What does our favorite music say about us and the way we manage our romantic, friendly or family relationships and our attachment to others? A doctor in psychology reveals it in a new Canadian study.
- Among the musical preferences of participants in the four attachment categories, some artists came back more than others: the anxious category particularly liked Adele, Bruno Mars, or Drake.
- The mixed category (half sticky-half distant) preferred in particular Taylor Swift, Rihanna or Carrie Underwood.
- The distant category leaned more towards Beyoncé, Chris Brown or The Weeknd, while the confident category favored Sonny & Cher, Whitney Houston or Ed Sheeran.
In new study published in the journal Personal RelationshipsDr. Ravin Alaei and his colleagues from the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto found that the way people deal with their attachment to others corresponds to the content of the lyrics of their favorite songs.
We tend to prefer music with lyrics that describe what we go through in our daily relationships, for better or for worse.
Your favorite songs reveal things about your relationship experiences
“The lyrics to your favorite relationship songs can help validate your thoughts and feelings, but can also reveal things about your relationship experiences that you may not have realized – something you go through repeatedly, that you keep coming up against”explained Ravin Alaei in a communicated.
Each person can be classified into four categories depending on how they relate to others, as the doctor explains.
The first category are people who become attached by being anxious. The latter fear being rejected and seek a lot to be reassured about their relationships. The second: people who attach themselves with distance. They are more independent, tend to have a lot of negative apprehension about their relationships and show little emotion. People with a mixed attachment style have confused expectations, they can sometimes be clingy as well as cold. Finally, there are people who are more confident in their attachment to others: they have a more optimistic view of relationships, are open to communication and trust their partners.
“We asked around 570 people to give us their favorite songs, then we analyzed the nearly 7,000 songs to reveal what the lyrics to them said about relationships and attachment to others. We consistently found that people who attach themselves with distance prefer music that speaks of avoidance”explains Ravin Alaei.
The connection between music and attachment style is reflected at the societal level
“I expected to see a clear relationship between anxious people and anxious songs because they are the most emotional, but surprisingly this was the most tenuous result”he adds.
This connection is reflected not only at the individual level, but also at the societal level. In a second study, researchers coded more than 800 Billboard number one hits from 1946 to 2015 for attachment-related themes and found that the lyrics became more distant and suspicious of relationships. over time. “Popular music lyrics parallel sociological trends of social disconnection – people value independence over dependency on others and feel more isolated”analyzes Ravin Alaei.
But if we listen to music that reflects our relationships, could that help or hinder our relationship skills? This is the question that Ravin Alaei and his colleagues will investigate in their next research.
