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Intelligence, Music Preferences, and Uses of Music From the

Perspective of Evolutionary Psychology

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DOI: 10.1037/ebs0000124

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Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences © 2018 American Psychological Association

2018, Vol. 0, No. 999, 000 2330-2925/18/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ebs0000124

Intelligence, Music Preferences, and Uses of Music From the

Perspective of Evolutionary Psychology

AQ: au Elena Raevska and Meri Tadinac

University of Zagreb

Music is a component of human culture of a historically universal presence. Enjoyed

by many and irrelevant to few, music continuously receives interest from the academia
and the public alike. Capable of uniting, as well as dividing, music is often in a focus
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

of individual comparisons. In this study, we combine the approaches of evolutionary

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

and social psychology to investigate the relationship between intelligence, music

preferences, and uses of music. We collected data from 467 high school students. We
used the Nonverbal Sequence Test, the Uses of Music Questionnaire, and the Scale of
Music Preferences. Confirming our expectations based on the Savanna-IQ interaction
hypothesis, we found intelligence to be a significant predictor of the preference for
instrumental music, but not of the preference for vocal-instrumental music. Further-
more, we revealed the significant role of cognitive use of music as a predictor of the
preference for instrumental music. We conducted factor analysis of the Scale of Music
Preferences, and revealed five factors: reflective, popular, conservative, intense, and
sophisticated. We also found the cognitive use of music to be significantly correlated
with the preference for instrumental music, as well as music of reflexive, intense and
sophisticated factors. Taken together, our findings support the Savanna-IQ interaction
hypothesis.

Keywords: cognition, evolution, language, music, Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis

Music is a cultural phenomenon that has been identify and reproduce a large number of them
present in all known human cultures throughout (Miller, 2000). Because of music’s universality,
their history. Most members of the Homo sapi- Darwin assumed that the way humans perceive
ens species are able to perceive music, its tones, music roots to a common precursor music
timbre, pitch, intervals, melodic contours, shared with language—the musilanguage, or a
rhythm and harmony (Sacks, 2008). When it musical protolanguage (Brown, 2000). Accord-
comes to songs, almost every human can both ing to this hypothesis, musilanguage evolved
into two separate systems with two distinct pur-
poses. One of them is language, and its purpose
is communicating information. The other one is
music, the purpose of which is communicating
Elena Raevska and Meri Tadinac, Department of Social
Sciences, University of Zagreb. emotions. Neither of the two purposes, how-
This study is a part of a research project titled Testing the ever, are limited: Perception of music may in-
Evolutionary Model of Adaptation and Health supported by volve complex cognitive processing, whereas
Croatian Ministry of Science, Education, and Sports (Grant
130-0000000-3294).
emotions can also be transmitted through para-
We thank the schools that endorsed the study, and all the linguistic and prosodic aspects of speech (Fitch,
participating students without who this research would not 2006).
have been possible. We thank Ivana Hromatko and Ivan One of the most intriguing questions in the
Tomić for their feedback on the earlier versions of the
manuscript, and Satoshi Kanazawa for his advice and sup-
music research is the question of music prefer-
port throughout the process of publication. ences. Most people, including the ones who
Correspondence concerning this article should be ad- claim to be “tone deaf” are capable of differen-
dressed to Elena Raevska, who is now at the Department of tiating between the music they enjoy and the
Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences,
Oxford Brookes University, Gypsy Lane, Oxford OX3 0BP,
music they can barely tolerate (Hargreaves,
United Kingdom. E-mail: elena.racevska-2016@brookes Miell, & Macdonald, 2002). This is not surpris-
.ac.uk ing, as numerous researchers have established
1
©American Psychological Association, 2019. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the
authoritative document published in the APA journal. Please do not copy or cite without author's permission. The final article is
available at https://doi.org/10.1037/ebs0000124
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2 RAČEVSKA AND TADINAC

that music preferences are often a very impor- the stimuli that have not been present in the EEA.
tant part of a person’s identity. Music prefer- While the former were omnipresent and com-
ences were also found to be correlated with a prised situations that were encountered by our
number of variables, some of which include ancestors on regular basis (e.g., food or mate se-
gender; personality traits; conformity; life sat- lection), the latter occurred more sporadically. The
isfaction; the need for relatedness; and the im- individuals who were endowed with an early ver-
portance of religion, music, and nationality in a sion of what we now consider to be general intel-
person’s life (Butkovic, Bratko, & Vukasovic, ligence are hypothesized to have been better at
2011), the way people experience emotions, understanding such situations and dealing with
emotional stability, empathy (Vuoskoski, them (Kanazawa, 2004). Kanazawa’s Savanna-IQ
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Thompson, McIlwain, & Eerola, 2012), and in- interaction hypothesis proposes that general intel-
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

telligence (Kanazawa & Perina, 2012). ligence evolved as a module of the brain, which is
The relationship between music preferences in charge of dealing with such nonrecurring prob-
and intelligence first gained researchers’ atten- lems. The individuals with higher general intelli-
tion in the context of Gardner’s (1983) intelli- gence should therefore be better able to do so.
gence theory. Among the eight mutually indepen- Furthermore, since there is a higher chance that a
dent types of intelligence he proposed, musical person will prefer stimuli they understand over
intelligence found its place, as a reference to peo- those they do not understand, it is hypothesized
ple’s differing sensitivity to various musical prop- that intelligence will affect people’s preference as
erties (such as pitch, tone, and rhythm), and the well. If true, this will be reflected in a higher
ability to perceive and appreciate them. Individual likelihood of preference for the evolutionary novel
differences have also been revealed in auditory stimuli among people with higher scores on intel-
processing (Ga), one of the cognitive abilities ligence tests. Previous research has confirmed the
suggested within the Cattel-Horn-Carroll relationship between intelligence and substance
(CHC) model of cognitive abilities (McGrew,
use (Kanazawa & Hellberg, 2010), liberal political
2009) - the cognitive ability theory most sup-
views and atheism (Kanazawa, 2010b), circadian
ported by empirical evidence (Kaufman, 2009).
rhythms (Kanazawa & Perina, 2009), homosexu-
Auditory abilities proposed by the CHC model
ality (Kanazawa, 2012), childlessness (Kanazawa,
include the ability to analyze, synthesize and
discriminate auditory stimuli (Flanagan, Ortiz, 2014), enjoyment of TV programs (Kanazawa,
& Alfonso, 2013). It has also been hypothesized 2006a), health (Kanazawa, 2008), wealth of states
that musical training enhances intelligence (Kanazawa, 2006b), and music preferences (Ka-
(Schellenberg, 2004), although the effects of nazawa & Perina, 2012).
voice and keyboard musical training have so far If the evolution of music has started with
proven to be relatively small. Finally, the intel- music being a part of musilanguage, its original
ligence-music relationship has also gained at- form would have been vocal (Brown, 2000).
tention within the discipline of evolutionary Vocal music would, therefore, be evolutionarily
psychology. familiar, while instrumental music could be
An interesting contribution to the research of considered evolutionarily novel. The hypothesis
music preferences comes from Kanazawa’s that follows is that individual differences in the
(2010a) Savanna-IQ interaction hypothesis. On preference for instrumental music are to be ex-
the basis of the Savanna principle, this hypoth- pected with regard to intelligence test scores,
esis rests on a consensus among the majority of whereas no such relationship should be ob-
evolutionary biologists that the human brain has served in the case of the preference for vocal
not experienced significant changes since the music. This was confirmed by Kanazawa and
Pleistocene. The reason for this is attributed to Perina (2012). Dividing music styles into
the insufficient stability of the human environ- mostly instrumental and mostly vocal-instru-
ment (Kanazawa & Perina, 2009). According to mental, the findings of this research suggest that
the Savanna principle, modern humans’ envi- people with higher intelligence test scores have
ronment consists of two types of stimuli: the a higher preference for instrumental music
evolutionarily familiar—the stimuli that have styles, while no such difference was found in
been present in the environment of evolutionary the case of the preference for mostly vocal-
adaptedness (EEA) and the evolutionarily novel— instrumental music.
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INTELLIGENCE, MUSIC PREFERENCES, AND USES OF MUSIC 3

Rentfrow and Gosling (2003) obtained an in- plex and intense music styles will be correlated
teresting, but somewhat differing result. Their to the cognitive use of music, and because of
study revealed a positive correlation between this, also to a higher intelligence.
higher intelligence test scores and a preference for
reflective and complex music styles and intense Method
and rebellious music styles. Additionally, partici-
pants with lower intelligence test scores preferred Participants and Procedure
upbeat and conventional music styles. Because
predictiveness of intelligence test scores was not The data were collected from 480 Croatian
limited to instrumental music styles, these results high school students (53.7% women). Their age
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

are not in complete accordance with the Savan- ranged between 16 and 19 years (M ⫽ 16.83,
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

na-IQ interaction hypothesis. However, the results SD ⫽ 0.484). Data collection took place in a
may have been mediated by the differences in group setting, during school hours. The partic-
participants’ uses of music. ipants were heterogeneous in respect to their
Music can play many different roles in peo- socioeconomic status, and their parents’ degrees
ple’s lives, and Chamorro-Premuzic and Furn- of education (see Table 1), as well as their T1
ham (2007) identified three broad uses of music: music education. A third of our sample (34.6%)
emotional use (associated with manipulation or reported having received music education out-
regulation of emotions), cognitive use (rational side of the regular school program. Among
appreciation of music), and background use these students, 2.5% were self-taught, 6.4% had
(music used as background to other activities). taken private lessons, 10.2% had taken a music
If we assume that the musilanguage hypothesis courses, and 15.6% had attended music schools.
is correct and that music evolved as a way to Students’ music education ranged between 1
communicate our emotions, the evolutionarily month and 13 years, with a mean of 16.2
familiar use of music would be the emotional months (SD ⫽ 29.2, N ⫽ 478).
use. Following the same reasoning, the cogni-
tive use of music would be evolutionarily novel. Instruments
In this study, we test these assumptions. Fol-
AQ: 1 lowing the research of Kanazawa and Perina We measured general intelligence via the Non-
replicated in this study, we propose that general verbal Sequence Test (NST; Ljubotina, 2017).
intelligence will be a significant predictor of a The rationale of the test strongly resembles that of
higher preference for instrumental music, but Raven’s Progressive Matrices (Raven, Raven, &
the same will not be the case for a preference for Court, 2003), with abstract stimuli sequences used
vocal-instrumental music. In addition, we ex- instead of matrices. Test consists of 43 items, for
pect that cognitive use of music will have a which the solving time is limited to 35 min. The
significant positive relationship with a prefer- reliability was ␣ ⫽ .83.
ence for instrumental music. Finally, we hy- To measure participants’ music preferences,
pothesize that a preference for reflective, com- we designed the Scale of Music Preferences. It

Table 1
Family Monthly Income and Parents’ Degrees of Education (N ⫽ 467)
Parents’ degrees of education
Monthly income Mother Father
0–3,000 HRK 3.0% Elementary school 4.4% 1.3%
3,000 – 6,000 HRK 12.9% High school 45.5% 51.5%
6,000 – 9,000 HRK 28.0% College 17.8% 15.0%
9,000 – 12,000 HRK 25.0% University degree 26.4% 23.4%
12,000 – 15,000 HRK 14.4% Postgraduate degree 5.9% 8.9%
15,000 – 18,000 HRK 6.2%
Over 18,000 HRK 10.1%
Note. HRK—Croatian currency— kuna; 1 HRK ⫽ .15 US Dollar.
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4 RAČEVSKA AND TADINAC

comprised 20 music styles, which we listed in and ranged between 0.6 and 0.7, but such reliabil-
an alphabetical order to avoid our scale convey- ity values are not uncommon for short instru-
ing any kind of implicit ranking. We accompa- ments. The items were evaluated on a five-point
nied the name of each music style with a couple Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to
of representatives, so as to ensure that partici- 5 (strongly agree).
pants knew to what type of music we referred. In addition, the participants filled out a short
We made a clear remark that participants’ task demographic questionnaire, which inquired
was not to assess their preference for the artists about their age, gender, their family’s monthly
listed as examples, but for each music style as a income, parents’ degrees of education, and du-
whole. Similar to the original research by Ka- ration and type of their music education. We
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

nazawa and Perina (2012), we defined three of analyzed all data in SPSS v.17.0 (SPSS, 2008).
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

the styles as mostly instrumental (ambient/New

Age/chill out, big band, classic instrumental Results and Discussion
music), and the rest as mostly vocal-instrumen-
tal (blues, jazz, reggae/ska/dub, pop, r-n-b, Predicting the Preferences for Instrumental
Latin, folk, patriotic, commercial, turbofolk, and Vocal-Instrumental Music
spiritual/religious, metal, punk, rock, electronic/
dance, opera, rap/hip hop). Participants rated We found a significant positive correlation
their preference for each music style on a five- between the score on the general intelligence
point Likert scale (with 5 indicating the stron- test (from here on referred to as general intel-
gest preference, and 1 indicating the lowest). ligence) and the preference for instrumental mu-
We calculated the preferences for instrumental sic (r ⫽ .246, p ⬍ .01, N ⫽ 448). Unexpectedly,
and vocal-instrumental music as means of pref- we also revealed a significant positive relation-
erences for styles defined as mostly instrumen- ship between general intelligence and the pref-
tal or mostly vocal-instrumental. erence for vocal-instrumental music (r ⫽ .103,
To examine participants’ uses of music, we p ⬍ .05, N ⫽ 420). Although the former con-
applied the Uses of Music Inventory (Chamorro- firmed our hypothesis and is in accordance with
Premuzic & Furnham, 2007). Comprising 15 the results of Kanazawa and Perina (2012), the
items, this instrument provides a measure of three latter was unanticipated. However, the correla-
distinct uses of music: emotional, cognitive and tion between general intelligence and the pref-
T2 background (see Table 2). Cronbach’s alpha reli- erence for vocal-instrumental music that we re-
ability estimates for the three five-item subscales port is of a significantly lower value than the
were somewhat lower than in the original study correlation between general intelligence and the

Table 2
Uses of Music Inventory (Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2007)
No. Item Use of music
1. Listening to music really affects my mood. Emotional
2. I am not very nostalgic when I listen to old songs I used to listen to (R). Emotional
3. Whenever I want to feel happy I listen to a happy song. Emotional
4. When I listen to sad songs I feel very emotional. Emotional
5. Almost every memory I have is associated with a particular song. Emotional
6. I often enjoy analyzing complex musical compositions. Cognitive
7. I seldom like a song unless I admire the technique of the musicians. Cognitive
8. I don’t enjoy listening to pop music because it’s very primitive. Cognitive
9. Rather than relaxing, when I listen to music I like to concentrate on it. Cognitive
10. Listening to music is an intellectual experience for me. Cognitive
11. I enjoy listening to music while I work. Background
12. Music is very distracting so whenever I study I need to have silence (R). Background
13. If I don’t listen to music while I’m doing something, I often get bored. Background
14. I enjoy listening to music in social events. Background
15. I often feel very lonely if I don’t listen to music. Background
Note. (R) - item re-coded prior to analysis.
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INTELLIGENCE, MUSIC PREFERENCES, AND USES OF MUSIC 5

preference for instrumental music (z ⫽ 2.17, order to control for the effects of this correla-
p ⫽ .015). We therefore believe that both of tion, we used the preference for instrumental
these findings offer support for the Savanna-IQ music as a predictor of the preference for vocal-
interaction hypothesis (Kanazawa & Hellberg, instrumental music, and vice versa. We per-
2010). formed two separate forward stepwise regres-
Participants with higher general intelligence sion analyses and determined the best model for
were not more likely to use music cognitively prediction of the preference for instrumental
(r ⫽ ⫺0.21, p ⫽ .659, N ⫽ 454). The Savan- and vocal-instrumental music, which are shown
na-IQ interaction hypothesis only predicts dif- in Table 3 and Table 4, respectively. T3,4
ferences in evolutionarily novel stimuli, and if We explained 33.3% of the instrumental mu-
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

music evolved as a part of musilanguage sic preferences’ variance, with the preference
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

(Brown, 2000), the transmission of emotions for vocal-instrumental music, cognitive use of
would be its evolutionary familiar use, while the music, mother’s degree of education, duration
cognitive use could be considered an evolution- of music education and intelligence as signifi-
ary novel one (Kanazawa & Perina, 2012). If cant predictors (see Table 3). The predictive
this is the case, there should be no differences in power of intelligence and cognitive use of mu-
emotional use of music among individuals in sic after controlling for the other predictors pro-
respect to their intelligence. Our results support vides further evidence of their importance in
this hypothesis, as those of our participants with prediction of the preference for instrumental
higher general intelligence were not more (or music. The predictiveness of the preference for
less) likely to use music emotionally (r ⫽ ⫺0. vocal-instrumental music lends additional sup-
078, p ⫽ .101, N ⫽ 447) or as a background to port to the idea of an existence of a general
their other activities(r ⫽ ⫺0.013, p ⫽ .790, N ⫽ preference for music.
447). Mothers’ degree of education was a significant
Kanazawa and Perina (2012) pointed out a predictor, but the same was not true for fathers’
potential problem with inspecting the correla- degree of education, which is consistent with the
tion between intelligence and preferences for results of previous studies that showed mothers’
specific music styles in that the preferences for characteristics to be more correlated with chil-
all of them tend to be highly correlated, sug- dren’s characteristics than those of fathers (Letina,
gesting a potential underlying factor of general 2007). There is, however, a significant relation-
preference for music. This means that people ship between both parents’ degrees of education
who enjoy any particular music style are more and being involved in extracurricular music edu-
likely to also enjoy any other style. There are cation (rmother ⫽ 0.133, p ⫽ .004, N ⫽ 477;
also individuals who do not show any prefer- rfather ⫽ 0.121, p ⫽ .008, N ⫽ 474), as well as its
ence for music, regardless of the style. In ac- duration (rmother ⫽ 0.108, p ⫽ .019, N ⫽ 473;
cordance with previous studies, the preferences rfather ⫽ 0.103, p ⫽ .025, N ⫽ 470). Participants
for instrumental and vocal-instrumental music whose parents had a higher degree of education
were also significantly positively correlated in were more likely to have a more structured type of
our study (r ⫽ .396, p ⬍ .001, N ⫽ 423). In music education, which they also pursued for lon-

Table 3
Forward Stepwise Regression Analysis for the Preference for Instrumental
Music (N ⫽ 373)
Variable B SE ␤ t p R2
Preference for vocal-instrumental music .578 .077 .326 7.535 .001
Cognitive use of music .340 .051 .290 6.647 .001
Mother’s degree of education .154 .042 .163 3.646 .001
Duration of music education .006 .001 .175 3.947 .001
Intelligence .019 .007 .134 2.989 .003
.333ⴱⴱ
ⴱⴱ
p ⬍ .01.
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6 RAČEVSKA AND TADINAC

Table 4 tance in explaining the preference for vocal-

Forward Stepwise Regression Analysis for the instrumental music. As in the first regression
Preference for Vocal-Instrumental Music (N ⫽ analysis, the significant predictiveness of the
373) other music type provides evidence of the exis-
Variable B SE ␤ t p R2 tence of an underlying factor of a preference for
music in general.
Preference for
instrumental
Contrary to Kanazawa and Perina (2012),
music .218 .027 .387 8.138 .001 who did not find a significant relationship be-
Monthly tween family income and a preference for either
income ⫺.046 .017 ⫺.130 ⫺2.712 .007 of the two music types, we found income to be
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Gender .143 .054 .127 2.664 .008 a significant predictor of the preference for vo-
.175ⴱⴱ
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cal-instrumental music: participants coming

ⴱⴱ
p ⬍ .01. from families with a lower monthly income
were more likely to prefer vocal-instrumental
music. Interestingly, despite the significant
ger periods of time than participants whose par- Spearman correlation coefficients between the
ents were less educated. It is possible that more income and both parents’ degrees of education
educated parents provide more encouragement for (rmother ⫽ 0.382, p ⬍ .001, N ⫽ 461; rfather ⫽
their children to get involved in extracurricular 0.408, p ⬍ .001, N ⫽ 458), participants coming
activities, choose programs of higher quality, and from lower-income families were not less likely
persist in them. Prolonged participation in music to participate in an extracurricular music edu-
education is later reflected in children’s music cation (r ⫽ .062, p ⫽ .185, N ⫽ 465). Further-
preferences. more, the income difference was not reflected in
The type of music education pursued by a music education type (r ⫽ .081, p ⫽ .082, N ⫽
student did not significantly contribute to the 465), nor duration (r ⫽ .064, p ⫽ .173, N ⫽
prediction of a preference for instrumental mu- 461). This suggests that the relationship be-
sic, but unsurprisingly, its duration did. We tween income and music preferences could be
found a very strong Spearman correlation coef- mediated through variables other than parents’
ficient between the type of music education and education degrees, for instance, peer relation-
its duration (r ⫽ .972, p ⬍ .001, N ⫽ 478), ships, or differences in upbringing. This, how-
suggesting that participants who take part in ever, surpasses the scope of this study.
more structured music education persist in it Another significant predictor of the prefer-
longer than those whose music education is less ence for vocal-instrumental music was gender,
structured. With a longer duration of music ed- and according to our results, women have a
ucation, any differences arising from its type higher preference for this type of music. This
lose in importance when it comes to predicting gender difference could perhaps be a reflection
music preferences. However, as our sample is of sexual dimorphism in music evolution, orig-
asymmetrical toward more structured music ed- inally proposed by Darwin (1871). Darwin ar-
ucation (the majority of our participants that gued that music evolved through sexual selec-
have pursued a music education have been mu- tion, as a courtship display for the purpose of
sic school students), we advise investigation of increasing reproductive success. According to
this matter on a structurally more diverse sam- Miller (2000), courtship evolved into two dis-
ple before making definite conclusions. tinctive displays: language displays targeting
In the regression analysis of the preferences receivers’ conceptual systems, and music dis-
for vocal-instrumental music, we explained plays aimed at receivers’ emotional systems.
17.5% of variance, with a preference for instru- Because vocal-instrumental music combines
mental music, monthly income, and gender as language and emotion, it should be the ultimate
predictors with significant individual contribu- courtship display. Because of women’s higher
tions (see Table 4). Although intelligence was parental investment (Trivers, 1972), the court-
significantly correlated to the preference for vo- ship has been reserved for men, and evolution
cal-instrumental music, it did not have predic- has favored women who were more selective in
tive power in this model. This suggests that their mate choice. Women’s higher responsive-
other variables are of a relatively higher impor- ness to vocal-instrumental music could mean
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INTELLIGENCE, MUSIC PREFERENCES, AND USES OF MUSIC 7

that they experience it as courtship, but this and Complex factor were distributed between
should be tested in an experimental setting, per- two factors—reflective and sophisticated. The
haps similar to that used by Charlton (2014), equivalents of the intense and rebellious factor’s
whose research showed that women’s music music styles loaded on the intense factor. The
preferences change during the menstrual cycle. equivalents of styles from Rentfrow and Gos-
Women showed a higher preference for more ling’s (2003) upbeat and conventional and en-
complex instrumental music at peak fertility ergetic and rhythmic factors were divided be-
times, but not outside them. Broadening his tween the popular factor and the conservative
original research scope to include vocal- factor. Table 6 shows Pearson’s correlation co- T6
instrumental music would allow for a com- efficients between the five factors and a cogni-
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parison between the relative importance of tive use of music.

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complexity and music type (instrumental and Confirming our hypothesis, we found the
vocal-instrumental). cognitive use of music to be significantly posi-
Music Preferences and Uses of Music tively correlated to the preferences for music
of reflective, intense and sophisticated fac-
In order to examine the similarities between tors. The correlation between music prefer-
the Scale of Music Preferences used in this ences for the styles of the popular and con-
research and the one used by Rentfrow and servative factors and the cognitive use of
Gosling (2003), we performed a factor analysis. music was also significant, but negative. This
We used a method of principal axis, with direct could mean that participants who prefer this
oblimin rotation, and the pattern matrix is type of music choose to listen to it for differ-
T5 shown in Table 5. The factor loadings below .29 ent reasons than the appreciation of musi-
were suppressed. cians’ talent or technical abilities, which we
We did not obtain a simple factor structure, think should be further investigated. Further-
as some of the styles loaded onto more than one more, we examined the correlations between pref-
factor. The equivalents of styles that loaded erences for these music styles and general intelli-
onto Rentfrow and Gosling’s (2003) Reflective gence (see Table 7). T7

Table 5
Pattern Matrix of the Scale of Music Preferences
Factors
Music preferences Reflective Popular Conservative Intense Sophisticated
Big band .910
Blues .773
Jazz .766
Ambient/New age/Chill out .507
Reggae/Ska/Dub .427 -.425
Pop .886
R’n’B .847
Latin .780
Folk .882
Patriotic .701
Commercial .697
Turbofolk .547
Spiritual/Religious .334 .364
Metal .752
Punk .727
Rock .683
Electronic/Dance .376
Classical instrumental music .384 .533
Opera .490
Rap/Hip hop .421 -.432
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8 RAČEVSKA AND TADINAC

Table 6 preference for instrumental music, but not for

Pearson Correlation Coefficients between the the vocal-instrumental music.
Music Preferences Factors and the Cognitive Use According to Kanazawa’s hypothesis, com-
of Music plexity of music should not play a role in the
Cognitive use of relationship between intelligence and music
music preferences. This was confirmed by results of
previous research (Kanazawa & Perina, 2012).
Factors r p N
The authors explained that a preference for a
Reflective .298 .000 447 simple type of instrumental music should be
Popular ⫺.267 .000 458 positively correlated with higher intelligence,
Conservative ⫺.138 .003 456
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Intense .272 .000 453

whereas such a relationship should not be found
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

Sophisticated .285 .000 461 between intelligence and a preference for com-
plex vocal-instrumental music. Results of com-
parative research showed that a number of spe-
cies prefer more complex vocalizations to those
Our results show that the music preferred by of less complexity (Ryan & Keddy-Hector,
the participants of higher intelligence is for the 1992), which can be used as an argument for the
most part the same music that is more likely to preference for complex music being evolution-
be preferred by those individuals who reported arily familiar. These findings might indicate a
using music cognitively. Significant positive possible supremacy of novelty over complexity,
correlations between general intelligence and which could be the reason why complexity
preferences for music of reflective, intense and plays no role in the relationship between intel-
sophisticated factors are in accordance with re- ligence and music preferences. Since intelli-
sults obtained by Rentfrow and Gosling (2003). gence is not expected to be a predictor of a
However, the significant positive correlation we preference for vocal-instrumental music, the
found between popular music and general intel- complexity or simplicity of such music should
ligence is contradictory to the negative correla- not influence people’s preference for it, regard-
tion between intelligence and a preference for less of their intelligence.
the music of Upbeat and Conventional factors
discovered by Rentfrow and Gosling. However, Conclusion
this did not come as a surprise, as we had
already confirmed a positive relationship be- In this study, we provide new information on
tween intelligence and a preference for vocal- the relationship between intelligence and music
instrumental music—to which all of the popular preferences from the perspective of evolution-
music styles belong to—as well as a positive ary psychology. Our findings regarding the role
relationship between the preferences for instru- of intelligence in prediction of the preference
mental and vocal-instrumental music. for instrumental music confirm those of Ka-
Blumler and Katz (1974) argued that people nazawa and Perina (2012). Our use of a differ-
choose to use the media they believe will satisfy
their psychological or social needs. People with
higher intelligence tend to look for cognitive Table 7
stimulation. With regard to music, such individ- Pearson Correlation Coefficients between Music
uals could satisfy their psychological needs by Factors and General Intelligence, Expressed as
listening to complex musical pieces that incite Scores on the Non-Verbal Intelligence Test
them to analyze the chords, rhythm and melody,
or appreciate the virtuosity of musicians’ per- General
intelligence
formance. The enjoyment of this kind of music
requires concentration and cognitive effort, and Factors r p N
the individuals who look for a different kind of Reflective .220 .000 443
stimulation (e.g., emotional) would not be at- Popular .105 .025 452
tracted to music styles such as classical instru- Conservative ⫺.262 .000 452
mental music, big band or opera. The cognitive Intense .261 .000 448
Sophisticated .255 .000 455
use of music was a significant predictor for the
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INTELLIGENCE, MUSIC PREFERENCES, AND USES OF MUSIC 9

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