Exploring the Relation between Personality and the Appreciation of Rock Music

Abstract

Scores on five personality characteristics, extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism as well as reactive and proactive rebelliousness, and the appreciation of soft/nonrebellious and hard/rebellious rock-music videotapes were explored. After completing the personality tests, female and male undergraduates were exposed to rock-music videotapes and asked to rate various aspects of their enjoyment of each. Analysis indicated that psychoticism and reactive rebelliousness were associated with enjoyment in a parallel fashion. Specifically, respondents scoring high on psychoticism or high on reactive rebelliousness enjoyed hard/rebellious rock-music videotapes more than did their peers scoring low on psychoticism or low on reactive rebelliousness. The reverse was evident for the enjoyment of soft/nonrebellious rock-music videotapes. In contrast, scores on extraversion, neuroticism, and proactive rebelliousness were not associated with enjoyment. Gender differences emerged, however; women ( n = 78) enjoyed soft/nonrebellious rock music more than did men ( n = 60); and conversely, men enjoyed hard/rebellious rock music more than did women.