakers and listen to theme songs of famous 2000s TV Shows. However, most people would also turn to music to somehow change what they are feeling. Feeling angry? People would blast on some calming music. Or heavy Metallica. This common trend seems to suggest that perhaps it is more promising to look at the relationship between people’s mood and their feelings with music rather than focusing on their personalities.
Personality is a constant change to people, especially those going through milestones in their lives. In contrast, the music preference of a person changes and is most dependent on what they are feeling or what they wish to feel. Give these following questions a thought and see what is your stance on the relationship between personality and music preferences!
- What is your musical preference?
- Do you tend to seek to listen to songs that fit your music preferences or would you rather listen to songs based on your current mood or feel?
- To what extent do you think the influence of music has on a person’s personality?
- Do you think music is dependent on the personality of a person or vice versa?
Give these questions a try and see what you think! The relationship between personality and music preferences has been present for a long time and is still an ongoing interest for different communities across the world. Being able to decipher whether the music we listen to affects our personality allows us to take greater control of not only how we feel, but as well as our thoughts and actions. You may think the music we listen to does not have that great of an influence, but in reality it might be the small aspect of our day that determines the trajectory of how we will feel for the rest of the day, that’s why as much as music allows us to better express ourselves, maybe take a second or two to actually listen to the message of the song and decide whether or not it is something you should listen to! Let us know what you think! Do you think personality is reliant to the type of music we listen to or do you think it is our music preferences that actually gets influenced by our personality!
Sources & Recommended Reading
Rauf, Khalida, and Sehrish Rasheed. “THE RELATION OF MUSIC PREFERENCE AND PERSONALITY TYPE.” CORE, 2017, https://core.ac.uk/download/268591423.pdf. Accessed 10 September 2023.
