Research Article | Open Access

Music Preference Dimensions and Personality Traits Among University Students

    Mussarat Jabeeen

    Department of Psychology, International Islamic University, Pakistan

    Summaira Naz

    Department of Psychology, Hazara University, Pakistan

    Anila Kamal

    Rawalpindi Women University, Pakistan

    Humaira Bibi

    Department of Psychology, Hazara University, Pakistan


Received
09 Jun, 2020
Accepted
15 Jun, 2021
Published
30 Sep, 2021

The present study explored the relationship between music reference dimensions and personality trait. This study comprised of three stages. In Stage-I, adaptation of Short Test of Music Preference Scale (STOMP; Rentfrow & Gosling, 2003) was done. In Stage-II the psychometric properties of adapted STOMP Scale and NEO-PI-R (Costa & McCrea, 1992) were determined on a sample of 60 students (20-25 years). Stage-III involved measuring the relationship between music preference dimensions and personality traits on sample of 250 students age range of 20-25 years. Results revealed that extraversion, openness to experience, and agreeableness showed positive association with intense and rebellious music, upbeat and conventional music, and reflective and complex music. Whereas extraversion and openness to experience was negatively associated with energetic and rhythmic music. Additionally, neuroticism was negatively related with reflective and complex music, and agreeableness has negative relation with intense and rebellious music. Conscientiousness has negative relationship with reflective and complex, intense and rebellious, and upbeat and conventional; while exhibited positive relationship with energetic and rhythmic music. Future implications of the study were also discussed.

Now a day people use music in everyday situations much more than before. A century before the purposeful hearing of music was restricted to different social gatherings, at home and also at concert halls; but today the background of our lives is set by music (Ockelford, 2006). Current research focused on the reasons behind the massive appeal of music and its emerging explanation that various psychological aims satisfy after music listening (Laukka, 2006). Other than social setting, many other numbers of needs are also satisfying through music (e.g., mood regulation). Music preferences can be the most common indicator of everyday life activities (Rentfrow, 2012). According to Hargreaves and North (1999) people communicate two types of information with their music inclinations; first, depiction of their personal qualities; second, it also gave information regarding the membership of people with a specific group. According to Morin (2020) the reason behind the defensive attitude of people regarding their music preferences might be associated with their personality factors and attitudes.

Literature available on music can be categorize into three major themes. Firstly, towards the type of music (a) Heavy Music (including hard, rap, soft, and rock music) that varies with the listeners’ mood, (b) Light music (including pop, rhythmic, themes, melodies, and dance) is which mostly used in dance parties because it helps to creates sexual identity, romantic relationships, and family. Secondly, attributes enhancing music (including classical, rap, and rock music) in which music selection is dependent on weather conditions, mood, and environment, and they dislike heavy music beat (Langmeyer, Guglhor-Rudan, & Tarnai, 2012). Thirdly, those who have diverse music preferences prefer classical (reflective and complex) and rock (intense and fractious) music, whereas these people dislike pop music (upbeat and conventional). Only few studies examined how music preferences linked with the personality characteristics of the listeners (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2007). People high on extraversion prefer upbeat and conventional and energetic and rhythmic types of music (e.g., rap/hip-hop). Another study by Rentfrow and Gosling (2007) found that people with openness to experience personality trait prefer reflective & complex and intense & rebellious music. People with emotional stability personality trait has positive associated with reflective and complex musical preference (e.g., Classic and Ethnic Music).

People with Reflective and Complex music-preference dimension (Classical, Blues, Jazz, and Folk) are open to new experiences, sophisticated, intellectual, give importance to wisdom, and enjoy trying new things. Individuals with Intense and Rebellious music-preference dimension (Alternative, Rock, and Heavy Metal) are friendly, conventional, give importance to family security, and less assertive than the average individual. In Upbeat and Conventional (Pop, Religious, Country, and Soundtrack) people tend to being introverted, moralistic, focus on beauty and inner harmony, and unconventional. Listeners of Energetic and Rhythmic (Hip-hop, Funk, and Electronic) are introverted, detail oriented, intellectual, less assertive than the average person, and art lovers.

Music and personality predispositions have strong interconnection. Although large amount of information is available on the personality characteristics, but very limited research evidence available on those basic facts concerning the link between music preference dimensions and personality. Music is also one such facts. A very limited knowledge is available on why people like music, despite this fact that considerable attention was gained by music in the field of biological, neuroscience, cognitive, and clinical psychology (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2003).

Music helps individuals in self-expression because they use music as a symbol for their self definition and identification (Greenberg et al., 2016; North, Hargreaves, &‌ Hargreaves, 2004). Previous literature review suggests that personality characteristics lead an individual to opt/create those physical environmental stimuli which corresponds to their traits dispositions (Gosling, Ko, Mannarelli, & Morris, 2002). Extroverts prefer music with strong rhythms, discordant harmonies, and fast tempo to increase their arousal level. Similarly, Payne found that people high on extraversion listen rock and emotional music, while Introverts use music with formal structure. Preference for music with high arousing tendency (e.g., heavy metal, rock, alternative, dance, and rap) has positive association with antisocial personality, sensation seeking, and resting arousal; while background music interfere with cognitive processes of Introverts than in extroverts (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2003). Vella and Mills (2017) stated that neurotic people use music as a strategy to regulate their bad emotions whereas people with openness to experience personality trait use music for their cognitive satisfaction. These results provide a sense of findings provide logical relationship between personality trait and musical behavior.

According to Rawlings and Ciancarelli (1997) on one side psychoticism and hard rock music positively linked with each other; while on other side psychoticism have negative relationship with classical, popular, electronic, soft rock, and soundtrack, and that people with extraversion personality trait prefer more religious, electronic, and soundtrack music. Dollinger (1993) revealed that classical, jazz, and soul music were preferred by openness people; agreeable like classical music; extroverts like hard rock music; and neurotics like pop music. Rawling and Ciancarelli (1997) also found that openness individuals always listen classical and rock music; extroverts particularly prefer popular music. These studies indicate that music-preferences influence an individual’s genre-specific perception (Vermeir & Geuens, 2004).

The uses and gratification approach focused on individual choice behind individuals’ music consumption, and suggests that people prefer those music styles which satisfy the needs or characteristics of their personalities (e.g., extroverts, enjoy socializing, prefer music that facilitates their social interactions with peers). The physiologically based needs can also gratify by people’s music selection. Optimal stimulation model suggests that people use those type of music due to which they can achieve their optimal level of arousing (e.g., extrovert always prefer high beat music to enhance their arousal level because they mostly have low cortical arousal level; Marc et al., 2008). People use music to define themselves because music acts as a means to get related with other people (Morin, 2020).

Rationale of the Present Study
A significant literature has emerged regarding the use of music during exercise and sports which suggest that music enhance both ergogenic and psycho-physical response (Crust & Clough, 2006; Kallinen, 2005; Karageorghis, Jones, & Low, 2006). But this literature just gave information about the physiological reactions of music during exercise. Although very few studies explored the link existing between personality traits and music preferences but these studies gave an incomplete picture of this relationship because limited genres were used to examine in these studies (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2003). Nowadays some other researchers systematically select and use more wide range of music genres for examining how personality traits linked with specific music preference, but these studies are not conducted in Asian culture (Swann, Rentfrow, & Guinn, 2002). So, the present study aimed to find out this relationship with respect to Pakistani culture. The present work suggests one useful technique of personality assessment through the music preferences of individuals. Music is very important in relationship because people attracted romantically more towards those individuals who have similar musical taste.

The main objective of the present study is to adapt Short Test of Music Preference (STOMP) according to Pakistani culture and compute the psychometric properties of adapted STOMP scale and NEO-PI-R. It is also intended to explore the relationship of music-preference dimensions with personality traits.

Hypotheses

The following hypotheses based on objectives were phrased:

  1. Agreeableness and openness to experience personality traits will be positively related with reflective and complex music-preference dimensions.
  2. Extraverts will prefer both intense and rebellious and upbeat and conventional music-preference dimension.
  3. People high on neuroticism will prefer upbeat and conventional music-preference dimension.
  4. Conscientiousness personality trait will be positively related with energetic and rhythmic music-preference dimension.

METHOD

The current research is based on three stages. Stage I dealt with adaptation of STOMP, while stage II comprised of Pilot study and stage III based on Main study.

Stage I: Adaptation of Short Test of Music Preferences (STOMP)
The basic objective of stage I was to adapt STOMP scale according to the Pakistani culture.

Sample. The sample of 40 university students including girls (n = 20) and boys (n = 20) having age range from 20 to30 years (M = 22.05, SD = 1.34) were selected from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. Only those respondents were acquired who listen to music for at least two hours in four days of a week. They were having MSc and MPhil educational level.

Short Test of Music Preference Scale. STOMP comprised of 14-item scale (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2003) with scoring on 7-point likert scale on music genres (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). It assesses four broad music-preference dimensions named; Reflective and Complex music preference dimension (item no. 1 and 5), Upbeat and Conventional music preference dimension (item no. 2, 3, and 6), Intense and Rebellious music preference dimension (item no. 4 and 8), and Energetic and Rhythmic music preference dimension (item no. 7 and 9). The score range of this scale is 14-98. High scores indicate strong preferences for certain music preference dimensions and vice versa. Rentfrow and Gosling (2003) gave test-retest reliability for the Reflective and Complex (.77), Intense and Rebellious (.80), Upbeat and Conventional (.89), and Energetic and Rhythmic dimensions (.82).

Adaptation process. STOMP scale (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2003) was developed according to American culture, which has quite different musical trends than Pakistan. This scale includes some music genres, which were not familiar in Pakistani culture (e.g., Blues music, Funk music, Jazz music, and etc.); similarly, songs enlisted in each music genre, were unable to represent the musical trends of Pakistan. So, in order to administered STOMP scale (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2003) on Pakistani university students, it was necessary to adapt STOMP scale according to Pakistani cultural. Following steps were followed:

Prevalence rate of music genre. The first step was to explore the prevalence rates of music genres (classical, heavy metal, country, folk, electronic dance, alternative, blues, funk, hip hop, jazz, pop, religious, theme, and rock) through their frequencies. So, a list of these fourteen music genres was distributed among 40 university students. They mark those music genres, which prevail in Pakistan, and they are familiar with them. The results of this survey based on the sample of 40 students (Girls = 20 and boys = 20) revealed familiarity level of 14 music genres as classical (100%), Blues (12.5%), Country (42.5%), Dance/Electronic (55%), Folk (100%), Rap/Hiphop (62.5%), Soul/Funk (22.5%), Religious (100%), Alternative (72.5%), Jazz (25%), Rock (90%), Pop (100%), Heavy Metal (20%), Soundtrack/Theme (75%). On the basis of the respondents’ responses, four music genres had very low familiarity level (blues, soul/funk, jazz, and heavy metal).

Item pool generation. For item pool generation, those websites were accessed who classify Pakistani/Indian songs on the basis of different music genres (e.g., Apniisp.com, Musicmaza.com, and etc.). From these websites ten popular Pakistani/Indian songs were selected for each music genre.

Expertise consultation. For expert opinion about the appropriateness of selected songs with the defined criteria of each music genre a Music Expert (thirty five years’ experience of working as a musicologist in PTV) was consulted. First Music Expert gets informed about those four music genres that have very low frequencies. Then, he gave his professional views about the appropriateness of the selected songs. Music Expert also pointed out that country music did not exist in Pakistan because it is basically American folk music. So, finally five music genres were excluded (blues, funk, jazz, country, and heavy metal) from the adapted STOMP scale, and also replace some songs for classical, religious and folk music.

Familiarity level of selected song. The revised list of songs for retained nine genres of music (pop, hip hop, rock, alternative, religious, theme, dance, classical, and folk) was administer on 40 students to check the familiarity level of these songs. Only those songs retained whose familiarity level was 50% or above, while excluded those songs whose familiarity level was less than 50%.

Results. The adapted form of STOMP scale was based on nine genres of music (dance, religious, alternative, classical, hip hop, rock, pop, theme, and folk) and each genre has five exemplary songs. So, the adapted STOMP scale have 9 items and use scoring 7-point likert scale format for scoring on genres and assesses four broad music-preference dimensions named as reflective and complex, upbeat and conventional, intense and rebellious, and energetic and rhythmic.

Discussion. In order to get information about the music preference of Pakistani university students, an indigenously developed scale was required. So, it was necessary to adapt the Western music preference scale, STOMP, according to Pakistani culture.

For adapting STOMP scale, first familiarity levels of its fourteen music genres (classical, heavy metal, country, folk, electronic dance, alternative, blues, funk, hip hop, jazz, pop, religious, theme, and rock) was determined through their frequencies among Pakistani students. The four music genres (heavy metal, jazz, funk, and blues) had very low frequencies. In the next step of item pool generation of STOMP scale, ten popular Indian/Pakistani songs for fourteen music genres were selected. Music Expert was consulted for professional views about the appropriateness of these selected songs to the defined criteria of their music genres. He suggested to excluding five music genres (blues, funk, jazz, country, and heavy metal) from adapted STOMP scale. Then the reviewed list of songs for retained nine music genres (Classical, religious, pop, rock, hip-hop, alternative, folk, theme, and dance) was administered on 40 students. Only those songs were retained in the final scale, whose familiarity levels were 50% or above. So, the final adapted STOMP scale comprised on nine music genres and each genre has five exemplary songs.

Stage II: Pilot Study
The major objective of the pilot study was to compute the psychometric properties of adapted STOMP scale and NEO-PI-R.

Sample. Convenient sampling technique was used to select 60 students including equal number of men and women with age range 20-30 years (M = 22.05, SD = 1.74) from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. The present sample was divided into two categories on educational level that is, undergraduate (n = 38) and postgraduate (n = 22).

Adapted STOMP Scale. This scale has 9 items with on 7-point likert scale scoring on music genres (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree) with scoring range 9 - 63. It assesses four dimensions of music-preference named; Reflective and Complex (item no. 1 and 5), Upbeat and Conventional (item no. 2, 3 and 6), Intense and Rebellious (item no. 4 and 8), and Energetic and Rhythmic (item no. 7 and 9). The alpha reliability values of these preferences given by Langmeyer, Guglhor-Rudan, and Tarnai (2012) are .71 (Reflective and Complex) .67 (Intense and Rebellious) .54 (Upbeat and Conventional) and.51 (Energetic and Rhythmic). The alpha reliability values for these four dimensions in the present study are .77 (Reflective and Complex), .97 (Upbeat and Conventional), .72 (Intense and Rebellious), and .81 (Energetic and Rhythmic).

NEO-PI-R. NEO-PI-R (Costa & McCrea, 1992) comprised of 240 items with scoring on 5-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). It measures big five personality traits (extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness to experience, and neuroticism). Each trait is measured by 48 items of the inventory out of 240 items and score range of each domain is from 48-240. Higher scores on each personality trait indicate higher tendency to develop that personality trait characteristics and vice versa. Langmeyer et al. (2012) also reported the alpha reliability values of these five traits of NEO-PI-R as .73 (openness to experience) .69 (conscientiousness) .82 (extraversion) .54 (agreeableness) .67 (neuroticism). In the current study the reliability values of these domains are; neuroticism (.90), extraversion (.93), Openness to experience (.92), agreeableness (.86), and conscientiousness (.92).

Procedure. The sample of 60 university students (Boys n = 30, Girls n = 30) with age range 20-30 years (M = 22.05, SD = 1.74) were selected through convenient sampling technique and approached personally within the area of Quaid-i-Azam University. Informed consent form, adapted STOMP scale and NEO-PI-R were used after getting permission from the authors of scales. The respondents were instructed to give response on each item of all scales. After data collection, appropriate statistical analyses were done.

Results. In pilot study at first the alpha coefficient values of all questionnaires and their subscales were computed. The alpha coefficient for STOMP) is .84, and for its subscales alpha value ranges from .72 to .97; while alpha coefficients for NEO-PI-R subscales range from .86 to .93. The results of item total correlation showed that all items of adapted STOMP scale and NEO-PI-R have significant positive correlation with total scores on corresponding scale. Inter scale correlation on adapted STOMP scale portrays that all subscales are significantly positively associated with each other except intense and rebellious music that had significant negative correlation with energetic and rhythmic music. Inter-scale correlation on NEO-PI-R describes significant positive relationships of extraversion with openness and neuroticism; neuroticism with openness; conscientiousness with agreeableness. Agreeableness has significant negative correlation with extraversion, openness and neuroticism; conscientiousness with extraversion.

Discussion. The pilot study was carried out on 60 university students for examining the psychometric properties of adapted STOMP scale and NEO-PI-R. In order to compute the psychometric characteristics of adapted STOMP scale and NEO-PI-R; the alpha reliability coefficients, item total correlation coefficients, and inter-scale correlation of each instrument were calculated. The alpha reliability coefficient value of adapted STOMP scale was .84 and for NEO-PI-R it was .85. These alpha values show that the instruments were internally consistent. The significant results of item total correlation and inter-scale correlation coefficients of each instruments was an evident regarding the above average level of construct validity of each instrument. The values of inter-scale and item-total correlation coefficients indicated that all instruments have satisfactory level of construct validity.

Stage III: Main Study
The primary objective of main study was to examine the association between personality traits and music preference dimensions.

Sample. The sample of 400 university students (women n = 200, men n = 200) were approached but only 250 respondents gave responses on every item of each questionnaire. So the final analyses were done on the data of 250 university students with equal number of men and women having age range of 20-30 years (M = 22.23, SD = 1.57).

Instruments. For main study, two scales were administered, namely adapted STOMP and NEO-PI-R. For detail description of these scales see Stage II: Pilot study.

Procedure. The sample of 400 university students were selected and approached personally by using convenient sampling technique within the premises of Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. NEO-PI-R, adapted STOMP scale and the informed consent form were distributed among students. The respondents were instructed to give response on every item of each scale. Only 250 respondents gave their responses on all questionnaires. So, the final statistical analyses were done on the sample of 250 students.

RESULTS

The data of 250 university students have been analyzed. The alpha coefficient for adapted STOMP scale was .80, and .71 to .95 range of alpha values were found for subscales of STOMP; while the alpha coefficients for NEO-PI-R subscales range from .89 to .98. Significant positive results emerged on item-total correlation analyses of adapted STOMP scale and NEO-PI-R. Inter scale correlation on adapted STOMP scale indicated that upbeat and conventional music has significant positive while energetic and rhythmic music was significantly negatively related with reflective and complex and intense and rebellious music. Intense and rebellious music has non-significant correlations with reflective and complex music, upbeat and conventional music with energetic and rhythmic. Inter-scale correlation analysis on NEO-PI-R explored that extraversion has significant positive relationships with openness and neuroticism, openness to experience with agreeableness; while extraversion has significant negative correlations with conscientiousness and agreeableness, openness to experience with conscientiousness, agreeableness with neuroticism. Conscientiousness has nonsignificant relationships with agreeableness and neuroticism, between openness to experience and neuroticism. The mean and standard deviation values of upbeat and conventional and energetic and rhythmic revealed that they are most preferred music in students; reflective and complex music (M = 8.28, SD = 4.28), intense and rebellious music (M = 8.95, SD = 3.58), upbeat and conventional music (M = 14.38, SD = 6.67), and energetic and rhythmic music (M = 10.93, SD = 2.68).

Table 1:
Correlation Between the NEO-PI-R and Adapted STOMP (N=250)

Note. Open = Openness
*p < .05. **p < .01

Table 1 shows that Extraversion is significantly positively correlated with intense and rebellious and upbeat and conventional music; significantly negatively related with energetic and rhythmic music; and nonsignificantly associated with reflective and complex music. On the other side openness has significant positive link with reflective and complex, intense and rebellious, and upbeat and conventional; significantly negatively related with energetic and rhythmic. Neuroticism also shows significant positive association with intense and rebellious, upbeat and conventional, and energetic and rhythmic; significant negative relationship with reflective and complex. Agreeableness is significantly positively related with reflective and complex and upbeat and conventional; significant negative relationship with intense and rebellious; has nonsignificant relationship with energetic and rhythmic. Conscientiousness has significant negative relationship with reflective and complex, intense and rebellious, and upbeat and conventional; while has significant positive relationship with energetic and rhythmic.

DISCUSSION

The analyses revealed that students with openness have significant positive association with reflective and complex music, which support the first hypothesis of the current study that openness and reflective and complex music are positively correlated with each other (see Table 1). The results of some previous researches are consistent with the findings of present study (Marc et al., 2008; Pearson & Dollinger, 2004; Vella & Mills, 2017; Zweigenhaft, 2008) which found that openness individuals are comparatively open minded, are interested in new experiences, quite intellectual and might enjoy playing with abstract ideas, so they enjoy music that is perceived as complex. Openness individuals are creative, have a desire for variations, intellectual stimulation, creativity, and enjoy trying new things. They may satisfy these desires by preferring comparatively difficult or complex music type. Thus, it is logically possible that people having a greater developmental level of the Intellect/Openness dimension have higher preferences to listen highly artistic, aesthetic, and dynamic styles of music, which is exciting in nature with ability to awake the curiosity regarding the understanding of hidden meaning what they heard (Herrera, Soares-Quadros, & Lorenzo, 2018).

The results of analyses support the second hypothesis that extrovert students prefer upbeat and conventional music (see Table 1). These findings are supported by the results of some old researches (Fricke & Herzberg, 2017), which discovered that Extrovert individuals prefer mostly music which have high beat, more energetic with multiple vocals. Fricke and Herzberg (2017) also explored the relationship of personality traits and music preferences on German samples and stated that people high on extraversion listen upbeat and conventional music by preferring more Rap/Hip-Hop, Pop, and Soul/R&B/Funk styles. Extraversion trait was that only dimension which does not have negative association with different music preference dimensions. The analyses on second hypothesis portrayed that both Intense & Rebellious and Extraversion are significantly positively linked (see Table 1). Some Previous researches (Pearson & Dollinger, 2004; Rentfrow & Gosling, 2003) also support the results that Extrovert people have strong tendency to enjoy rock music (Intense & Rebellious).

The results of data analyses confirmed the third hypothesis that Agreeable people listen reflective and complex music (see Table 1). These results are supported by results of some old researches (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2003), which revealed that agreeable individuals have strong tendency towards the liking for Classical music (reflective and complex). The present research also found that Agreeable students have tendencies to prefer upbeat and conventional music (see Table 1). The conclusions of some previous researchers (Marc et al., 2008; Rentfrow & Gosling, 2003) are also in line with the findings of present study, which explored that the preference for upbeat and conventional music and agreeableness personality trait were positive associated. Another study conducted by Zweigenhaft, (2008) also reported that agreeableness personality trait is positively linked with upbeat and conventional music preference.

The analyses of current research confirmed the fourth hypothesis that neuroticism and upbeat and conventional music have positive relationship with each other (see Table 1). These findings are strengthened by the results of Dollinger’s (1993) research, which revealed that emotionally unstable people prefer Pop music (upbeat and conventional) to get the state of emotional stability. The results of Table 1 also revealed significant positive relationships of intense and rebellious music with neuroticism. Findings of Glassmire’s (2005) study support these results by revealing that in Neurotic individuals, depression and heavy metal music (intense and rebellious) have strong association with each other. Similarly, Vella and Mills (2017) stated that neurotic people use music as a strategy to regulate their bad emotions. As the neurotic people have high tendency to experience negative feelings and thought which create distress in their personalities and disturb their routine life activities, so whenever these individuals experience such feelings and thoughts they use intense and rebellious music, which help them to forget their distressing feelings by diverting their attention toward the extremely high beats of music.

The relationship between conscientiousness and energetic and rhythmic music also comes true after the data analysis on it (see Table 1). Marc et al. (2008) had consistent result with present findings, which revealed that those people who are higher scorers on Conscientiousness had strong tendency to listen Dance music (energetic and rhythmic music). According to uses and gratification perspective, as the conscientious individuals are to some extent opposite of artistic, intuitive, and imaginative (Pervin & John, 2001); so they prefer energetic and rhythmic music, which satisfies their natural demand of rational approach towards the world.

It is concluded that openness has significant positive correlation with reflective and complex; extraversion has with both intense and rebellious and upbeat and conventional; agreeableness has with upbeat and conventional; neuroticism has with upbeat and conventional and intense and rebellious; conscientiousness has with energetic and rhythmic.

The current research only gave information regarding the relationship of music preference dimensions with personality traits on the basis of scores self-report scales. So, it is suggested for next researcher in order to examine the causal association between music preference dimensions and personality traits across different age group with the help of other assessment techniques (e.g., interviews).

The results of this study are very valuable because they have implications specifically in the both fields of counselling and clinical psychology for dealing with psychological issues of young people. These results are also helpful as accurate and rapid method for the assessment/prediction of listener’s personality characteristics on the basis of their music preferences.

LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

The present research has encounter some limitations. This study explain just correlation between music preference and personality traits for adults only and explores the effect of very limited demographic variables (age, gender, and education differences) on these variables by using self-report instruments. So, it is suggested that the next researcher conduct cross-sectional study to explore the causal association of these variables and also tried to explore the effect of other important demographic traits (e.g., ethnicity, social class, youth cultures, and socio-economic status) on these variables by using both projective and objective techniques of data collection.

IMPLICATIONS

The findings of the present study have broader implications in the field of personality psychology (personality assessment) and social psychology (self-expression processes, and close relationships). Individual’s music preferences can be used for the assessment of listener’s personality traits as music reveal a lot more about a person. Music preferences also act as a method of self-expression. Through this method of self-expression, the individual feel connected with others and they tried that people perceive them as they perceive themselves. The results of this research can act as an effective strategy for the development of potential partners’ impressions accurately for determining their compatibility with partner.

CONCLUSION

On the basis of the result it is concluded that music preferences have strong and significant association with personality traits of the listeners. The selection of music based on their personality traits as well as their demographic characteristics. It is concluded that music preferences are very helpful for the assessment of the personality traits without the administration of assessment tools. This would be helping for the treatment of many psychological problems.

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How to Cite this paper?


APA-7 Style
Jabeeen, M., Naz, S., Kamal, A., Bibi, H. (2021). Music Preference Dimensions and Personality Traits Among University Students. Pak. J. Psychol. Res, 36(3), 357-373. https://doi.org/10.33824/PJPR.2021.36.3.20

ACS Style
Jabeeen, M.; Naz, S.; Kamal, A.; Bibi, H. Music Preference Dimensions and Personality Traits Among University Students. Pak. J. Psychol. Res 2021, 36, 357-373. https://doi.org/10.33824/PJPR.2021.36.3.20

AMA Style
Jabeeen M, Naz S, Kamal A, Bibi H. Music Preference Dimensions and Personality Traits Among University Students. Pakistan Journal of Psychological Research. 2021; 36(3): 357-373. https://doi.org/10.33824/PJPR.2021.36.3.20

Chicago/Turabian Style
Jabeeen, Mussarat, Summaira Naz, Anila Kamal, and Humaira Bibi. 2021. "Music Preference Dimensions and Personality Traits Among University Students" Pakistan Journal of Psychological Research 36, no. 3: 357-373. https://doi.org/10.33824/PJPR.2021.36.3.20