Apparently you can tell how much of a psychopath someone is from what music they listen to. You probably already suspected this from Nickelback’s continued commercial success, but now there’s actual proper science to back this up. Kind of.
The Washington Post reports that NYU psychology professor Pascal Wallisch and recent NYU grad Nicole Leal quizzed 190 students at the university to investigate whether particular genre preferences have any relation to how much of a psychopath you are. Not exactly an exhaustive study, but some interesting tidbits nonetheless. The pair noted that according to traditional film law, classical music is quite psychopath-y — see: Beethoven in A Clockwork Orange, Bach in The Silence of the Lambs. The infamous Reservoir Dogs scene that plays Stuck in the Middle with You while Mr. Blonde slices off someone’s ear defies this logic, but maybe it’s the exception that proves the rule?
Or maybe not, because according to the results, the classical music rule is straight up wrong. The pair discovered that psychopaths and non-psychopaths alike are actually quite partial to a pop banger. It’s what this pop banger is that dicates where you are on the scale.
Gogi Grant’s The Wayward Wind? You are the literal opposite of a psychopath, you’re weeping into your childhood blankie about the rents finally selling the childhood home you only visit on Christmas and funerals. The Knack’s My Sharona? You shotgun five tinnies in a row as soon as the clock strikes 5pm on a Friday. A bit of an obnoxious, sure, but not a psychopath. Justin Bieber’s What Do You Mean? You are a little bit of a psychopath, not a regular psychopath, a cool psychopath, one who is about to dump their partner of five years via text. Eminem’s Lose Yourself? You are a cold blooded axe murderer. You put the teabag in, then the milk, then the water.
So next time you’re waltzing around Sainsbury’s mouthing the words to Despacito, just think what it might be saying about you.