Can you discern a persons nature from the genre of classical music they like ?

[Karl Henning]

... People who meet me and get to know me in person are always surprised when they learn that I am a classical music fan.  I guess I do not fit the stereotypes they cling to.

Maybe if we wore a muzzle?

[Florestan]

The studies presented so far have not shown anything meaningful.  I've yet to see anything posted here that shows any scientific link between listening habits and something as intrinsically unscientific as character.  This is markedly different, by the way, from using so-called big data to predict purchasing patterns or other observable consumer behavior.  Character isn't so easily quantified, or monetized.

Hear, hear!

I must also relay a little anecdote, and it is one occurs with some regularity for me.  Yesterday I was discussing weekend plans with a coworker, and I mentioned that I'm heading out of town to see an opera.  The person replied with some surprise that I do not seem like the opera type.  (Perhaps he had read the study cited earlier.)  People who meet me and get to know me in person are always surprised when they learn that I am a classical music fan.  I guess I do not fit the stereotypes they cling to.

That is actually kind of reverse: given a person´s character traits, predict his musical preferences. Needless to say, it doesn´t work either. 

[Todd]

That is actually kind of reverse: given a person´s character traits, predict his musical preferences. Needless to say, it doesn´t work either.

It is the reverse, but it is also telling. 

I should add some color to my anecdote.  Part of the reason for the person's surprise was a due to how I scored on a personality test that employees where I work must take.  It divides personality into four categories, and then assigns a numeric value to each category.  I scored extremely high in one category - the highest that our consultant had ever seen! - and the personality traits associated with that category apparently do not mesh with others' (prejudicial?) views of classical music fans.  When I took the test, I answered in a compartmentalized fashion, interpreting each question in a work context.  Outside of work, I'm rather different in certain ways.

[Florestan]

It is the reverse, but it is also telling. 

I should add some color to my anecdote.  Part of the reason for the person's surprise was a due to how I scored on a personality test that employees where I work must take.  It divides personality into four categories, and then assigns a numeric value to each category.  I scored extremely high in one category - the highest that our consultant had ever seen! - and the personality traits associated with that category apparently do not mesh with others' (prejudicial?) views of classical music fans.  When I took the test, I answered in a compartmentalized fashion, interpreting each question in a work context.  Outside of work, I'm rather different in certain ways.

Of course. We all are different in certain ways depending on the circumstances.

[Jo498]

Of course one can draw conclusions. A collector of classical music is with  p > .9 male, has probably a college degree, is socioeconomically probably middle class or higher, is more likely to play/have played a musical instrument than not, is more likely to be interested in visual arts and literature, is probably somewhat less likely to be an avid sports fan than average etc. (these are all guesses but I am pretty confident).

But what can you tell about the character if you know someone prefers Beethoven to Mozart or Verdi to Wagner? As someone above wrote: We often do not find our own preferences consistent.

[Todd]

Of course one can draw conclusions. A collector of classical music is with  p > .9 male, has probably a college degree, is socioeconomically probably middle class or higher, is more likely to play/have played a musical instrument than not, is more likely to be interested in visual arts and literature, is probably somewhat less likely to be an avid sports fan than average etc. (these are all guesses but I am pretty confident).

Let's assume those are true, how do they help inform anyone about a collector of classical music's "Nature/personality/character/temperament", to go back to the original question?  (And is a collector the same thing as a fan?)

[Florestan]

Of course one can draw conclusions. A collector of classical music is with  p > .9 male, has probably a college degree, is socioeconomically probably middle class or higher, is more likely to play/have played a musical instrument than not, is more likely to be interested in visual arts and literature, is probably somewhat less likely to be an avid sports fan than average etc. (these are all guesses but I am pretty confident).

Assuming these to be true (I checked 3 out of 6), how are they character traits? How can you tell that the above collector of classical music is gentle / rude, hardworking / lazy, intravert / extravert, whatever/its contrary?

And a collector is not at all the same thing as a listener. 

EDIT: I see Todd beat me to it.

[Jo498]

No, collectors are a small subset of fans. There are probably roughly as many men as women going to classical concerts, so that estimate only works for collectors.
I agree that my list are not character traits (I actually typed that post a while ago and had not read the replies stating that more "external" information can be correlated, I basically give examples of those.

I admittedly do not know enough about the psychology but these "big five" character traits seem to be quite firmly established. The problem is that in those papers about music appreciation I find the (apparently "pre-theoretical") descriptions of the musical styles so clichéed that I cringe. E.g. classical as "complex" but also "relaxing". This can both be true of some classical music, maybe even at once but these attributes are so vague they could mean almost anything.

Those 5 traits are
openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits#Sample_items

prima facie I would expect classical listeners to be considerably above average in openness, probably slightly above average in conscientiousness and average in the other three. The cliché would probably have classical listeners low in extraversion.

[Ken B]

Lot of discussion, from folks who deny it's an interesting question.

[Todd]

prima facie I would expect classical listeners to be considerably above average in openness, probably slightly above average in conscientiousness and average in the other three. The cliché would probably have classical listeners low in extraversion.

So you expect classical listeners to conform to your stereotypes? 

Again, the evidence presented in this thread appears to rely primarily on small surveys of college kids, or at least college age kids (I did not click every link), in wealthy areas, and the large sample study appears to rely on a survey that results in categorization using qualitative traits like "gentle" and "hard working", and so on, and that is culturally biased and exclusive (why no Mariachi, for instance?).  I freely admit I do not find such evidence as compelling as more concrete, quantitative evidence.

This is why I continue to draw a sharp distinction between physical science and social science.  A chemical reaction will be the same in Cambridge, Berkeley, Tokyo, Tashkent, and Teheran.  Associations between musical preferences and personality, maybe not so much.

Lot of discussion, from folks who deny it's an interesting question.

An interesting question, yes, but the answer to the original question is still no.

[some guy]

Lot of discussion, from folks who deny it's an interesting question.

Yes, discussion about how lame the question is and about how questionable any answers to it would be.

I.e., your sarcasm has missed the target entirely.

[Karl Henning]

An interesting question, yes, but the answer to the original question is still no.

Agreed.

[Florestan]

This is why I continue to draw a sharp distinction between physical science and social science.  A chemical reaction will be the same in Cambridge, Berkeley, Tokyo, Tashkent, and Teheran.  Associations between musical preferences and personality, maybe not so much.

+ 1.

An interesting question, yes, but the answer to the original question is still no.

Ditto.

Bottom line, Ken: please tell me what kind of person (in terms of character traits) is someone who listens mostly to Baroque? I know two such people.

[starrynight]

A very interesting statement.  I'm in partial agreement, but I wonder about some of the terms.  It is not quite what you are saying, but I doubt (let's say for sake of discussion) that prejudice is "hard-wired" in us.  We are certainly apt to learn specific prejudices from our environment, and there is a mentally natural tendency to categorize, and not to closely examine every article that comes into view.  But offhand, I do not see why any given, unimpaired individual cannot develop mental and behavioral habits of examining, questioning and (where necessary) defeating prejudices.

I agree it could be possible to overcome at times.  Inevitably with these things you make generalisations, but I'd say it's at least an obstacle to overcome.  And it's also something which is so prevalent that some measures can be taken against it but it will always be prevalent within society in some form.  Heck politicians use it to play people off against each other anyway and to distract from issues they want hiding, so if those making laws are employed using stereotypes it's going to be some battle getting rid of it totally.

[Ken B]

+ 1.

Ditto.

Bottom line, Ken: please tell me what kind of person (in terms of character traits) is someone who listens mostly to Baroque? I know two such people.

Oh for pity's sake Andrei, don't go stupid on me. I have not said there is any effect. I even said if there were a clear or strong one, we would know it. But I have pointed out that everyone here who airily dismisses the idea as ridiculous has done so without seriously investigating. Big data turns up lots of surprising effects, and no-one has presented an argument why it's unthinkable it could happen here. Yet a lot of people mocked Neal for even considering the question. In my book that does not make Neal look foolish.

[Florestan]

Oh for pity's sake Andrei, don't go stupid on me.

I don´t go stupid on anyone, but you seem to imply that, yes, it is at least theoretically possible to predict someone´s character traits based solely and only on what classical music genre someone prefers --- which I say it is impossible, "scientific" studies notwithstanding (and I guess this makes me an anti-science fellow...  ).

I have not said there is any effect. I even said if there were a clear or strong one, we would know it. But I have pointed out that everyone here who airily dismisses the idea as ridiculous has done so without seriously investigating. Big data turns up lots of surprising effects, and no-one has presented an argument why it's unthinkable it could happen here. Yet a lot of people mocked Neal for even considering the question. In my book that does not make Neal look foolish.

For the record, I didn´t mock Neal.. If he felt that I did, it would be sufficient for him to say so and I will publicly apologize.

[Jo498]

I fail to see the problem with the cultural bias. *Every* study concerning classical music appreciation will obviously have such (or very similar) biases. Unless you want to study reactions from people who have never before heard classical music you need to find a population where some people have been listening to classical before your study and this will lead you to biased sub-populations. Of course the results do not apply to populations who have never before heard classical music, but I do not think anyone claimed that.

[starrynight]

This seems a very curious remark indeed, since it illustrates the kind of thinking being deprecated. "People are prejudiced" is the same kind of statement as "Women are inferior" or "Blacks are thugs."

"The human mind" is as empty of meaning as this shell here on my table is empty of walnut. Only difference is that my shell did at one time have a walnut in it.

Prejudice/stereotyping is pretty much about lack of knowledge, or is that too big a generalisation for you?  Of course this kind of talk is about generalisations and we all go from our own experience to make statements, which is what I am doing.  You are just limiting it to some specific prejudices which I don't see the point of doing and which I wasn't doing. 

Maybe the human mind is empty as you say and it's all nurture and the influences around us, though those influences are pretty much of other human beings anyway, so it's almost like a circular argument.  There are some arguments that could say that we have advanced very quick in technological terms but biologically we haven't really evolved that much, and the human mind is something therefore that could limit us in that way.

But with your post I'm not sure how much you like discussing the issue anyway, as if you can't argue general points.  And that's fine, we can agree to disagree.  Rather that than just get embroiled in arguing over whether something can even be discussed.  I didn't say 'all', I did say 'beyond' on one of my points, so I wasn't hypocritical liked you seemed to say.

[Todd]

I fail to see the problem with the cultural bias. *Every* study concerning classical music appreciation will obviously have such (or very similar) biases. Unless you want to study reactions from people who have never before heard classical music you need to find a population where some people have been listening to classical before your study and this will lead you to biased sub-populations. Of course the results do not apply to populations who have never before heard classical music, but I do not think anyone claimed that.

Two things here.  First, the largest survey presented in this thread was aiming at something more general than associations between classical music fans and personality.  It explicitly listed multiple genres and purported to offer evidence of a close link between survey respondents' favorite music and personalities, and offered results with intrinsically subjective terms.  For such a large survey, in so many countries (60+), the results still seem culturally biased.  I do not find the results, as presented in this thread, compelling.

Second, a limitation of the test population limits the value of the results.  Let's assume that 40% of the developed world attends university.  (I don't know the actual averages across the developed world.)  If many subjective tests are performed on that subset of a small subset of the overall global population, the most one can really say is that the young and comparatively well off in the richest societies may display trait X if they listen to A.  And such results are only good at the time the surveys are taken.  If a person's taste changes over time, does it automatically follow that a person's personality has changed?

To the original question, there are two ways to answer it.  In the narrow, strict interpretation, I can say with absolute confidence that I, personally, cannot determine a person's nature or character or personality or temperament based on the music they listen to, classical or otherwise.  Perhaps others on the board believe they can.  Clearly, the discussion immediately veered into a more general discussion of whether scientific research can show a link.  Given the shortcomings in the methodologies and populations used, I think it cannot.  Perhaps, over time, so-called big data will be able to do so.  Anecdotally, I can report that various algorithms used by various vendors to guesstimate what recordings I may be interested in fail almost every time.  With books, it's even worse.  (On Netflix, it's worse still.)  I assume these algorithms rely on my consumption history combined with an analysis of all others' purchasing histories, and I assume they will get better.  I doubt they will ever work as their authors hope.  Trying to rely on quantitative analysis to determine something as non-concrete as character (or whichever term you prefer) seems far more challenging.

[Florestan]

I can say with absolute confidence that I, personally, cannot determine a person's nature or character or personality or temperament based on the music they listen to, classical or otherwise.

+ 1.

Perhaps others on the board believe they can. 

And yet, of those who presumably believed they could, not a single one gave a straight answer to s straight question --- so bottom line, they can´t.