Music has accompanied us throughout human history, leaving an indelible mark not only on society, but also on every era and culture. Since ancient times, music has been used as an important tool for communication, artistic expression, celebration and ritual. For example, in ancient times, music was used in religious ceremonies and celebrations. In the Middle Ages, music was mainly used in churches, with liturgical music being the most important, however, secular music was also used. For example, troubadours and minstrels toured medieval villages and courts to liven up people with their songs and stories. In the Renaissance, music became one of the most important forms of art, with notable composers including Palestrina, Monteverdi and Bach.
During the Baroque period, music developed in a more complex way, where the most famous composers of the time were born, such as Vivaldi, Bach and Handel. Already in the 19th century, music became a more democratic and accessible art form to the general public, with the most famous composers such as Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert standing out. Popular music also developed, such as jazz and blues, which reflected the new trends and social changes of the time. In the 20th century, music became a form of protest and social expression through rock, hip hop and rap, as the most popular forms of music expression, which allowed the social and political concerns of the time to be expressed.
Some research has shown that music is a holistic human experience and influences our emotions and cognitive performance, such as thinking, reasoning, as well as problem solving, creativity and mental flexibility. Therefore it is one of the most fundamental expressions, as confirmed by Victor HugoFrench politician and writer: “Music expresses what cannot be said in words, but cannot remain silent.”. Therefore, our musical tastes can say a lot about our personality, even if we evaluate our favorite songs and favorite artists we can gain insight into our levels of empathy, personality and expression of values. Here’s how A group of researchers from Queen Mary University of London, led by C. Saitis and the ISI Foundation in Turin, Italy, studied the complex interaction between music and morality. The results were published in 2023 in the journal PLOS ONE.
In this interesting study, researchers examined existing data from 1,480 participants, collected through the LikeYouth survey tool, who completed psychometric questionnaires about their moral values and then looked at their “likes” on the pages of their preferred music artists on Facebook, thus reflecting that the most famous songs by that artist are related to the user’s musical preferences.
The researchers then extracted and analyzed the acoustic and lyrical characteristics of the top five songs by each participant’s favorite artists. To do this, they used machine learning algorithms, that is, they assigned instructions to a computer to automatically learn and analyze patterns and thus study the characteristics that identified the participants and thus predict their moral values. They were based on the Moral Foundations Theory (MFT)which explains how morality is rooted in five basic principles, each with its own spectrum of virtues and flaws. These foundations are Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Purity/Debasement. The MFT has been widely used by psychologists to measure morality since its invention in 2004. In addition, they used the method BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers)a technique in the field of natural language processing, for capturing the context of words in a sentence by analyzing both preceding and following words in a sequence, which is called “bidirectional coding”thus they analyzed the narrative, moral values, sentiment and emotional charge in the lyrics.
Another important tool that was used in the study was the use of an application programming interface (API).API) from Spotify, which is a set of tools and rules that allows software developers to interact with the services and data offered by Spotify. In the context of Spotify, its API provides access to a variety of functionalities and data, such as searching for music, playing songs, obtaining information about artists and albums, creating playlists. Using this tool, the authors analyzed low- and high-level audio features, such as a song’s pitch and timbre, to assess information encoded in musical choices, which helped improve moral inferences.
The results showed that both lyrical and audio features can predict a person’s morality. Interestingly, they determined that elements such as a song’s tone and timbre are crucial predictors in determining some values of care and fairness, while the feelings and emotions expressed in the lyrics were more effective in predicting loyalty, authority, and purity.
From the perspective of linguistic signals in lyrics, it was observed that people who value more the foundations related to care and equity prefer artists whose textual content of songs speak about care and joy.
Those individuals most concerned with Loyalty, Authority, and Purity (binding or intragroup traits) tend to choose artists whose lyrics speak of justice, holiness, and love. Furthermore, people with strong binding values tend to prefer artists whose lyrics have positive feelings and speak of dominance, and it is also related to the fact that people with these personality characteristics tend to participate in group activities such as sports, religious events and political rallies, which often make use of music to promote messages of power, unity and victory (e.g. sports chants, church choirs, etc.), and on the contrary, these groups of people tend to dislike songs with negative valence, violent narratives and songs that resonate with sadness, fear and disgust.
Therefore, People who value loyalty, authority and purity might prefer artists with more conventional and rhythmic songs and dislike those with rebellious, loud and distorted songs. From the results of the MFT questionnaires, it was also observed that women scored higher than men on the foundations of care, fairness and purity.
Individuals with bonding values preferred more popular and mainstream artists, suggesting that these individuals are more likely to be influenced by social norms and group opinions. Furthermore, more liberal individuals were found to prefer reflective and complex music (e.g., jazz, blues, and classical), while more traditional and conservative individuals preferred more traditional and upbeat music (e.g., pop and religious music).
These findings reveal that music is not just a source of entertainment or pleasure, it is also a powerful medium that reflects and shapes our moral sensitivity, so by understanding this connection, we may open new avenues for music-based interventions that promote positive moral development.. It could therefore impact the way we engage with and use music in different aspects of life, paving the way for applications ranging from personalized musical experiences to innovative music therapy and communication campaigns.
Understanding the link between music and morality will allow us to delve deeper into the psychological implications of our musical experiences. In this sense, moral foundations have the potential to provide deep insight into why people have the musical tastes they do and how these choices align with their ethical reasoning.
With this research, we have unraveled a fascinating link between music and human morality, revealing how our musical choices reflect not only our personal tastes, but also our ethical and moral values. What other surprising connections might we discover between music and our psychology? How might we use this knowledge to enrich our musical experiences and promote positive moral development in society?
Link to the study:
*This article arises from the agreement with the Interdisciplinary Center for Neuroscience of the University of Valparaíso.
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