Here are some tips on doing a psychology experiment with music.

Does your taste in music reveal information about your personality?

Exploring the connection between musical tastes and personality traits could be a great topic for your own research.

Woman listening to music on the bus

Paul Bradbury / Getty Images

Heres how to set up a psychological experiment on music and personality.

Getting Started

Before you startany psychology experiment, discuss your project with your instructor.

You may need to get permission from your school’s Institutional Review Board before you could proceed.

There are some key practical questions that you have to answer before you’re free to get started.

First, where will you find participants?

You could ask your fellow classmates or seek out volunteers in your school or community.

You may need music, headphones, and devices for listening.

How will you assess each participant’s musical tastes?

The easiest method would be to use a simple questionnaire.

You also need to determine how you will measure personality.

Are you going to look at specific personality traits, such as emotional stability or extroversion?

There are different ways you might approach this experiment, so the choice is up to you.

For example, you might choose to look at a single personality dimension, like extraversion orintroversion.

What questions did you decide to explore in your study?

Maybe, “Do introverts tend to prefer a specific style of music?”

Or, “Are extroverts drawn to faster-paced musical styles?”

You may choose to look at music tastes within the Big Five personality dimensions.

Did you find any evidence to support your hypothesis?

Were the results of your experiment statistically significant?

For example, you may need to write apsychology lab reportor create a bulletin board presentation.

2019;47(6):834-847. doi:10.1177/2F0305735619864647

University of Cambridge.Musical preferences unite personalities across the globe.

Goz Lab.Ten-item personality measure.