After statistically correcting for socioeconomic factors, researchers found that higher IQ did predict a preference for instrumental over vocal music.

Wall Street Journal
WEEK IN IDEAS
FEBRUARY 12, 2011
By CHRISTOPHER SHEA

Intelligence
Brahms on the Brain

If brought back to life, early humans might grasp "American Idol," but they'd be stumped by a Brahms symphony. According to one theory, music began, evolutionarily speaking, with expressive vocalization, and instrumental music (and bigger brains) arrived much later.

To test out a correlation between intelligence and preferring the nonvocal classics, researchers drew on the 1993 edition of the General Social Survey, conducted by the National Opinion Research Center. The 1,600 participants were asked to rate their enjoyment of 18 musical genres on a 1-to-5 scale. Half also took a vocabulary test, converted to an IQ score.

After statistically correcting for socioeconomic factors, the researchers found that higher IQ did, indeed, predict a preference for instrumental over vocal music. The researcher's "instrumental" genres were classical, big band and easy listening. Those who liked classical music a lot had an average IQ of 107; those who hated it scored 93.

"Why More Intelligent Individuals Like Classical Music," Satoshi Kanazawa and Kaja Perina, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making (forthcoming)

Ivan
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Also, vocal music would apply to choral and operatic works... So I wonder if that was tested separately.

The experiment seems staggeringly ill-conceived. Right down to equating vocabulary size with intelligence. Plus, as Jake observes, instrumental surf music obviously appeals to everyone independent of whether they could find their way to a show again deliberately (the maze/recalled incentive test). There are actually some components of it that seem to skip the forebrain entirely. I am pretty sure Australopithecines would have listened to it happily while eating the go-go persons. In fact, I believe I saw something on this board once about lemurs enjoying it, and they are more like arboreal rodents than primates.

Brian

JakeDobner
There are plenty of intelligent surf music fans, but the people who most immediately embrace surf music at shows? Morons, the lot of them.

Wow, that's....kind of harsh.

Pretty accurate, and think, in our case, they would agree. The type of venues/gigs we played had people who were just there for a good time and it felt great that they were having a good time. Not a lot going up stairs, but they were happy!

Brian
So that makes them morons?

We had Juggalos, 45 year old meth addict greasers, and just tons of middle-aged people missing teeth, looking haggard, and barely speaking English(and English is their first and only language). But they were receptive and were a great audience, better than anything we found in Seattle.

Tuck
You compare it to the difference between the novel (instrumental) and the movie version (vocal).

My own comments were, of course, completely tongue-in-cheek.

I like that comparison!

This seems like a very legitimate study. "After statistically correcting for socioeconomic factors, the researchers found that higher IQ did, indeed, predict a preference for instrumental over vocal music"

This shows me that they actually thought about it scientifically, and they stay away from definitives "predict a preference". And if you read closely, the article isn't going to actually going to be reasoned and debated.

"Why More Intelligent Individuals Like Classical Music"

This is going to be very interesting, in my opinion and I'd love to read it. Societally this is a stereotype, and socioeconomically this is also a stereotype, so perhaps this may explain that it isn't as much a stereotype as just a disposition to your intelligence.

SpaceFargo
These "studies" are always the stupidest things. I can't tell you how many times I've seen STUDY SHOWS ATHEISTS SMARTER or STUDY SHOWS GAY MEN SMARTER THAN STRAIGHT MEN or countless other variations written by (surprise, surprise) someone in the "smarter" category. IQ is a completely worthless measure of intelligence, anyhow.

You come off as a little bitter...

JakeDobner

SpaceFargo
These "studies" are always the stupidest things. I can't tell you how many times I've seen STUDY SHOWS ATHEISTS SMARTER or STUDY SHOWS GAY MEN SMARTER THAN STRAIGHT MEN or countless other variations written by (surprise, surprise) someone in the "smarter" category. IQ is a completely worthless measure of intelligence, anyhow.

You come off as a little bitter...

Umm, and you come off as unrelentingly douchy, Jake. C'mon man, EVERYONE here is a front-and-center surf fan who goes to shows for a good time. Try more tact next time?

More to the point, I'd like to accept this study as true so that I could pat myself on the back and feel soopersmart and whatnot. There are so many variables in these kinds of things though that it seems unwise not to take it with many grains of salt. It really seems too hard to sift out a real result here.

For my own curiosity, I'd want to have a larger spread of instrumental genres included here, and to know what the vocal genres are for reference. Personally, I'm more prone to instro music as a whole, yes, but I find classical hit-or-miss, big band to either be really exciting or excessively cheesy, and easy listening? Please God spare me. So just from this list it's hard to say which side of the smart/not smart line I'd fall. Waving hands now: If easy listening is the instro genre people in the study have been most exposed to and enjoy the most, then their preference for the others means relatively little... maybe the result we're seeing is actually a correlation between vocabulary and predisposition to lame muzak.

That's a valid point, a great point even. You should've said it that way the first time.

I totally agree firsthand. The vast majority of shows we play are to hardcore punk delinquents. They sure seem trashy and dumb sometimes, but they have a great time when we play, and so I have a great time and I'm hugely grateful for it. I've had plenty of drunk/high/perhaps-inherently-unintelligible people come up to me after shows and say how much they enjoyed it. I don't know what that means for their IQ scores, but either way I always play nice and stay gracious.