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Many individuals have skilled music arousing feelings. Nevertheless, music sensibility varies significantly; some folks expertise intense feelings, whereas others barely discover it.
Which persona traits characterize people who find themselves strongly moved by music? Ph.D. fellow Heidi Marie Umbach Hansen on the Division of Psychology, College of Oslo, studied the hyperlink between music sensibility and the Massive 5 persona traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Umbach Hansen will defend her dissertation on August 29.
“Music sensibility seems to be linked to openness and agreeableness, but it is also linked to neuroticism, which is a more emotional trait. These connections are probably caused primarily by shared, underlying genetics,” Umbach Hansen stated.
Each genetics and setting matter
Earlier research have indicated a average heritability for musicality, which means that each genes and setting matter.
“Musicality is a broad concept though. Traditionally many people think of our ability to understand rhythm or the ability to hear the difference between sounds. Previous research has mainly dealt with these issues. In our case, we have investigated how genes and environment influence musical sensibility,” Umbach Hansen stated.
Investigating this situation might result in a greater understanding of what musicality actually consists of or how we should always perceive it, she provides.
Her knowledge materials consists of about 2,600 Norwegian twins, and the findings point out that a lot of the variability in musical sensibility—as much as 64%—may be attributed to genetic variations. Nonetheless, the setting additionally performs an vital function.
Twin research are extensively used to grasp how genes and environments form human conduct. Equivalent twins share all genes, whereas fraternal twins share the identical quantity of genetic materials as regular siblings.
If researchers discover an identical twins to be extra like one another than fraternal twins, it means that genes have an effect on the trait being studied, for instance, persona, despair or musicality.
Nevertheless, twin research usually are not solely helpful for finding out the affect of genes and setting on a single persona trait.
“They can also be used to investigate relationships between different traits,” Umbach Hansen defined.
Open, sociable and delicate music lovers
In her personal research of music sensibility’s connection to the Massive 5 persona traits, she discovered no correlation to conscientiousness and extraversion. Nevertheless, those that scored excessive on music sensibility additionally scored excessive on:
openness, together with creativity, curiosity, aesthetic sense, and sensibility
agreeableness, similar to kindness and helpfulness
neuroticism, e.g., how usually you expertise depressive or anxious ideas.
“These connections mainly seemed to be there because of shared genetics. Therefore the results suggest that sensibility to music partly stems from deeper traits in human nature,” Umbach Hansen stated.
The magic of music remains to be a thriller
Music is widespread everywhere in the world. Based on a 2023 world survey, every of us spends about 21 hours every week listening to music, and 71% of these surveyed stated music was vital for his or her psychological well being.
“Still, we do not know why music arose in the first place. It may have started as an early form of communication that helped to connect people,” Umbach Hansen stated.
Why can music have an effect on us so strongly? It’s a thriller, in keeping with Umbach Hansen. If we achieve a greater understanding of the mechanisms behind it, and of why some folks have stronger experiences than others, she believes it to be helpful in a number of methods.
“For example, several hospitals offer music therapy as part of their treatment. If we know more about the variations between people, I believe this can help us improve treatment and make it even more effective.”
Umbach Hansen is affiliated with the RITMO Heart for Interdisciplinary Analysis in Rhythm, Time and Movement and the analysis heart PROMENTA, each on the Division of Psychology, College of Oslo.
Extra data:
Dissertation: www.sv.uio.no/psi/forskning/ak … sputaser/2025/Hansenpercent20/summary.html
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College of Oslo
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