Study Looks at Music and Stereotypes

When someone tells me they are a big fan of metal music, Ill be honest. It surprises me
if they look like a VP of Sales for an oil company. By the same token, if someone says
they like Christian music, I have a hard time believing them if they resemble Lemmy
from Motorhead.
Apparently, Im not the only one
One of the most common icebreaker conversation topics is music preferences.
We ask friends what theyre listening to on their iPods, bloggers post playlists on
their sidebars, and one of the most popular websites on the planet (MySpace) is
built around sharing music. The assumption is that musical preferences can tell us
something beyond what someone likes to listen to we believe we can judge a
persons personality, fashion preferences, and more based just on the style of
music they prefer.
I dont think this is shocking to anyone at all. Like most stereotypes, they are based
within some degree of reality. While the degree may change depending upon what is
being stereotyped, there is always at least a kernel of truth.
In the case of music, there are plenty of references in lyrics to help us gauge
preference, never mind just our own observation of style and behavior at concerts or
through friends. But, the study in question went further than that and came up with
some interesting results
They quizzed over 200 college students on their stereotypes of fans of one of 14
different musical genres: blues, classical, folk, jazz, alternative, heavy metal, rock,
country, pop, religious, soundtracks, electronic, rap, and soul. For most genres,
the judges were largely in agreement as to what the typical fan was like.
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For each of these genres, the judges were largely in agreement. But when
Rentfrow and Gosling asked 85 actual music fans to rate their own personalities,
their own ratings agreed with the judges for just two of these genres: rock and
religious. In fact, judges personality ratings correlated with actual ratings for only
seven of the fourteen genres studied.

For personal qualities such as attractiveness, intelligence, religiousness, and

conservatism, correlations between judges ratings and actual ratings were even
rarer they occurred in only four genres.
The researchers also asked both groups about values such as ambition, love,
salvation, friendship, and courage, and again found that the stereotypes did not
always match the actual ratings. In only two genres jazz and religious music
did the stereotype correlate with the actual ratings for personality, personal
qualities, and values.
Interesting how our perceptions change when we are talking about ourselves, isnt it?
To me, this is more than just a study about our perceptions of people, its a perfect
example of why the music industry has become so narrow in its thinking. Almost
immediately, a quote from a recent link I posted to a description of A&R jobs in the
90s comes to mind:
I saw a very senior industry figure (someone who, in all likelihood, has signed and
developed music which you own) throw the first White Stripes record out of a
fourth floor window with the words: No one will ever ever be having this
[expletive] nonsense!
It is EXACTLY this type of thinking that leads to the shrinking of the music industry as a
whole. After all, these are mostly people who actually LIKE music going into jobs trying
to discover it. Imagine what effect it has on those who only care for music in passing.
If you think country music is bad, you may never hear a great country song and youll
likely pass that belief onto others your children, your friends, and your family despite
the fact that your belief is likely inherently flawed simply because of your perception
rather than your actual study of the genre.
Unfortunately, we humans arent as open minded about others as we are about
ourselves.
Citation Info:
Jeff Balke. "Study Looks at Music and Stereotypes." Broken Record. Chron, 25 Feb. 2008. Web. 22
Sept. 2016.

http://blog.chron.com/brokenrecord/2008/02/study-looks-at-music-and-stereotypes/