Researchers have found that heavy metal fans tend to be systemic thinkers, leading to the supposition that systemic thinkers like heavy metal because its structure, themes or musicality rewards those who think on a systemic level. As one summary read:
Participants were then subjected to 50 short pieces of music spanning 26 different styles, and asked to give each a rating between one and 10.
People who scored highly on empathy were more likely to be drawn to R&B, soft rock and folk.
In contrast those who score more highly on systemising tended to like music by heavy metal bands and more complex, avant-garde jazz.
In other words, people who think at an empathic level reward music which is emotional on its surface, but those who think structurally and broadly like metal fans tend to only feel rewarded when the emotion emerges from the conflicts within the music itself, more like “set/setting” than adding some minor notes to a melody or dramatic vocals.
As research finds many ways further into metal, the conclusion becomes clear that people like metal for different reasons than other mainstream music. While metal academia itself has not raised this point directly, this research and other recent revelations about the mentality of metal suggest that direction is a rewarding area of study.
Tags: Heavy Metal, INTJ, metal academia, systemic thinking
Very interesting study . Seems to dovetail with the idea that metalheads are smarter than mainstream pop fans etc. I would be interested to see a further breakdown of live ( bar tavern) audience intelligence (and musical preferences) versus internet and record store ( non-live club) listeners. It seems to me as if song structure is lost on live audiences. and live audiences buy more into choppy written songs , theatrics, and vocalist antics etc.
I suspect that drugs (weed all the way through prescriptions) and alcohol are dumbing down the live audiences in America, and that it is all part of a mind control plot to keep the population docile. There is a lack of moshing and head-banging at shows in America these days as compared to the old days do to mind control and drugs.
The government wants the citizenry to be as stupid as possible is why we are subjected to mind numbing pop culture in the first place.
For instance infowars.com has exposed how the record industry has ties (stock in) to the GEO group (stock trades publicly) of private prisons. and how the rap industry promotes criminal behavior in its listeners in order to fill the prisons . Just look up the original Rick Ross the crack dealer not the rap star as an example . He talks about it at length. The CIA even gave him his coke connection in the first place.
The music industry has been about mind control since companies know that the best artists mostly cannot be controlled (Cobain, Hendrix etc) they promote losers who can be controlled instead (Bieber , Swift) .
Due to their systematic thinking Metalheads have a better shot than the masses do at realizing how the (music) media manipulates them. But I think we are being over-drugged and brainwashed to prevent fully awakening to this reality/ or at least too drugged to really fight back strongly enough to overcome what is being force fed to us on a daily basis.