HMN 2025: How People strongly moved by music are likely to be open, compassionate and sensitive, researcher finds

Many people have experienced music arousing emotions. However, music sensibility varies considerably; some people experience intense emotions, while others barely notice it.

Which personality traits characterize people who are strongly moved by music? Ph.D. fellow Heidi Marie Umbach Hansen at the Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, studied the link between music sensibility and the Big Five personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Umbach Hansen will defend her dissertation on August 29.

“Music sensibility seems to be linked to openness and agreeableness, but it is also linked to neuroticism, which is a more emotional trait. These connections are probably caused primarily by shared, underlying genetics,” Umbach Hansen said.

Both genetics and environment matter

Previous studies have indicated a moderate heritability for musicality, meaning that both genes and environment matter.

“Musicality is a broad concept though. Traditionally many people think of our ability to understand rhythm or the ability to hear the difference between sounds. Previous research has mainly dealt with these issues. In our case, we have investigated how genes and environment influence musical sensibility,” Umbach Hansen said.

Investigating this issue may lead to a better understanding of what musicality really consists of or how we should understand it, she adds.

Her data material includes about 2,600 Norwegian twins, and the findings indicate that most of the variability in musical sensibility—up to 64%—can be attributed to genetic differences. Still, the environment also plays an important role.

Twin studies are widely used to understand how genes and environments shape human behavior. Identical twins share all genes, while fraternal twins share the same amount of genetic material as normal siblings.

If researchers find identical twins to be more like each other than fraternal twins, it suggests that genes affect the trait being studied, for example, personality, depression or musicality.

However, twin studies are not only useful for studying the influence of genes and environment on a single personality trait.

“They can also be used to investigate relationships between different traits,” Umbach Hansen explained.

Open, sociable and sensitive music lovers

In her own studies of music sensibility’s connection to the Big Five personality traits, she found no correlation to conscientiousness and extraversion. However, those who scored high on music sensibility also scored high on:

• openness, including creativity, curiosity, aesthetic sense, and sensibility
• agreeableness, such as kindness and helpfulness
• neuroticism, e.g., how often you experience depressive or anxious thoughts.

“These connections mainly seemed to be there because of shared genetics. Therefore the results suggest that sensibility to music partly stems from deeper traits in human nature,” Umbach Hansen said.

The magic of music is still a mystery

Music is widespread all over the world. According to a 2023 global survey, each of us spends about 21 hours a week listening to music, and 71% of those surveyed said music was important for their mental health.

“Still, we do not know why music arose in the first place. It may have started as an early form of communication that helped to connect people,” Umbach Hansen said.

Why can music affect us so strongly? It is a mystery, according to Umbach Hansen. If we gain a better understanding of the mechanisms behind it, and of why some people have stronger experiences than others, she believes it to be useful in several ways.

“For example, several hospitals offer music therapy as part of their treatment. If we know more about the variations between people, I believe this can help us improve treatment and make it even more effective.”

Umbach Hansen is affiliated with the RITMO Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Rhythm, Time and Motion and the research center PROMENTA, both at the Department of Psychology, University of Oslo.