The psychology of music preference is the study of the psychological factors behind peoples' different music preferences. Music is heard by people daily in many parts of the world, and affects people in various ways from emotion regulation to cognitive development, along with providing a means for self-expression. Music training has been shown to help improve intellectual development and ability, though no connection has been found as to how it affects emotion regulation. Numerous studies have been conducted to show that individual personality can have an effect on music preference, mostly using personality, though a recent meta-analysis has shown that personality in itself explains little variance in music preferences. These studies are not limited to American culture, as they have been conducted with significant results in countries all over the world, including Japan, Germany, Spain, and Brazil.
Personality and music preference
Personality
The relationship between musical preference and personality has remained a long-standing topic of contention for researchers due to the variability in results and the low-predictive power that personality has historically demonstrated on music preferences. A meta-analysis conducted by Schäfer and Mehlorn, (2017) of previous studies trying to determine if experience seeking or any of the Big-Five personality traits predicted musical preferences, revealed that the correlation coefficient between music genre and personality traits possessed a magnitude greater than 0.1 in only 6 out of the 30 studies they reviewed. Openness to experience was found to have the strongest correlation with a preference for three musical styles; however, this correlation was still relatively minor. The vast majority of the correlation coefficients were almost zero.
Recent research has used data from music streaming sites instead of self-reported data to show that music genres and the user's listening habits can be used to predict the Big Five personality traits. In a study conducted in 2020, researchers analyzed data from Spotify users and mapped the Big Five personality traits to different genres, moods, and derived metrics such as the number of playlists, diversity in song choice, and repetition of listening habits. Results showed an increase in correlation. Openness had a positive correlation with Atmospheric, Reggae, and Folk music, while conscientiousness had a negative correlation with Rock and "Energizing" songs such as "Happy" by Pharrell Williams. In terms of derived metrics, emotional stability had a negative correlation with the listener's skip rate, and openness had a positive correlation with their song discovery rate.
One shortcoming in attempting to establish a predictive relationship between music and personality is likely a result of researchers' tendency to utilize overly homogenized musical genres, failing to account for the variance within musical genres. In a study conducted by Brisson and Bianchi (2021), participants were provided a musical taste inventory and asked to rate their musical genre and sub-genre preferences. For example, electronic music is considered a genre and house music is a sub-genre of electronic music. Results indicated a high degree of variance between participant genre and sub-genre preferences. Enjoying one genre or sub-genre within a broader genre category often failed to consistently predict ratings for related genres and sub-genres with another related genre or sub-genre. Ultimately, only two consistent associations between genres and sub-genres were found, calling into question the reliability of musical genres in research. However, the investigation into this relationship between the influence of personality on music preference remains ongoing despite these genre-based limitations in methodology and past discrepancies in research results.
Various questionnaires have been created to both measure the big five personality traits and musical preferences. The majority of studies attempting to find the correlation between personality and musical preferences administered questionnaires to measure both traits. Others used questionnaires to determine personality traits, and then asked participants to rate musical excerpts on scales such as liking, perceived complexity, emotions felt, and more.