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Many people see different types of music preferences as representing different personality types, different upbringings, and even different perceptions of right and wrong. New research has been published last week that purports to prove a link between a person’s taste in music and their moral compass.
However, this study should instead serve to show that not all scientific studies are to be weighted equally. Though it has the strong click-bait title of “Soundscapes of morality: Linking music preferences and moral values through lyrics and audio” the study has several major problems and makes several logical leaps.
In this article, the study will be picked apart to help readers learn how to be more critical of the science literature they read and not be fooled by scientists trying to push their own agendas. The article will also attempt to better interpret the published results to match with other published research in the area to give a fairer understanding of the connection between music taste and a person’s morality.
The Study
Published just at the end of last month, this new study claims to have found a clear link between different types of music and a person’s moral values. (Preniqi et al.) Firstly, the article’s findings will be discussed and then that will be followed by a criticism of the study’s findings and then finally an alternative interpretation of the results will be provided.
The study was conducted by two teams of scientists, one at Queen Mary University of London, UK and the other at the Institute for Scientific Interchange located in Torino, Italy. The two groups used Machine Learning to analyze participants’ Facebook likes along with a survey on their moral values called the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ).
The researchers reported that they “uncovered an important link between music and morality, paving the way for a deeper understanding of the psychological dimensions of our musical experiences.” In addition to this, they suggest that specific aspects of pitch, timbre and lyrics all correlated with specific moral value paradigms. The aspects they claim to have found links for are “Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Purity/Degradation.”
On top of these moral values, the study claims to be able to predict a person’s political persuasions with some musical tastes being predictive of being conservative while others predict being liberal. According to the study, the traits listed above “can further collapse into two superior foundations: Individualising (Care and Fairness), indicative of a more liberal perspective, and Binding (Purity, Authority and Loyalty), indicative of a more conservative outlook.”
The study is suggesting that music that promotes care for others and fairness in treatment correlates with a more liberal perspective while music that promotes loyalty to a group and respect of authority correlates more with a conservative outlook. In addition to this aspect, however, it also associates more energetic and positive music as being associated with more conservative attitudes while slower music with sadder lyrics being connected to liberalism.
“For instance, liking lyrics about celebrating metal culture and unity relates to higher levels of Loyalty foundation and Extroversion. Whereas favouring song lyrics linked to hardships, love, and emotional turmoil is related to care/harm and fairness.”
The study suggests that Country, Christian, Metal, and Hard Rock, Pop, and Electronic music were more associated with conservatives while liberals “prefer smoother rather than louder and dynamic music” such as Jazz, Blues and Classical. The study suggested that liberals seem to like “reflective and complex music” while conservatives would rather listen to music that is “more traditional and upbeat music”.
Problems with the Study Methods
While some elements of the research may seem to ring true as it does seem logical that more conservative people might seem to prefer country and metal music and liberals may often be drawn more to sadder songs about social injustice, the study ignores all sociocultural elements of musical upbringing and makes huge broad stroke claims about all liberal and all conservatives and the types of musical sounds they prefer.
Correlation not Causation
The first issue in the article that needs to be addressed is the problem of correlation vs causation. While it may be true that conservatives prefer country music, is this really because of the sounds of the music or is it more to do with the social and cultural contexts in which country music generally appears.
People often tend to like the music they grow up hearing and country music is often very popular in conservative Christian households. It therefore makes sense that many people growing up in this environment may tend to prefer this type of music. Similarly, religion is also often inherited from parents rather than being the result of any moral or personality trait. Christian parents are more likely to have children who grow up being Christian and Muslim parents are more likely to have children who grow up to be Muslim. This does not say anything about their moral values, but instead just explains the cultural context the person grew up in.
Just because two statistical measures seem to grow in tandem does not mean that one causes the other as there may be a third, fourth or 500th other cause that also influences those statistics. It is important to look at more than just one factor and also include all other possible contributing factors to not jump to hasty conclusions and paint people with a broad brush.
Overgeneralization of Criteria
Another problem with the study is that it often oversimplifies the criteria it uses to measure people’s tastes. Musical genres are very diverse and studies like these can lead people to demonize specific types of music and specific groups of people.
For example, rap music was associated with liberals due to its nontraditional and negative criticisms of society, and while there is certainly a lot of rap music about not conforming to society’s expectations, there are several rap artists that are notably conservative and express ideals that go against core liberal ideals such as respecting women, racial equality, and non violence.
Kanye West is a notable extreme conservative who loudly supported staunch Republican Donald Trump, yet according to this research study, he should be a liberal due to his tastes in music. This is also true for country music with the famous liberal country music group “The Dixie Chicks” who gained widespread condemnation in conservative circles for protesting the war in Iraq started by the United States.
To say that a genre of music can tell you about someone’s political or moral values ignores the many people who do not conform to these stereotypes. This would be like saying men are criminals because statistically criminals are more likely to be men which ignores the societal and cultural causes of this discrepancy.
Poor Data Sources
One of the other main problems of the study was that it used Facebook page likes as a measure for a person’s taste in music rather than a more modern and music focused platform such as Spotify or Apple Music. Many young people these days do not use Facebook nor were the participants asked if they felt the artists they had liked on Facebook were a fair representation of their music tastes.
On top of this, when an artist was liked on Facebook, rather than look at play count or listen time they simply looked at that artists most popular songs to decide what type of music the user enjoyed. This is clearly not a reliable measure as artists often have a wide variety of types of songs that vary in speed, energy, and even genre.
For example, Lady Gaga, a singer with over 50 million listeners per month has two slow country ballads and three high energy pop songs. In addition to this, she has done Jazz albums, hardcore electronic dance music, and has even done some rap. Someone who likes her music could be more a fan of her more recent romantic country music, a lover of her Jazz album with Tony Bennet, or a fan of her classic pop princess style.
Lady Gaga is not unique in this aspect whatsoever, as most artists choose to explore multiple genres throughout their career and include quiet and high energy songs on the same albums. Simply assuming anyone who likes an artist’s Facebook page likes their current top songs could be making some huge leaps in logic.
A far more reliable data source would be Spotify which stores data about playtime and listen count for each song an individual listens to rather than just a list of artists. The authors of the study used Spotify to gather data about the audio features of songs but for some reason chose not to use the other far more reliable data from this source.
Better Studies on Music Taste
Music taste is a highly variable and constantly evolving societal measure that can not be simplified down into simple statements and judgements on types of music. Simply liking a type of music can not always predict a person’s personality or future behavior.
However, that does not mean that music taste can not give any insights on an individual. Other, more reliable research has suggested another way to look at music taste and how it can inform parents and teachers about their children.
A study on over 4000 Dutch children found that when a child likes a variety of music that tends to top the charts, they are less likely to have behavioral and mental health problems, but showing a niche interest in less popular music may indicate the child may be struggling and could act out against others or themselves. (Mulder et al.) This suggests that students who listen to popular music are probably just enjoying what their friends are introducing them to and what is being played on the radio, whether that be rock like in the 80s and 90s, pop like in the 2000s or rap and hip hop like what is currently popular.
Additionally, another study found that music is often used as a way to seek emotional catharsis or emotional validation, but when the listener feels worse after listening to music, this is a concerning warning sign that was associated with suicidal ideation. (Martin et al.) Feeling of negative emotions is normal, but typically music is meant to soothe those feelings.
So, even if a person likes music that is not topping the charts, as long as they are feeling better afterwards, this is probably a good sign that they are just exploring music and their own emotions in a healthy and normal way. However, if the child seems to get worse rather than better when listening to their favorite songs, this could be a sign that there is a more serious mental health problem that music can not soothe.
Parents and teachers can use these signs to try to help children in need, but it is important to not jump to any hasty conclusions. Even these results may not hold true for all children, but can just be one sign to be considered when seeing if a child might need some professional help. In the end, the best way to know if a child is having mental health issues is to communicate with them, have a close relationship, and from this, know when their personality or mood has shifted for the worse.
Conclusion
Many scientific articles use clickbait titles to make their results seem more groundbreaking, but it is important to actually read further into the study before making judgements about the findings. Rather than jumping to conclusions and demonizing certain genres of music, parents and teachers need to be aware of current music trends and monitor the child’s mental health before and after listening to music.
While there may be some overarching trends of musical taste correlating with certain political affiliations, these associations are often only valid on a large statistical scale rather than something useful for judging an individual and their personal morality. People also often tend to become more conservative as they age, so while rock music may have been associated with more liberal behavior in the youth of the past, nowadays it may be more a sign of growing up in a bygone era and actually be increasingly associated with conservatism.
Parents or teachers who are worried about their children’s taste in music should first look at how popular the songs are that their children are listening to. If they are simply listening to what their friends are listening to, this is probably just a sign of a cultural and social influence rather than a way to judge their morals or mental health.
However, it can also be useful to keep track of how music affects the child. Music should be soothing and improve mood rather than worsening it regardless of music type. Many teachers marvel at how their students can fall asleep listening to heavy metal or loud rap, but this is actually a wonderful sign for their mental health.
Concern for a child is more warranted when they seem to feel worse after listening to music or don’t have any friends who listen to the same type of music as they do. This still is not a sign to jump down their throats, but might be a sign that they are in need of support mentally or socially.
The best thing the parent or teacher could do is take an interest in the music the child is listening to. This will be beneficial in two ways. If the child is struggling with friends or mental health, this will validate their feelings and tastes rather than making them feel even more like a freak.
Having a teacher or parent actually want to spend time with them listening to what they love may make them feel understood, and help them to open up about the real sources of their struggles. Telling a child they are wrong for liking the music they do will only push them away further from the adult and make them feel more alienated in society.
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References
Martin Graham, et al. “Adolescent suicide: Music preference as an indicator of vulnerability.” Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, vol. 32, no. 3, 1993, pp. 530–535, https://doi.org/10.1097/00004583-199305000-00007.
Mulder, Juul, et al. “Music taste groups and problem behavior.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence, vol. 36, no. 3, 2006, pp. 313–324, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-006-9090-1.
Preniqi, Vjosa, et al. “Soundscapes of morality: Linking music preferences and moral values through lyrics and audio.” PLOS ONE, vol. 18, no. 11, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0294402.
