What music do intelligent people listen to?

An American software developer studied the relationship between music and intelligence.

Recent research links our musical tastes to academic grades.

What music do smart people listen to?

In a previous article in Psychology and Mindwe learned about a study that linked the preference for certain musical styles with the tendency to possess a certain personality profile. In today's study, Virgil Griffith, an American software creator and application developer, set out to investigate the link between people's musical tastes and their academic performance. The conclusions of the study were published in the dossier "Music That Makes You Dumb" (Music That Makes You Dumb).

The results of this detailed analysis were found after cross-referencing the average score average score on the university entrance exams of students with the music published by music they published and shared on the social network Facebook. As we can see, the methodology is not very scientific, but it is worth echoing the results found, if only as a first step towards new research to evaluate the relationship between these two variables: intelligence and musical preferences.

Rock for the smart and reaggaeton for the dumb?

As the results show, the young students who obtained poorer scores were those who liked to listen to musical artists such as **Lil Wayne, The Used, Beyoncé or Jay-**Zbeing the Hip Hop and Reggaeton genres the most commonly listened to by this type of students. In contrast, those who obtained a brilliant grade in the entrance exam were crossed with the great composer Ludwig Van Beethoven.

Within the sector with high ratings, also reported repeatedly were musical bands such as. U2, Counting Crows, The Shins, Bob Dylan, or the British or the British Radiohea****d. Following closely on the heels of this outstanding list of groups, Coldplay or Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The musical tastes of the average students (those who stood out neither for better nor worse, the average students) included groups such as. Pearl Jam, System of a Downthe mythical Australians AC/DC, Oasis and The Doors.. The author of the study visually classified all the data in a table that was published on his website, which we offer below.

Discussion

Certainly, the methodology of the study is questionable. First of all, the study was presented in the media as the correlation found between the variables intelligence y musical tasteswhen, in fact, the the research did not rigorously measure either of them.. Regarding the first, it should be noted that establishing a total symmetry between intelligence and academic performance is rather imprecise. As for the second, it is likely that what we share on Facebook is not a reliable criterion to measure our tastes and preferences.

Moreover, it is worth explaining that there is obviously no scientific evidence to say that there is a certain type of music that makes us "smarter" or "dumber". It is a statistical question, a mere correlation. We will have to continue researching to see to what extent there is some kind of relationship between the level of intelligence and the preference for one or another musical group.