Does The Music You Listen To Predict Your Personality?

May 23, 2025

Does whether you like rock music rather than pop or country say something about your personality? I would have thought not, but we ran a study, and it turns out yes - in the U.S., your music tastes predict aspects of your personality! Much to my surprise, liking rock and classical music predicts the same things about your personality: having greater "openness to experience" (a personality trait from the Big Five framework) and being more intellectual. Makes sense for classical, but who wo...

The Power of “Familiar Yet Different”

September 18, 2020

When trying new things, what we like (or benefit from) most is usually familiar to us, yet somehow also distinct. 1. Music: we prefer songs that are similar to others we like but that feel novel. If a song is too similar to what we know, then it's derivative or boring (like listening to the same music on loop), but if it's too novel, it is usually unappealing or dissonant. Music from other cultures can be hard for us to appreciate until we've listened to enough of it. 2. Learning: we lear...