Think you’re smarter because you listen to instrumental music? According to a new study, you might actually be right. All hail jazz!
If you’ve ever stuck up your nose and claimed to prefer instrumental music such as jazz, soundtracks or neo-classical, we’ve got some news you’ll love to hear.
According to a study conducted out of Oxford Brookes University and published in Evolutionary Behavioural Sciences, you’re wicked smart.
The study assessed the musical preferences of 467 Croatian high school students against a nonverbal intelligence test. Higher scores on the intelligence test correlated to a preference for instrumental genres, including jazz, electronica, downtempo, and classical.
“From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, intelligence can only predict differences in the preference for instrumental music”, shared study author Elena Racevska, a PhD student at Oxford Brookes University.
“Individuals with higher intelligence test scores are more likely to prefer predominantly instrumental music styles, but there are no differences in the preference for predominantly vocal or vocal-instrumental music that can be predicted with intelligence test scores.”
So what do we do with this information? That’s up to you – either use it to gratify an inflated sense of self, or keep quiet and choose not to rub your snobbiness off upon the world at large. We recommend the latter.
Just put on that contemporary jazz record you come back to so often, close your eyes, smile, and be quiet about this whole ordeal.
