New study: Musical talent linked to "Open" personality

[Michael L]

A major study found that musical talent is associated with the personality trait of Openness to new experiences; while people who are Neurotic (e.g. complain about little things) tend to not be musically talented.
Michael

Personality predicts musical sophistication

In a study published this week in the Journal of Research in Personality, a team of psychologists identified that the personality trait 'Openness' predicts musical ability and sophistication. People who score highly on Openness are imaginative, have a wide range of interests, and are open to new ways of thinking and changes in their environment.

Previous convention has held that the amount you practice is the key to success. But scientists are now discovering that there may be other factors involved as well.

Psychologists from the University of Cambridge and Goldsmiths University teamed with the BBC to recruit over 7,000 volunteers, in what is the largest study to date on personality and musical expertise. The team tested the participants on various musical abilities including melodic memory and rhythm perception. Performance on these tests was then linked to their scores on the Big Five personality traits: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (OCEAN).

They found that aside from musical experience, the next best predictor of musical ability was personality, and specifically, Openness. While people who are high on Openness are open to new ways of thinking, people who score low on Openness (or who are 'Closed') are more set in their ways, prefer routine and the familiar, and tend to have more conventional values.

Importantly, the researchers found that the links between personality and performance on the musical tasks were present even for people who indicated that they did not play a musical instrument. This means that there are individuals who have a potential for musical talent, but are entirely unaware of it.

Those who want to find out how they score on their musical ability, preferences, and personality can take these tests at http://www.themusicquiz.org.
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This is the original article I excerpted:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 101315.php
Here is the actual study:
http://www.doc.gold.ac.uk/~mas03dm/pape ... n_2015.pdf

[deastman]

I guess that explains why I'm a talentless hack.

[incubus]

A major study found that musical talent is associated with the personality trait of Openness to new experiences; while people who are Neurotic (e.g. complain about little things) tend to not be musically talented.
Michael

Personality predicts musical sophistication

In a study published this week in the Journal of Research in Personality, a team of psychologists identified that the personality trait 'Openness' predicts musical ability and sophistication. People who score highly on Openness are imaginative, have a wide range of interests, and are open to new ways of thinking and changes in their environment.

Previous convention has held that the amount you practice is the key to success. But scientists are now discovering that there may be other factors involved as well.

Psychologists from the University of Cambridge and Goldsmiths University teamed with the BBC to recruit over 7,000 volunteers, in what is the largest study to date on personality and musical expertise. The team tested the participants on various musical abilities including melodic memory and rhythm perception. Performance on these tests was then linked to their scores on the Big Five personality traits: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (OCEAN).

They found that aside from musical experience, the next best predictor of musical ability was personality, and specifically, Openness. While people who are high on Openness are open to new ways of thinking, people who score low on Openness (or who are 'Closed') are more set in their ways, prefer routine and the familiar, and tend to have more conventional values.

Importantly, the researchers found that the links between personality and performance on the musical tasks were present even for people who indicated that they did not play a musical instrument. This means that there are individuals who have a potential for musical talent, but are entirely unaware of it.

Those who want to find out how they score on their musical ability, preferences, and personality can take these tests at http://www.themusicquiz.org.
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This is the original article I excerpted:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 101315.php
Here is the actual study:
http://www.doc.gold.ac.uk/~mas03dm/pape ... n_2015.pdf

Ok. Believe what you want, but that is bullshit at it's highest.

[Jace-BeOS]

[Edited]

Yet another website that behaves unreliably. Can't refresh a page to reload the content, can't see the individual URL for individual tests, starts over at root menu, as if I'm a new person, if I refresh to retry a test...

The charts are kind of lame. If the average is 100, and you want to see how you compare to the average, why is 100 at the top of the chart with no further numbers above it? The swelling charts are more readable (no I have no idea what the proper terms are for chart types beyond "pie" and now I want pie).

Meh. I was interested until I had no sound on the melody test and tried to refresh the page with "silent" disengaged on my iPhone (usually silent mode only affects alerts but it sometimes impacts certain apps, though it's never impacted web content before). If they want a specific browser or device, they should say that up front, not wait for things that might be broken to be an interruption in testing (and then recommend one non-OS-standard browser that people have to actively acquire).

Also... All the personality stuff... It's too few questions to really squeeze accuracy out of people that might not be honest with themselves. I know myself very well, but I several times felt I could've answered oppositely for a few questions (especially when responding to a question that equates criticality and quarrelsomeness, which I don't at all equate; you're not supposed to think too much when answering, but that ideal breaks when you have so few questions to actually give responses to). I'm very unimpressed and somewhat annoyed.

As for the conclusions their study came to.... Well I'm not surprised. The more open a person is, the more exposure and familiarity to music they get, and the less self-censorship they engage in... Etc... well... It's a bit obvious, IMO. I know I'm not very productive with arts because I'm very focused on limited areas of interest and my exposure leads to me having a narrow palette, plus, I'm kind of neurotic from a life of constant criticism, so my self-censorship is strong, my frustration level is high, etc. I already get this. But I'm also a very fringe person in terms of social openness. I'm the opposite of conservative, politically and socially. Without a really comprehensive set of questions, my seemingly opposite traits negate any possible clear weight on a particular trait, such as "openness".

After one quarter of the tests, I can't see it as comprehensive, so not very scientifically compelling in terms of finding actual validity to the conclusions... at least not enough to be more validated or compelling than my unscientific presumption of "a but obvious, innit?"

[incubus]

Just try NOT to be a dumbass. Musicians are frequently the MOST NEUROTIC egotistical/me me me f**ks on the planet.

It's worse than HPC and the numbskulls that moan about crap that isn't even true. Serious propaganda.

Quit smoking strains that make you hallucinate, and get real.

[Jace-BeOS]

Just try NOT to be a dumbass. Musicians are frequently the MOST NEUROTIC egotistical/me me me f**ks on the planet.

It's worse than HPC and the numbskulls that moan about crap that isn't even true. Serious propaganda.

Quit smoking strains that make you hallucinate, and get real.

???? What?

[jancivil]

Mildly if not morbidly curious I engaged in part of this. I rated highly on 'Conscientiousness', which is supposed to equate to being a planner and relying on routine, and 'Openness'. The conscientious aspect = a planner is useless and appears to pose a false dichotomy (cf., the late Mr. Hazard vs dumboz). As a composer, I tend to find my way to form via improvisation as opposed to creating a container to be filled with content. This is psychology, with a pretense to science, I mean basically it's some bullshit.

[bronxsound]

thanks for posting
finally i can explain myself why i am so good

[jancivil]

Just try NOT to be a dumbass. Musicians are frequently the MOST NEUROTIC egotistical/me me me f**ks on the planet.

It's worse than HPC and the numbskulls that moan about crap that isn't even true. Serious propaganda.

Quit smoking strains that make you hallucinate, and get real.

???? What?

It's dipshibidy! This is the same type of shit as his sock puppet 'notinterested' done. Hey hibs, I have to say, practically everything you post strikes me as inebriated and sloppy (and making not a whole lot of sense). You don't seem to have the wherewithal or the huevos to engage to any real point, it's like you stew for a bit in your doldrums and after a point you spew.

[Doug1978]

Next they'll be asking artists which one of four colours they most feel like...

http://www.evancarmichael.com/library/c ... -Type.html


There's not half a load of non-scientific, gimmicky bollocks involved in all this psychology lark.
And I speak as someone currently doing a masters conversion in the very subject, and now wondering why the hell I signed up.

[harryupbabble]

Absorbing some new ideas, something that wasn't known but seems true, seems okay. But some new ideas may turn out to be faulty. Anyways, discarding of faulty ideas is always doable later on.

So yes, pretty open here to a certain high degree. Pretty open to pop music, for example. Can you get more open than that? Yes. Open to the possibility of winning the lottery too. Even if smart people say it's dumb. It happens. People win every week. I just don't have the budget to buy them though.

Plus, as a hoarder of VST Plugins I am open to the works of all developers, mostly the ones that dabble in free ones, at the moment.

I'm open to not being poor too. Open to free enterprise. Open to semi-infinite new ideas and stuff.

But, not too open to the idea of being away too long from speed scrabble and songwriting.

[chk071]

IMO, they should make a study about the realiability of studies. Considering that study might also be full of flaws, and made to prove something, it might be all but true too though.

[DJ Warmonger]

IMO, they should make a study about the realiability of studies. Considering that study might also be full of flaws, and made to prove something, it might be all but true too though.

I don't think that standards for scientific reasearch changed over last 50 years. Go figure.

[fmr]

IMO, they should make a study about the realiability of studies. Considering that study might also be full of flaws, and made to prove something, it might be all but true too though.

I don't think that standards for scientific reasearch changed over last 50 years. Go figure.

I also think so. In the end, it all depends on who pay for them and what results they expect

Anyway, this study reminds me of that joke about the frog that becomes deaf when they take the legs from it.

[trimph1]

The psychosocial stick is the weakest stick to use here.

Complete and utter bilgewater.

Great for a classic weekend KvR thread though.