A recent study conducted by the University of Cambridge shows that musical tastes shift as we age. Teenage years were defined by “intense” music, then early adulthood by “contemporary” and “mellow” as they search for close relationships increases, with “sophisticated” and “unpretentious” allowing us to project status and family values later in life.
—
Tuesday, April 26th
The rise in music consumption over the last 100 years has made what you listen to an important personality trait. For many people, their self-perception is closely associated with musical preference.
A new study suggests that, while our engagement with music may decline, it stays essential to us as we get older. However, the music we like adapts to the particular ‘life challenges’ we face at different stages of our lives.
Researchers say the study is the first to “comprehensively document” how people engage with music “from adolescence to middle age.” The study is published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Researchers divided musical genres into five categories using data gathered from over a quarter of a million people over ten years. These categories include: mellow, unpretentious, sophisticated, intense, contemporary — and plotted preference patterns across age groups.
These five categories incorporate multiple genres that share common musical and psychological traits — such as loudness and complexity.
This article is a re-post, with minor modifications, of “Musical ages: How our taste in music changes over a lifetime” published on sciencedaily.com
