Is pop music inherently stupid?

Anything about MUSIC but doesn't fit into the forums above.
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Pop is short for populist :hihi:

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aciddose wrote: If we were to assume that music carries something like an "IQ" and that compatibility is expressed as the reciprocal of the absolute difference in IQ or similar we could then draw some conclusions.
So you fabricate an assumption in order to produce a total wankfest. :help:

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Yes, I was demonstrating the fact that this is a "total wankfest".

The important thing though is that the assumption I gave as an example isn't necessary. I believe the correlation with intelligence is emergent from the fact that this is how the universe works. We have some set of properties with Gaussian distributions. It is not at all unusual that they line up with one-another.

In fact that is called normalcy.

Are forum members at KVR inherently stupid?

Image

...but only if you consider the mean to be "stupid".
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Christ, did I see someone bring up IQ? :lol:

Remember: There are people that actually LIKE kanye west. Serious IQ points lost right there :shrug:

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Catchy song!

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Apostate wrote: Is there a study that proves that fans of Lil Wayne are any less intelligent than fans of Beethoven?
Seriously.
Actually, yes. (Besides the surprising fact that you never actually prove anything with any empirical study but find evidence that supports your hypothesis):
Rentfrow, Peter J.; Gosling, Samuel D. (2003). The do re mi's of everyday life: The structure and personality correlates of music preferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 84(6), 1236-1256

They employed a tested model that features four broad categories of music-preference. One category is "Upbeat & Conventional" which includes such genres as Pop and Country. A second category is "Reflective & Complex", i.e. Jazz and Classical. I quote some relevant results:

"The external correlates of the Upbeat and Conventional dimen-
sion reveal positive correlations with Extraversion, Agreeableness,
Conscientiousness, conservatism, self-perceived physical attrac-
tiveness, and athleticism and negative correlations with Openness
to New Experiences, social dominance orientation, liberalism, and
verbal ability.
" [p. 1249]

"[...] the Reflective and
Complex dimension was positively related to Openness to New
Experiences, self-perceived intelligence, verbal (but not analytic)
ability, and political liberalism and negatively related to social
dominance orientation and athleticism. These correlations, along
with item-level analyses of the BFI, suggest that individuals who
enjoy listening to reflective and complex music tend to be inven-
tive, have active imaginations, value aesthetic experiences, con-
sider themselves to be intelligent, tolerant of others, and reject
conservative ideals.
" [p. 1248]

I think it's quite interesting (and fun) to compare verbal cognitive ability, which is highly related to broader definitions of intelligence, of the "Complex" group (r= .18) with the respective scores of the "Conventional" group (t= -.18); same for Openness (r=.44 vs. r=-.14).
To put it bluntly, if you are dim-witted, you probably prefer Pop or if you do enjoy Country you are more likely a redneck ;-) Complex subjects consider themselves to be more intelligent. Apparently, these subjects are correct. There is some convincing evidence :-)

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So tolerance breeds military intelligence :hihi:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=As0v-tzU-PY

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Everyone has seen this already, right?

http://musicthatmakesyoudumb.virgil.gr/

Note that SAT scores are equal to IQ, because the tests for SAT are derived from IQ tests.

The really funny thing though is when you point out that in order to have a facebook profile where you publish a list of your "favorite music" you need to be pretty dumb already.
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aciddose wrote: Note that SAT scores are equal to IQ, because the tests for SAT are derived from IQ tests.
It's not equal. However, SAT correlations with g (a measure for general intelligence) are about .70 to .85. Thus, explained variance is at least .5 to .7 in the best case. A .3 residual is pretty good.
WTF am I talking about? SAT scores correctly predict measures of general intelligence in up to 70% of the cases, 30% can not be explained by the model - other factors besides SAT contribute to g.

Take the data mining project of Virgil with a grain of salt. It's more like a rough, though fascinating sketch with many confounding variables. I also do not think it is very meaningful to have individual artists listed, not even specific genres, but clusters of the later.
If you are into this, read the more elaborate Rentfrow paper I have quoted above.

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Since we have no reference for g, it can be argued (and I do) that both IQ and SAT approximate g in an equivalent way.

The point of course is that there is not really any reason to attack the "study" based upon the fact it uses SAT rather than IQ, since neither can be proven to accurately reflect g being that g remains undefined.

So all we can really take from this is that there is some correlation between our approximations for g (assuming they are accurate) and musical genres.

I'm sure there are also correlations between approximations of g and taste in film, hobbies, literature, food, clothing and possibly even hair style.

What can be drawn from this? Well, not a whole lot. The correlation does nonetheless exist.
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Work less; get more done.

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The level of :roll: is high in this thread.
Barry
If a billion people believe a stupid thing it is still a stupid thing

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aciddose wrote:Since we have no reference for g, it can be argued (and I do) that both IQ and SAT approximate g in an equivalent way.
Absolutely. I only objected because you have stated that SAT equals IQ, which is not true ;-)
aciddose wrote:The point of course is that there is not really any reason to attack the "study" based upon the fact it uses SAT rather than IQ, since neither can be proven to accurately reflect g being that g remains undefined.
I have not attacked this "study" for using the SAT at all. Actually, the SAT score is quite a good variable to use. However, the design is flawed, there are several methodological problems. It's just something to keep in mind the moment one starts interpreting the data.

There are a few established instruments with excellent validity for measuring intelligence. One of which is Spearman's g factor. Another is Wechsler. However, since the term intelligence is merely a construct, as of today it is still debated how to measure it and what it really is that is measured. Even after decades of research.

In summary, yes, there is a statistically significant correlation between music preference and personality traits despite some people denying this. However, this relationship is not just anecdotal.
It's also quite obvious that there is a tendency that more intelligent persons appreciate complexity, even crave. Complexity is what we are really talking about here IMO. Thus, more intelligent people read more sophisticated books. This could hardly surprise anybody. This does not mean one cannot enjoy Nicki Minaj even with an IQ of 130. Okay, I might be wrong here ;-)

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Obviously you can't figure out someone's IQ by puzzling. What if the contestant doesn't like to puzzle? :hihi:

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Hank the Knife wrote:Obviously you can't figure out someone's IQ by puzzling. What if the contestant doesn't like to puzzle? :hihi:
Well, puzzling is a visuospatial task that requires at least your frontal and parietal lobes to be intact, because you need to plan how to lay down pieces in a meaningful way. In fact, visuospatial imagery is another facet of intelligence that can be assessed with Ravens Progressive Matrices, which is some sort of puzzling :)

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