The study points to some kind of connection between your personality and musical preferences.
In the series of studies, 3500 students were asked to fill in a form in which they were to note down their opinion on music, what kind of music they preferred, and how they believed that this kind of music was linked to their own personality and opinion of themselves.
The answers could be summed up in the following general way: The optimistic and conventional students listened to pop music, country music, soundtracks, and religious music. The students who regarded themselves as being of a reflecting and complex nature listened to blues, jazz, classical, and folk music. The highly emotional and refractory students listened to heavy metal and alternative music and, finally, the energetic and rhythmic students listened to hip hop, rap, soul, funk, and dance music.
The study also showed that the ones with high linguistic and analytical abilities preferred music with high complexity compared to the ones who scored low in this area.
Our mood also influences what kind of music we prefer listening to. If you are in a good mood, you will tend to choose to listen to lively and cheerful music. When being further down the mood scale, you will tend to choose slower and more sad music.
Reference:
Rentfrow PJ and Gosling SD. The Do Re Mi's of Everyday Life: The Structure and Personality Correlates of Music Preferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003, Vol. 84, No. 6, 1236-1256.
Vitaviva's comment
Suddenly your partner's CD collection has become more interesting, right? However, you should be careful about putting too much meaning into it. Couples therapists point out that some degree of dissimilarity is to be preferred and that people who have widely different tastes in music can easily fall in love. We are simply attracted to our opposite. Nevertheless, we now seem to have placed yet another small piece in this richly faceted jigsaw puzzle constituting our personality.
A lot of people will probably be surprised to know that the western movie hero John Wayne was very fond of ballet and classical music. This fact indicates him being a man of many more parts than can be seen merely through his films. And, of course, this will most often be the case.
