Blood Incantation at Saint Vitus
Just some logic-based thinkers in Brooklyn, photo by P Squared

"Science now says you can judge people by their taste in music after all"

All that time you’ve spent judging people by their music taste? Well, according to a new article on The Hill, that’s just science, and who are we to argue with science? Austa Somvichian-Clausen writes:

Multiple psychological studies have supported the idea that musical preferences are actually linked to our cognitive styles, or the way we think about, and react to, the world around us.

One study shows a link between preferred musical genres and our capacity for empathy, with results across samples showing that empathy levels are linked to preferences even within genres. Empathy, as the authors of the study explain, is “the ability to identify, predict and respond appropriately to the mental states of others,” and people use empathy while perceiving different types of musical content, reacting to it both emotionally and physiologically.

The researchers found that those they categorized as type E, or those with a bias towards empathizing, preferred mellow music that might fall within the genres of R&B and soft rock, while those that prefer “Intense dimension” genres such as heavy metal and hard rock tend to show a bias towards systemizing, or logic-based thinking, rather than showing empathy.

The same study also found an interesting link between type E individuals and music with attributes researchers define as “gentle, warm, and sensual” as well as depressing, sad music and songs with emotional depth.

See? Science. Read the full “Science now says you can judge people by their taste in music after all” article here.

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