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You may be musical and not even know it!- 15-Oct-2015
London: Practice may make you perfect, but your personality traits could play a key role in your musical ability, even if you do not play an instrument, researchers have found.
In a new study, researchers identified that the personality trait 'openness' predicts musical ability and sophistication.
People who score highly on openness are imaginative, have a wide range of interests, and are open to new ways of thinking and changes in their environment.
Previous convention has held that the amount you practice is the key to success.
But scientists are now discovering that there may be other factors involved as well.
Psychologists from the University of Cambridge and Goldsmiths University in UK recruited over 7,000 volunteers, in what is the largest study to date on personality and musical expertise.
The team led by doctoral researcher David Greenberg, from the University of Cambridge tested the participants on various musical abilities including melodic memory and rhythm perception.
Performance on these tests was then linked to their scores on the Big Five personality traits - Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (OCEAN).
They found that aside from musical experience, the next best predictor of musical ability was personality, and specifically, openness.
While people who are high on openness are open to new ways of thinking, people who score low on openness (or who are 'closed') are more set in their ways, prefer routine and the familiar, and tend to have more conventional values.
In addition to openness, the researchers also found that extraversion was linked to higher self-reported singing abilities.
Importantly, the researchers found that the links between personality and performance on the musical tasks were present even for people who indicated that they did not play a musical instrument.
This means that there are individuals who have a potential for musical talent, but are entirely unaware of it.
"These results are particularly important for teachers and educators, who can use information about their student's personality to see who might be most successful in varied musical activities," said Greenberg.
The study was published in the Journal of Research in Personality.
