Appearance Reveals Music Preferences

Overview

Journal Pers Soc Psychol Bull

Specialty Psychology

Date 2021 Sep 28

PMID 34581211

Authors

Laura Tian

Ravin Alaei

Nicholas O Rule

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Disclosing idiosyncratic preferences can help to broker new social interactions. For instance, strangers exchange music preferences to signal their identities, values, and preferences. Recognizing that people's physical appearances guide their decisions about social engagement, we examined whether cues to people's music preferences in their physical appearance and expressive poses help to guide social interaction. We found that perceivers could detect targets' music preferences from photos of their bodies, heads, faces, eyes, and mouths (but not hair) and that the targets' apparent traits (e.g., submissiveness, neatness) undergirded these judgments. Perceivers also desired to meet individuals who appeared to match their music preferences versus those who did not. Music preferences therefore seem to manifest in appearance, regulating interest in others and suggesting that one's identity redundantly emerges across different types of cues. People may thus infer others' music preferences to identify candidates for social bonding.

References

Rule N, Garrett J, Ambady N . On the perception of religious group membership from faces. PLoS One. 2010; 5(12):e14241. PMC: 2998417. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0014241. View

Martinez L, Falvello V, Aviezer H, Todorov A . Contributions of facial expressions and body language to the rapid perception of dynamic emotions. Cogn Emot. 2015; 30(5):939-52. DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2015.1035229. View

Hehman E, Flake J, Freeman J . The Faces of Group Members Share Physical Resemblance. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2017; 44(1):3-15. DOI: 10.1177/0146167217722556. View

Tskhay K, Rule N . Accuracy in categorizing perceptually ambiguous groups: a review and meta-analysis. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2012; 17(1):72-86. DOI: 10.1177/1088868312461308. View

Dasgupta N, Banaji M, Abelson R . Group entitativity and group perception: associations between physical features and psychological judgment. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1999; 77(5):991-1003. DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.77.5.991. View

Westfall J, Kenny D, Judd C . Statistical power and optimal design in experiments in which samples of participants respond to samples of stimuli. J Exp Psychol Gen. 2014; 143(5):2020-45. DOI: 10.1037/xge0000014. View

Savage P, Loui P, Tarr B, Schachner A, Glowacki L, Mithen S . Music as a coevolved system for social bonding. Behav Brain Sci. 2020; 44:e59. DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X20000333. View

Rentfrow P, Goldberg L, Zilca R . Listening, watching, and reading: the structure and correlates of entertainment preferences. J Pers. 2010; 79(2):223-58. PMC: 2964424. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2010.00662.x. View

Kosinski M, Stillwell D, Graepel T . Private traits and attributes are predictable from digital records of human behavior. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013; 110(15):5802-5. PMC: 3625324. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1218772110. View

10.

Sutoo D, Akiyama K . Music improves dopaminergic neurotransmission: demonstration based on the effect of music on blood pressure regulation. Brain Res. 2004; 1016(2):255-62. DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2004.05.018. View

11.

Naumann L, Vazire S, Rentfrow P, Gosling S . Personality judgments based on physical appearance. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2009; 35(12):1661-71. DOI: 10.1177/0146167209346309. View

12.

Tarrant M, North A, Edridge M, Kirk L, Smith E, Turner R . Social identity in adolescence. J Adolesc. 2001; 24(5):597-609. DOI: 10.1006/jado.2000.0392. View

13.

Mulder J, Ter Bogt T, Raaijmakers Q, Vollebergh W . Music Taste Groups and Problem Behavior. J Youth Adolesc. 2016; 36(3):313-24. DOI: 10.1007/s10964-006-9090-1. View

14.

Primack B, Douglas E, Fine M, Dalton M . Exposure to sexual lyrics and sexual experience among urban adolescents. Am J Prev Med. 2009; 36(4):317-23. PMC: 3008595. DOI: 10.1016/j.amepre.2008.11.011. View

15.

Sutherland C, Oldmeadow J, Santos I, Towler J, Burt D, Young A . Social inferences from faces: ambient images generate a three-dimensional model. Cognition. 2013; 127(1):105-18. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2012.12.001. View

16.

Soley G, Spelke E . Shared cultural knowledge: Effects of music on young children's social preferences. Cognition. 2016; 148:106-16. PMC: 5516266. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2015.09.017. View

17.

Li C . Confirmatory factor analysis with ordinal data: Comparing robust maximum likelihood and diagonally weighted least squares. Behav Res Methods. 2015; 48(3):936-49. DOI: 10.3758/s13428-015-0619-7. View

18.

Gosling S, Ko S, Mannarelli T, Morris M . A room with a cue: personality judgments based on offices and bedrooms. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2002; 82(3):379-98. DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.82.3.379. View

19.

van der Wel P, van Steenbergen H . Pupil dilation as an index of effort in cognitive control tasks: A review. Psychon Bull Rev. 2018; 25(6):2005-2015. PMC: 6267528. DOI: 10.3758/s13423-018-1432-y. View

20.

Rentfrow P, Gosling S . The do re mi's of everyday life: the structure and personality correlates of music preferences. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2003; 84(6):1236-56. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.84.6.1236. View