What your favourite music genre says about you

Posted on 5 March 2015

Personality tests are a fun way of finding out some things about yourself and people you know. We have taken different ones before and we wanted to just enumerate what some tests and websites say about your personality based on your favourite music genre. You won't have to take a test this time. Just find your favourite genre on our list and lets see if they are true.

We put this list together for fun and because we were curious about how our favorite type of music shows who we are.

These are the results of a study done by Professor Adrian North of Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK. It took him 3 years to finish the largest study, so far, of musical tastes and personality type. He is an expert on music psychology and has carried out extensive research on the social and applied psychology of music, in particular the relationship between pop music culture and deviant behavior in adolescence, music and consumer behavior, and the role of musical preference in everyday life.

A total of 36,000 people in more than 60 countries participated in this test. They had to rate a wide range of musical styles in order of preference. Certain aspects of personality were also measured by questionnaire. His research is mentioned in an article by Jane Collingwood on PsychCentral Today.

Blues - You have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing, gentle and generally relaxed.

Jazz - You also have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing and not stressed at all.

Classical music - You also hold yourself in high self-esteem, are good at creating things, introverted and at ease. Fans of this genre have varying age levels.

Rap - Fans have high self-esteem and are outgoing. There has been no evidence based research that Rap music fans are more aggressive or violent people.

Opera - Opera lovers also have high self-esteem, have a creative streak and are gentle.

Country and western - Good at working hard and outgoing.

Reggae - Fans have pride in themselves, friendly, gentle, confident, very relaxed, but not hardworking.

Dance - Definitely creative and outgoing but not gentle.

Indie - Fans need to work on their self-esteem, but they are creators. They are also a little bit allergic to hard work and may not always be gentle.

Bollywood - Fans are creative and outgoing.

Rock/heavy metal - Fans need to be more confident, they are creative, gentle and at calm people. The results also show that they are not hardworking or outgoing. Rockers are found in the young, the middle aged, and the old.

Chart pop - They also have high self-esteem, are good workers, friendly and gentle, but are not creative or relaxed.

Soul - They have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing, gentle and at ease.

If you notice, the study focused on certain parts of our personality. Whatever the genre we like, a lot of us have high self esteem, we are creative, and outgoing. As you look through the list do you find yourself agreeing with the findings? Or do you think that they got it wrong?

We also found a free online music personality test that may give you some more specific information. We took the test and it seemed pretty accurate to us. But whatever our favorite type of music is, or what our personality is like, we hope that we all continue to enjoy music.