Those With High IQs Have This Musical Preference!

Liking instrumental music of any type is a sign of a higher IQ, research finds.

Whether it is classical music, film soundtracks, ambient, smooth jazz or even big band, people who like music without the human voice have higher IQs.

In contrast, most people, including those with high IQs, like vocal music, of whatever type — it doesn’t tell us anything about a person’s intelligence.

And it is not down to the cognitive complexity of the music, the study’s authors argue.

For example, while opera is often seen as complex and high-brow, people who like it are no more intelligent than those that hate it.

The results come from a survey of 1,500 people who rated 18 different genres of music, along with taking an intelligence test.

The results showed that…

“…net of age, race, sex, education, family income, religion, current and past marital status and number of children, more intelligent Americans are more likely to prefer instrumental music such as big band, classical and easy listening than less-intelligent Americans.”

An evolutionary explanation

The explanation for this link between IQ and musical preferences may go back into our evolutionary past.

Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, the study’s co-author, thinks that instrumental musical is more ‘evolutionary novel’ and therefore linked to a higher IQ.

This explanation is highly debatable (see Dutton, 2013), but the link is still fascinating.

Source: PSY Blog

Need an instrumental playlist? Here are some of our favorites!

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