Personality and Music
Introduction
Music is culturally ubiquitous (Blacking 1995). Today, people in the Western world spend between 15% and 44% of their waking lives listening to it (Bonneville-Roussy et al. 2013; Juslin et al. 2008; Motion Picture Association of America 2007; North et al. 2004; Sloboda et al. 2001). Research from neuroscience, social science, and the music sciences (i.e., music psychology, music cognition, and music perception) has shown that varied aspects of musical behavior is rooted in both biology and culture (Levitin 2006; Rentfrow 2012). There are individual differences in how people perceive music, the music that is preferred, and the ways in which people perform it. This chapter discusses how individual differences in musical perception, preferences, and performance are differentiated by personality traits. Though theory and research has investigated how musical behavior is linked to personality using a variety of models (e.g., Jungian types, dark triad of personality) and...
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