Psychopaths Prefer This Type of Music

Psychopaths do not particularly like classical music — no matter what film portrayals of psychopaths like Hannibal Lecter might suggest.

Psychopaths do not particularly like classical music — no matter what film portrayals of psychopaths like Hannibal Lecter might suggest.

Psychopaths prefer rap music, a new study finds.

Songs like “No Diggity” by Blackstreet and “Lose Yourself” by Eminem were both linked to higher psychopathy scores.

In contrast, pop songs like “My Sharona” by The Knack and “Titanium” by Sia were linked to the lowest levels of psychopathy.

The conclusions come from research in which 200 people were played 260 songs, along with taking tests of psychopathy.

Psychopaths are actually harder to spot than their media portrayal would have you believe.

The researchers hope this type of musical test will help with the identification of psychopaths.

Dr Pascal Wallisch, the study’s first author, thinks it may be possible to root out psychopaths from their playlists.

The team will be conducting a larger study to verify their findings.

The study, conducted by researchers at New York University is currently unpublished.

Author: Jeremy Dean

Psychologist, Jeremy Dean, PhD is the founder and author of PsyBlog. He holds a doctorate in psychology from University College London and two other advanced degrees in psychology. He has been writing about scientific research on PsyBlog since 2004. He is also the author of the book "Making Habits, Breaking Habits" (Da Capo, 2013) and several ebooks.

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