外刊 | 個性和音樂

# 經濟學人 #

Psychology: Heart and soul

Openness prefers sophistication; extroversion, unpretentiousness

PAST attempts to link personality to musical taste have foundered on the rocks of small sample sizes, culturally homogenous samples (usually of undergraduates at universities in rich countries) and the fact that most such studies relied on the participants themselves defining what genres(/???r?/) they enjoyed. But Jason Rentfrow of Cambridge University and Gideon Nave of the University of Pennsylvania think they have bypassed these obstacles. As a consequence they believe, as they write in Psychological Science, that they have shown how personality traits can indeed predict musical preferences.

關於音樂品味和個性之間是否有聯繫？之前用於研究的樣本不僅少，而且單一（通常都是來自富裕國家的在校大學生）。加上都是由參加者自行決定喜歡的音樂類型，比較主觀。而來自劍橋大學的Jason Rentfrow和來自賓州大學的Gideon Nave繞開了這些障礙，在Psychological Science雜誌上發表了他們的研究結果，也就是根據個性確實可以預測音樂偏好。

* founder: v. to begin to fail

To overcome problems of sample size and diversity Dr Rentfrow, Dr Nave and their colleagues used the internet to recruit 22,252 participants of different ages and backgrounds from all around the world. In particular, 45% of their volunteers were over 22 and thus unlikely to be undergraduates. To work around the problem of letting participants define what they liked, they presented each of these volunteers with25 excerpts of music that had not been publicly released but had been assessed and classified by expert musicologists. Each volunteer was also given a standard personality test that rates the five main components of personality: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

針對樣本小和單一的問題：1. 他們在網上徵募了22252名志願者。志願者有各個年齡段，來自全世界，有著不同的背景。2. 有45%的志願者年齡超過22歲，也就是說不是在校大學生。針對參加者會主觀決定喜好的問題：他們給所有志願者播放的音樂都是被音樂家分類過，但沒有在公眾場合播放過的25個音樂選段。並且，給了每個志願者一份標準的個性測試，評測了五種主要個性：開放、勤勉審慎、外向、宜人討喜和神經質。

Openness, Dr Rentfrow and Dr Nave found, was associated with an appreciation of 「sophisticated」 music (defined as inspiring, complex and dynamic) and a converse lack of appreciation for 「mellow」 music (romantic, relaxing and slow) and 「contemporary」 music (percussive, electric and not sad).Extroverts, by contrast, showed a preference for 「unpretentious」 music (uncomplicated, relaxing andacoustic). Those who scored high on agreeableness showed the appropriateness of that assessment by rating all the clips highly, regardless of genre. And those with elevated neuroticism scores did the reverse, rating everything as bad. Only the trait of conscientiousness failed to predict musical taste in any way. Perhaps conscientious people have better things to do than sit around all day listening to music.

1. 個性開放的比較喜歡sophisticated的音樂（鼓舞、複雜、動感）；他們不喜歡的那種柔和的音樂（浪漫、舒緩），也不喜歡當代音樂（打擊類、電音、嗨的）。

2.個性外向的喜歡含蓄的音樂（簡單、放鬆、自然的）。

3. 個性宜人的完全不挑剔類型，覺得各種類型都好。

4. 個性高神經質的認為各種類型都很糟。

5. 個性勤勉審慎的喜歡的音樂類型試驗數據顯示完全摸不透，沒有什麼規律。也許比起聽音樂，他們有更好的事情可以做。

* converse: n. the opposite of a statement or situation

* mellow: adj. with a soft, smooth, and pleasant sound

* extrovert: n. someone who is very confident, lively, and likes social situations

* unpretentious: not trying to impress people with money, style, intelligence, importance etc