Your Musical Preference Gives Insight into How You Think

A study out of Cambridge found that your musical preferences can give insights into how you think. The study focused on a particular psychological theory of personality known as the Empathizing-Systemizing (E-S) Theory. 【小题1】 An empathizer likes to focus on and respond to the emotions of others, while a systemizer likes to analyse rules and patterns in the world. Cognitive style may seem like an unusual way to group people, but the researchers found that it worked well.

“Although people's music choices change over time, we've discovered a person's empathy level and thinking style predict what kind of music they like, said PhD student David Greenberg, the leader of the study, in a statement.【小题2】

To study a somewhat unusual subject, they took a somewhat unique route: They gathered data through Facebook. Over 4, 000 people participated through the my Personality app by first taking a personality assessment. Later, they listened to and rated 50 musical pieces.

For those who scored high on empathy, they tended to prefer soft rock, R&B, country, and folk. 【小题3】 Further, they tended to enjoy music that had low energy, negative emotions, or emotional depth. From these characteristics, the researchers identified several songs that would be ideal for empathizers: “Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley, “Come away with me” by Norah Jones, and “All of me” by Billie Holiday.

【小题4】 They favored intense music and disliked the soft and simple styles. Their music tended towards high energy, or positive emotions, and also featured a high degree of depth and complexity. From this, the researchers believed that “Concerto in C” by Antonio Vivaldi, “Etude Opus 65 No. 3” by Alexander Scriabin, and “Enter Sandman” by Metallica would be ideal songs for systemizers.

【小题5】 “A lot of money is put into algorithms (运算法则) to choose what music you may want to listen to, for example, on Spotify and Apple Music,” said Greenberg. “By knowing an individual's thinking style, such services might in future be able to fine tune their music recommendations to an individual.