Personality comprises behaviors and features that make an individual authentic, including basic interests, motivations, abilities and emotional tendency, and this trait lasts for a certain period (Demir and Acar, 1997).

According to Berens (1999), personality can be defined as features and tendencies in individual psychological reactions, such as idea, emotion and behavior, and they cannot be explained by the biological conditions of the moment and social environment that determine differences. Thus, it can be said that there are many mental, emotional, socio-economic and physical factors that influence the creation and development processes of personality.

Personality is the acknowledgement of biological, mental, social and emotional changes that occur in an individual who is undergoing continuous change and development, and adapting these changes by performing appropriate behaviors and attributes. It is the making of positive connections with other people around and reacting appropriately to incidents, facts, individuals and subjects. It means that an individual is in harmony with the environment. If an individual can reconcile changes that occur in him, and relationships with others, then he will create his own adaptation (Öztemel, 2010). When these biological, mental and emotional changes cannot be integrated with the environment, then the individual experiences internal conflict, and has problems with others. Compliance, which is defined as an individual having and maintaining good relationships with themselves and others, starts inherently and develops throughout life. General compliance is examined in two categories as personal compliance  which means that all behaviors that an individual develops to comply with his environment, and social compliance, which is defined as responding to needs including earning a reputation and creating social status. It has been suggested that personal compliance is related to social role and social success, while social compliance is related to social attributes and standards (Ba?aran, 1992). Considering general frame-works in behaviors and attributes, compliance and incompatible individuals have many features in common. As can be seen in other studies, these common features are still consistent in music genres. Everybody has a relationship with music in their environments. People listen to music, perceive, understand and eventually like or dislike it (Kalender, 2001). These inferences give rise to 3 questions: i) can music genre give clear, consistent and interpretable messages about personality? ii) If so, to what extent is that message valid? iii) What are the features of these preferences that are claimed to expose personality (Rentfrow and Gosling, 2006, p.238)? Most studies show that music genre gives clues about personality and this genre has hallmarks according to personality.

Music preferences emerge as a result of a complex process woven from a variety of factors. However much the pleasure of music is accepted in the aesthetic sense and even if the simplicity of this enjoyment is recognised, it can be argued to what extent this pleasure forms the person. Just as an individual does not choose their own psychological status, it is true that he cannot make a decision for the society or conditions in which he is. All these factors define the direction of music preference. On the other hand, music preference has an undeniable role in personality (?enel, 2014). 

It is appropriate to infer that music genre can give information about a personality. In a study by Erdal (2009) it was found that those who listened to Turkish folk music and classical music were more accommodating than those who listened to rock music, and the rock music listeners were less tolerant than the other two groups. Similarly, Turkish folk music and classical music listeners were found to be more calm and peaceful than rock music listeners, with the most peaceful group being classical music listeners and the least, peaceful, the rock music listeners.

According to Rentfrow and Gosling (2003), those who listen to harsh and rebellious music are likely to take risks, be physically active and interested in unusual things, while those who listen to upbeat or traditional music are joyful, social, trustworthy, like to help others and find themselves physically attractive.

Researchers, who especially focus on young adults with psychological problems, suggest that these people prefer to listen to heavier music genres like “heavy metal” and “hard rock” (Hansen and Hansen, 1990; Wass et al., 1989; Scwards and Fouts, 2003). Most studies have found a relationship between these kinds of music genres and youngsters with problems. For example, heavy metal listeners are more prone to suicide, murder and Satanism (Wass et al., 1989), they have more problems (Took and Weiss, 1994), and they are more emotionally vulnerable and angry (Epstein et al., 1990).  

Kenston and Pinto (1955) examined how music education impacts music genre. In their work, it was seen that participants with music education of one or more years preferred classical music more than those with no music education. Similarly, Geringer (1982) claimed that education had significant effects on a preference for classical music. Farnsworth (1950) stated that education produces music genres so that just as children learn behaviors from their families, teachers or peers, they can learn music genres from their immediate environment.

“Most music genre/preference studies so far, have examined relationships between music preference and music ability, music education, complexity of music, environmental factors, media, family, friends etc” (Erdal and Ok, 2012). Even if there are different social and psychological processes that influence music preferences, understanding the relationship between basic personal features and music preferences can help to better understand personality (Erdem, 2011).

In this study, it was examined whether or not there was any difference between psycho-social compliance levels in terms of variables that included musical elements such as the tempo and tonality (minor or major) of a piece chosen by music department students as an example of  their preferred music genre.

For some young people, their choice of music may express how they want to be or give the message of what they want (Erdem, 2011). From this starting point, it was important in this study to see the psychological requirements to be able to provide the means of meeting those requirements to understand trainee music teachers. This study aimed to emphasize that music is an effective and speedy route in communication with trainee music teachers and to encourage the productive use of this route.

Music preferences are thought to be very closely linked to personality, so much so that some psychologists use music preferences as an indicator in personality evaluation. Personal music preferences were reflected in the clinical evaluation of personality (Radocy and Boyle, 2003). Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the music preferences of trainee music teachers and personal compliance levels.

Experimental groups

A total of 39 students in the Music Department of the Fine Arts Faculty, Süleyman Demirel University, Isparta, Turkey, were initially enrolled in the study. As validity was not reached for 8 students, they were excluded leaving a total of 31 for evaluation. The 31 students comprised 21 females and 10 males, 26 of whom were aged 17-20 years and 5 were aged 21-24 years.

Study process

At the first stage, 2 questions were asked to understand the student’s preference for type of music to listen to, tonality and tempo. The first item on the interview form was about “music genre” and the second item requested song titles which students liked to listen to most. These were then analyzed by the researcher in terms of pace and tonality. In pace analysis, a metronome range between 40-120 was measured as “low”, 120-152 as “medium” and 152-208 as “high”. In the tonality analysis, two categories of “major” and “minor” were evaluated. At the second stage, the HPI was applied to the students to evaluate personal, social and general compliance levels in respect of music preference, tempo and tonality variables.

Data collecting tools

To measure the personal, social and general compliance levels of students, the HPI, developed by Özgüven, was applied. This inventory consists of 4 “personal compliance” and 4 “social compliance” items in a total of 8 sub-inventories.  The personal and social compliance points are totalled to give a general compliance score. The inventory consists of 168 questions, 20 questions for each sub-inventory and 8 validity items. Answers were “yes” and “no”, scored as 1 and 0. To determine the reliability of the HPI, the Cronbach Alpha coefficient was calculated. The value of 0.84 indicated that the inventory was reliable (Figure 1).

A 2-item interview form was developed by the researcher. The first item was about the preferred “music genre” of the students, and the second item requested the titles to which students liked to listen most. These were collected, recorded and analyzed by the researcher in terms of tempo and tonality.

Analysis of data

In the comparison of personal, social and general compliance levels, the independent t test was used for the variable of tonality and for tempo and music genre variables, one way variance analysis (ANOVA) was applied. The source of difference was analyzed with the Tukey (HSD) test.  All data were analyzed using the SPSS 11.5 package program.

In HPI, a system was developed which allows the interpretation of raw scores directly without any process. Critical and significant values of percentile scores related to various norm groups were determined according to this system. Under these conditions, individuals with 75% or higher scores were classified as “compatible”, between 50-75% as “possibly compatible” and between 25-50% as “incompatible”. In this study, the evaluation of the compliance levels of the students was based on these norm values (Table 1). 

In this section, the results are presented related to the relationships between personal compliance levels of trainee music teachers in the Fine Arts Faculty and the type of music, tonality and tempo to which they listened.

When general compliance levels were compared, there was a significant difference between pop music listeners and rock listeners, in favour of pop music listeners, between classical music listeners and rock listeners, in favour of classical music listeners, and between Turkish folk music listeners and rock listeners, in favour of Turkish folk listeners. This can be interpreted as the personal, social and general compliance levels of those who listen to rock music being lower than those of individuals who listen to classical, pop and Turkish folk music (Table 2). As a result of the t-test, a significant difference was determined between the compliance levels of major and minor tonality listeners, in favour of major tonality listeners. This can be interpreted as the personal, social and general compliance levels being lower in the minor tonality listeners than the major (Table 3).

No significant difference was determined between groups in the ANOVA analysis, on the basis of compliance levels. This can be interpreted as there being no relationship between compliance levels and listening to low, medium or high tempo music (Table 4).

The most significant findings of this study were firstly that the personal, social and general compliance levels of trainee music students who preferred to listen to music of minor tonality were significantly lower than of those who listed to music of major tonality. This finding is extremely important, as to the best of our knowledge, there has been no previous study in literature examining the relationship between tonality and personal compliance levels. Secondly the personal, social and general compliance levels of the trainee music teachers who listened to rock music were measured as significantly lower than those who listened to classical, pop and folk music.

It is known that tempo and tonality are two basic parameters that direct emotions when listening to music. Many studies (Delsing and Engels, 2008; Rentfrow and Gosling, 2003; Zweigenhaft, 2008) have shown that individuals who listen to high tempo music are very outgoing and tolerant. Although Treacy (2013) discovered a relationship between listening to high tempo music and being outgoing, no link was found in that study between high tempo music and tolerance. In the current study, comparisons were made between those who listened to low, medium and high tempo music in terms of personal, social and general compliance levels and no relationship was determined between tempo choice and compliance levels. Thus the results of this study demonstrate that there was no relationship between the tempo of the music listened to by trainee music teachers and their personal, social and general compliance levels.

There are very few studies which have researched whether or not there is a relationship between major or minor tonality choices and an individual’s compliance level. While “incompatible” individuals prefer to listen to minor tonality music, which reflects calmness, quietness and sensuality, “compatible” and “possibly compatible” people like to listen to  major tonality music which expresses liveliness, joy and activity. In one of the rare results in this field in literature, the study by Daoussis and McKelvie (1986) showed parallel results to those of the current study. Personal, social and general compliance levels of minor tonality students being lower than those of the major tonality students was a surprising result of this study. These results may express that to a great degree, the personal, social and general compliance levels of those listening to minor tonality music in melancholy and emotional works were extremely low compared to those listening to joyful, happy pieces in a major tone. The emotional relationship of happiness in the major tone and sadness in the minor tone starts from the age of 3 years (Gregory and Varney, 1996).

In a study by Schwartz and Foutz (2003), which was applied on different music genres and different personalities, a relationship was indicated between harsh music genres such as hard rock, classic rock, heavy metal and rap and the qualities of hyper sexuality, low levels of respect for women, criminal tendencies and antisocial behaviors. On the other hand, those who preferred low music genres such as pop and dance music were more likely to be interested in making the right life choices. When comparing rock music listeners with Turkish folk and classical music listeners in terms of self-monitoring using the fundamental factor of “five factor personality inventory”, which was used in a study by Erdal (2009), and the sub dimensions of this factor such as honesty, obeying rules and taking responsibility, there was a significant difference in favour of Turkish folk and classical music listeners. According to the criteria of the HPI personality inventory, the profile features of an individual who is counted as “incompatible” are generally “nervous, anxious, resentful, non-criticized, dreamer, violent and disrespectful”. The personal, social and general compliance levels of the rock music listening students were lower than those of the pop, classical and Turkish folk music listeners. These data obtained from this study are parallel to the results in the studies of Schwartz and Foutz (2003).

In a study by Delsing et al. (2008), it was suggested that rock music listeners were less conscientious and more likely to experience different situations. On the other hand, classical and traditional music listeners were more tolerant, conscientious and more likely to experience different situations but with emotional ups and downs. In the study by Erdal (2009) classical music listeners had higher emotional instability scores. In another study, the relationship of the choice of a specific type of music and a specific personality structure  is seen to be more clearly stated. Rentfrow and Mcdonald reported that adventure-seeking individuals prefer more intense and stimulating types such as rock and punk music, antisocial males prefer rebellious types such as rock and rap and those who view themselves as interesting and creative prefer more intellectual and complex types such as jazz and classical (Rentfrow and McDonald, 2009).

This study supports fundamental personal features of rock music listeners and the result of classical and traditional music listeners being tolerant and conscientious individuals but does not support that they are emotionally unstable. According to the results of HPI, the classic and traditional music listeners were mostly “compatible” or “possibly compatible” individuals and there was no evidence for a behavioral pattern of these individuals such as “emotional ups and downs” in any of the inventory and sub-inventory profile features.

Outgoing individuals usually like socializing and spending time in a group and prefer to listen to the music genre that puts them in touch with their social environment. In a similar way, individuals who want to experience adventure, or various different intellectual and aesthetic events like relatively hard and complex music genres (Costa and McCrae, 1988). In a study by Rentfrow and Gosling (2003), people who listen to energetic and rhythmic or traditional music, are likely to be joyful, talkative, energetic, forgiving, social, trustworthy, and helpful and they find themselves attractive. According to the ‘social relations’ sub-inventory of “social compliance”, these individuals are highly skillful at social relations, happy, talkative, loving, caring and tolerant. The results of the current study are consistent with those of Costa et al. (1988) in this respect.

In order to satisfy their psychological needs, individuals can make musical choices. “Individuals are more likely to listen to the music genre that will carry them to ideal level of consciousness” (Eysenck, 1990; Zuckerman, 1979). For example outgoing individuals are thought not to perceive environmental effects as a high pitch stimulant; therefore they try to balance this by listening to their favorite music as a way of increasing the level of stimulus. In contrast, those who perceive environmental effects as a harsh stimulant, refrain from listening to music genres that include many stimulants (Daoussis and McKelvie, 1986). In the “Psychotic symptoms”  and “social relations” sub-inventory profiles of the personal, social and general incompatible criteria of the HPI, it can be seen that these individuals do not feel comfortable in society, do not like talking to  others, want to get away from society and are very sensitive to and resentful of environmental conditions.  

The majority of studies in literature on the relationship between music preference and personality have findings in parallel with those of the current study. Therefore, it is possible to say that there is a relationship between the preferred music type of trainee music teachers and their personal, social and general compliance levels. The significant findings of this study can be evaluated as demonstrating that the compliance levels of those listening to rock music were lower than of those who listened to pop, classical or traditional music and the compliance levels of those listening to music in a minor tone were lower than of those listening in major tone.

The author has not declared any conflict of interest.