Musical tastes and personality

[sbp.livejournal.com]

Are musical tastes and personality related?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7598549.stm

Doesn't seem to match me, but what do you think?

Comments

[koganbot]

Not a very good article (and probably not a very good study, but the article isn't much of a help in deciding this). "Questioned about aspects of their personality" is key. I simply don't believe that indie fans are not hardworking. I believe that they believe that what they put the most effort into doesn't count as work, since they don't get paid for it. Or they don't want to classify what they do as work. I wonder whether the questions actually ask the fans to rate their own propensity to work or whether the questions are about, say, how they do at jobs and other tasks, with the researchers then defining the results on a scale of how hard this means the person works.

Either way I don't trust the results. Also, wonder whether fans of chart-pop rate themselves as uncreative or whether the professor decides that, e.g., "takes drawing classes and writes short stories" equals "creative" whereas "puts a lot of thought into her hair and her clothes" does not register as creative. I suspect that professors' way of defining things and that of the people he studies would often match up, so in that sense his results are "valid." That is, both the professor and the fans of chart-pop believe that what the fans do doesn't count as creative. That still wouldn't make the study any good.

But then, I'm expressing my own prejudices here, about professors who use such questionaires and the questionaire itself, which I've not seen.