Research Article Message in a Ballad The Role of Music Preferences in Interpersonal Perception

ABSTRACT—How is information about people conveyed through their preferences for certain kinds of music? Here we show that individuals use their music preferences to communicate information about their personalities to ob-servers, and that observers can use such information to form impressions of others. Study 1 revealed that music was the most common topic in conversations among strangers given the task of getting acquainted. Why was talk about music so prevalent? Study 2 showed that (a) observers were able to form consensual and accurate im-pressions on the basis of targets ’ music preferences, (b) music preferences were related to targets ’ personalities, (c) the specific cues that observers used tended to be the ones that were valid, and (d) music preferences reveal information that is different from that obtained in other zero-acquaintance contexts. Discussion focuses on the mechanisms that may underlie the links between person-ality and music preferences. I like to think I present an innocuous, well-socialized face to the world—nothing for anyone to worry about. But if you know that I like [alternative music] then you know a little something else about me. You’ve gotten a new data point. If you have all of my songs, the points coalesce to form a picture, an intimate one that doesn’t quite match the public persona. (Schwarz, 2004, p. 6) What is the process by which unacquainted strangers become acquaintances, and possibly friends? Without doubt, getting acquainted is a long and multifaceted process, but at the broadest level it comes down to transferring information. Getting to know people better means getting to know more about them. Past research has pointed to many cues that individuals can use to piece together a picture of what someone else is like. Studies have shown, for example, that observers can glean in-formation from such cues as physical appearance (Kenny