ACTION : For your third blog entry, titled Blog 3, read the attached article Soul Meets Body. Write a short paragraph discussing your thoughts on the connection between music and relationships. Have you noticed a similarity in music preference between yourself and a romantic other or a friend(s)? Do you also share similar values and ideals?
MATERIAL: from the text ” SSoul Meets Body“
“”As noted by my colleagues in previous articles, similarity between
potential romantic partners predicts feelings of attraction and love.
1
“Similarity” can include
things like similar backgrounds (e.g., nationality), physical features, personality, hobbies,
attitudes, and beliefs.
What about music preferences? As discussed in a recent post, music and personality expression
are intertwined. People make judgments of others’ personalities based on music tastes,2
and
many people consider their music preferences to be “social badges” that are more central to their
personality expression than books, clothing, food, movies, and TV.3
In fact, in a study on initial
impressions over a 6-week period, music was the most frequent topic of conversation between
people who were just getting to know each other, and was more frequent than any other topic
over the first 5 weeks.2
Why is music so important? It may be that having similar taste in music leads people to believe
they have similar personalities, which in turn facilitates attraction. Sounds reasonable, but that’s
Science of Relationships – | Page 1 of 3
http://www.scienceofrelationships.com/home/2012/2/21/soul-meets-body-how-music-and-r… 2/7/2018
actually not the case. The link between music and relationship development has to do with
similar values and ideals, rather than similar personalities and traits. Across 3 studies,
psychologists demonstrated that music taste similarity and social attraction are connected through
value similarity (see the figure below).4
In other words, when participants viewed profiles of
others who had similar music tastes, that led participants to believe they had similar values,
which then led to increased social attraction (this effect was also found in college roommates
who were randomly paired to live together in dorms by the university administration).
Here are a few examples of the types of “values” measured in this research: conservatism
(tradition, conformity, and security), self-transcendence (universalism and benevolence), selfenhancement
(power and achievement), and openness to change (hedonism, stimulation, and
self-direction). When the same participants in these studies were asked about general personality
traits (e.g., shyness, responsibility), this did not have the same result. It appears that common
values and ideals are the “missing link” between similar music taste and attraction.
To summarize, music preferences provide information about a person’s core values, and people
exhibit “musical bonding” early in relationship development through the feeling that they have
similar values and ideals. Importantly, this behavior is not unique to Americans; these behaviors
are found in German and Chinese samples as well.
So, sharing your music selection with a new friend or partner is a great idea, especially if you
want to get past more surface-level personality traits. You’ll get closer to knowing a person’s
“soul” with music (disclosure: I borrowed the title for this post from a Death Cab For Cutie
song).””
0 comments