And on why Sonny & Cher’s song, “I Got You Babe” is a major contributor to interpersonal psychology.
If you’ve ever wondered what your taste in music says about you, researchers from the University of Toronto might just have the answer.
In a study published recently in Personal Relationships, the authors asked around 570 people to list their favourite songs so they could establish whether the lyrics aligned with each person’s attachment style.
Based on the participants’ responses, they coded roughly 7,000 songs to identify the attachment style that each song represented.
The results showed that participants who expressed “attachment avoidance” preferred relationship songs with lyrics that expressed an avoidant attachment style too.
On the other hand, the relationship between “anxiously attached” people and “anxious songs” showed the weakest association, defying authors’ expectations that it would be the strongest.
Something to bear in mind when you’re scrolling through an online dating site.
Researchers also found this tendency towards attachment avoidance occurred across society more broadly.
Elaborating on their findings in a second study, they coded over 800 songs that topped the Billboard charts between 1946 and 2015 and discovered that lyrics have become more avoidant and less secure over time.
Popular artists with avoidant lyrics include Beyonce, N’Sync, Michael Jackson, Rihanna and The Weeknd, while artists whose lyrics were more anxious included Adele, The Police, Bruno Mars and Drake.
Taylor Swift, Sam Smith, and Eminem were among the artists with lyrics that reflected a mixed anxious-avoidant attachment style. Those with secure lyrics included Ed Sheeran, Whitney Houston, The Beatles and Sonny & Cher, whose song “I Got You Babe” was described by authors as “pretty much a manual on how to be securely attached”.
For those wondering if listening to music that reinforces your anxious or avoidant behaviours might cause more harm than good, the study’s authors offer some advice.
“Listen to the song a few times to help you process what you’re going through and express your thoughts and feelings,” they said.
“You can decide whether listening to songs that reflect your experiences back at you is either helping you or reinforcing destructive behaviours for yourself.”
If you’re anything like the Back Page, whose playlists have frequently been described as “depressing”, this might be a sign you should turn on something more uplifting.
When you find yourself humming something catchy, blast it on out to penny@medicalrepublic.com.au.
