It’s not about styles or genres. Psychopaths seem to lean towards certain types of songs, according to a study published in The Guardian newspaper in which a comparison of the musical preferences of a group of volunteers was made with a personality test or test. Both factors seem to be more closely linked than we thought.
It should be taken into account that the study, carried out with a group of 200 people and a musical list of 260 songs , has not yet been officially published and its researchers have stated that these are preliminary results. These are their conclusions:
Although fiction has been responsible for provoking an association between classical music and psychopaths (no one forgets Dr. Hannibal Lecter from ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ and his taste for the works of Bach, for example, or Alex DeLarge from ‘ La A Clockwork Orange ‘ and his obsession with Beethoven), the truth is that research carried out by researchers at New York University (USA) clarifies that psychopaths have no preference for classical music. What attracts psychopaths the most is not an exclusive genre but specific songs of different genres.
Thus, in the studio, “No Diggity” by Blackstreet (R&B) and “Lose Yourself” by Eminem (Rap) top the list of favorite songs of psychopaths. On the other hand, the participants with less psychopathic tendencies – according to their scores – had more inclination for: The Knack’s “My Sharona” and Sia’s “Titanium”.
“There is no strong association with a particular genre,” says Pascal Wallisch, leader of the work.
The 200 study participants were mostly young and highly educated, but represented many ethnic and economic groups. The team compared their results with those of the volunteers on the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale, a widely accepted test of psychopathy. The final results showed a common trend, suggesting that an individual’s personality could influence their musical preference.
Be that as it may, Wallisch notes that the study is preliminary and unpublished and with a small sample, possibly unable to correctly represent the average public. This is only the first study, and experts plan to use this method on many more volunteers.
The ultimate goal of the research is to develop a way to accurately and easily identify psychopaths. According to Wallisch, such a method could help detect potentially dangerous individuals in job interviews, in order to prevent them from ending up in a job where they can cause harm, such as members of the police.
The authors are concerned with the ethical aspect of this review . For the moment, the results will have to be taken with skepticism.
The truth is that for some time now, we have come across a series of studies -more and more- that try to reveal new data about the personality of a psychopath, for example, exposing that they share a series of traits that are not known. are immediately associated with this personality, such as the fact that individuals from the “dark triad” (narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism) are more likely to study business / entrepreneurship and economics in college.
Reference: New York University / The Dark Triad across academic majors. AnnaVedel, Dorthe K. Thomsen. Personality and Individual Differences 2017. doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.04.030
