Message in a Ballad
Top Cited Papers
- 1 March 2006
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Psychological Science
- Vol. 17 (3) , 236-242
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01691.x
Abstract
How is information about people conveyed through their preferences for certain kinds of music? Here we show that individuals use their music preferences to communicate information about their personalities to observers, and that observers can use such information to form impressions of others. Study 1 revealed that music was the most common topic in conversations among strangers given the task of getting acquainted. Why was talk about music so prevalent? Study 2 showed that (a) observers were able to form consensual and accurate impressions on the basis of targets' music preferences, (b) music preferences were related to targets' personalities, (c) the specific cues that observers used tended to be the ones that were valid, and (d) music preferences reveal information that is different from that obtained in other zero-acquaintance contexts. Discussion focuses on the mechanisms that may underlie the links between personality and music preferences.Keywords
This publication has 21 references indexed in Scilit:
- Thin Slices of Behavior as Cues of Personality and Intelligence.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2004
- A room with a cue: Personality judgments based on offices and bedrooms.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2002
- The Effect of Information on Consensus and Accuracy in Personality JudgmentJournal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1998
- Music Style Preferences of Different Age ListenersJournal of Research in Music Education, 1996
- Accuracy in Face Perception: A View from Ecological PsychologyJournal of Personality, 1993
- Behavioral manifestations of personality: An ecological approach to judgmental accuracy.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1993
- Consensus at zero acquaintance: Replication, behavioral cues, and stability.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1992
- Sensation seeking and music preferencesPersonality and Individual Differences, 1986
- Self-knowledge and social inference: II. The diagnosticity of cognitive/affective and behavioral data.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1984
- Perception and the Representative Design of Psychological ExperimentsPublished by University of California Press ,1956