Research over several decades has demonstrated modest and moderately consistent relationships between personality and music preference, but has primarily relied on self-reported data and lab-based listening experiments. Recently, music preference research has begun to take advantage of online listening data from platforms such as Spotify and Last.fm to more directly link listening behavior to individual differences. This study extends this new line of research by investigating the associations between naturally occurring music listening behaviors and personality traits, utilizing listening data acquired from Last.fm. We examined social-tagging data by extracting tags related to musical genre and emotion from frequently listened tracks of each participant and clustered them into broader categories to study their association with OCEAN traits. We further evaluated preferences in terms of co-occurring genre and emotion tags and analyzed listening patterns over time to better understand natural patterns of listening as they relate to personality. Our results corroborated previous research, demonstrating a positive correlation between Extraversion and high-arousal music genres such as hip-hop and rap, while Openness was linked with jazz sub-genres. Several novel and nuanced associations were unveiled, such as Extraversion being associated with nostalgic hip-hop and jazz, and Neuroticism correlating with calming music from unconventional genres like shoegaze. Finally, we comment on existing music preference frameworks and their relevance to naturally occurring music listening behavior.
Plain language summary
Research over several decades has found modest yet fairly consistent links between personality and music preference, but it has mainly used data from surveys and lab-based listening experiments. Recently, music preference research has started using online listening data from platforms like Spotify and Last.fm to better connect listening behavior to individual differences. This study extends this approach by exploring the connections between naturally occurring music listening behaviors and personality traits, using listening data from Last.fm. We analyzed social-tagging data by extracting tags related to musical genres and emotions from the frequently listened tracks of each participant. These tags were then grouped into broader categories to study their association with OCEAN traits. We also evaluated preferences based on co-occurring genre and emotion tags and analyzed listening patterns over time to better understand how natural listening habits relate to personality. Our findings supported previous research, showing a positive link between Extraversion and high-energy music genres like hip-hop and rap, while Openness was connected with jazz sub-genres. Several new and detailed associations were also found, such as Extraversion being linked with nostalgic hip-hop and jazz, and Neuroticism being associated with calming music from less common genres like shoegaze. Finally, we discuss existing music preference frameworks and their relevance to naturally occurring music listening behavior.
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