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Ecology of Musical Preference: the Relationship Between Pathogen Prevalence and the Number and Intensity of Metal Bands

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Abstract

Ecological conditions and pathogen stress shape human cognition and behavior and can explain cultural and behavioral patterns cross-culturally. It has been previously shown that human values and preferences are also phenotypically plastic in response to parasitic stress across regions, and that parasite prevalence is associated with the out-group prejudice and nonconformity tolerance. Human preference for music is also variable across the world, and no previous study has considered this variability in the light of behavioral ecology. Research has shown that in the regions in which the parasite stress is higher, there is higher aversion against out-groups, and unusual and deviant behaviors. In the current study we hypothesized that extreme forms of music such as heavy metal, which is associated with antisocial behavior, irreligiosity, and deviation from the norm is less prevalent in the regions with higher prevalence of pathogenic stress. We tested our hypothesis using publicly available data measuring number and intensity of metal bands and parasite prevalence while controlling for importance of religion, human development index, and population size across European countries. Results showed that parasite stress negatively predicts the number of heavy metal bands. However, no relationship was found between the intensity of the music and parasite stress. We discussed our results in terms of association of parasite stress with tolerance to out-group members (metal community and culture) and with the openness to new musical endeavors. Overall, this study extends the role of the ecological and biological variation (parasite stress) in shaping human cognition to musical preference and prevalence.

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Notes

  1. The AIC is a measure of the fit of a model. Its absolute value is meaningless, but comparing AICs from two models allows to determine which one fits the data better.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to kindly thank Corey Fincher for permission of using parasite data.

Funding

This study was conducted at the Psychology Research Centre (PSI/01662), University of Minho, and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds and co-financed by FEDER through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007653). FP receives funding from FCT Portugal through grant SFRH/BD/114366/2016.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, University of Minho, Campus de Gualtar, 4710-057, Braga, Portugal

    Farid Pazhoohi

  2. Psychology Research Centre, School of Psychology, University of Minho, Campus de Gualtar, 4710-057, Braga, Portugal

    Karlos Luna

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  1. Farid Pazhoohi
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  2. Karlos Luna
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Correspondence to Farid Pazhoohi.

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Pazhoohi, F., Luna, K. Ecology of Musical Preference: the Relationship Between Pathogen Prevalence and the Number and Intensity of Metal Bands. Evolutionary Psychological Science 4, 294–300 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-018-0139-7

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