Evaluating how facets of openness to experience predict music preference

Abstract

Listening to music is a widespread activity. Openness to experience in particular has been found to be one of the dimensions of personality that most consistently predicts music preference. However, the singular facets of openness to experience have never been looked at in depth. This study tried to uncover the impact of the openness-to-experience facets of both the five-factor (FFM) and HEXACO models of personality on music preference. A total of 374 college students completed two openness-to-experience measures (FFM and HEXACO) and one music preference measure (ratings of music excerpts). In line with Rentfrow and colleagues, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) suggested five dimensions of music preference. Dominance analysis (DA) was used to evaluate the relative importance of each facet in predicting music preference. It was observed that openness facets relate to music preference in ways that are not apparent when general openness to experience is used as a predictor of music preference.