News

A new study aims to identify psychopaths based on their taste in music

Sorry Eminem fans...

A psychological study created by New York University is aiming to construct a test that will help them identify psychopaths by evaluating their taste in music.

The Guardian reports that the study remains both exploratory and unpublished, but the team of scientists have confirmed that they are sufficiently intrigued by the results thus far. After evaluating a group of 200 volunteers who were asked to listen to 260 songs, scientists found that those who scored the highest on their psychopath tests were among the greatest fans of Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’ and Blackstreet’s ‘No Diggity’. Those who scored lowest on their psychopath test preferred songs like ‘My Sharona’ by The Knack and Sia’s ‘Titanium’.

While the NYU team would not disclose other tracks that psychopaths tend to gravitate towards out of fear of compromising any future screening tests, they did mention that results suggest that psychopaths "favor rap music over classical and jazz".

What about techno, house, hardstyle or EDM? There is a lot we can learn from this study, we will just have to wait for the final results and see for ourselves.

Cameron is Mixmag's US Editorial Intern. Follow him on Twitter here