Does Your Personality Define What Kind of Music You Like?

People who score high in extraversion tend to be social, friendly and energetic. The researchers found that extraverts prefer contemporary music with electronic, upbeat and danceable characteristics. These adjectives describe top hits and party music. You’re more likely to find extraverts dancing to Dua Lipa or Bad Bunny at the club, than sitting at home with a cup of tea and a Vivaldi sonata.

Open people seek new experiences and novel ideas excite them. The trait is associated with creativity and adventurousness.

The researchers found that people who scored highly on this trait preferred sophisticated music that featured complex and cerebral attributes. These characteristics describe instrumental genres such as jazz or world music.

Conscientiousness is one of the most studied traits of the Big Five because it is correlated with an individual’s professional and academic success. The trait measures a person’s ability to set, work toward and accomplish goals.

Researchers found a positive correlation between conscientiousness and unpretentious music — the type sung in coffee houses, blues bars and Americana joints across America.

Conscientious people also had an aversion to intense music on average. So, it might be difficult to find a valedictorian in a mosh pit at a hardcore show.

This trait attempts to measure a person’s capacity for trust and compassion towards others. The researchers found that agreeable people often preferred mellow music. While one genre can’t define this descriptor, you’ll know it when you hear it. Think of classic neo-soul artists like Erykah Badu or D’Angelo. Or jam bands like the Grateful Dead and Dave Matthews, if that’s more your flavour.

Neuroticism is a controversial trait. It measures a person’s tendency towards negativity, anxiety and depression. Unlike traits in other models, this measure is undesirable. If you score highly on it, you are likely to have a more difficult life. Of course, many successful and famous people are highly neurotic — take Kurt Cobain, Franz Kafka or Woody Allen. Researchers had a hard time pinning down the musical preferences of neurotic individuals, though. They found that this trait preferred both mellow and intense types of music.

While the study gathered responses from 53 countries, it was not a representative sample. The study skewed towards Americans and evaluated musical preferences from a Western perspective.

Even so, people in all six continents responded to the study and Greenberg could draw some conclusions about international trends. In equatorial regions, the relationship was stronger between extraversion and contemporary music.