Monday, March 05, 2007

Opera fans are the smartest, rap fans are the dumbest: Following Jason Malloy's comments and analysis, I calculated the mean IQ for people who said they really like the following types of music:


Mean IQs

Opera 108.6
New Age 107.0
Classical 106.5
Showtunes 106.3
Big Band 104.2
Blues 103.8
Jazz 103.7
Folk 103.2
Oldies 101.6
Contemporary Rock 100.6
Easy Listening 99.4
Latin 99.3
Heavy Metal 99.1
Bluegrass 97.9
Reggae 97.2
Country 96.3
Gospel 94.4
Rap 91.1

(For some unknown reason, these numbers are a bit different from Jason's). Surprises: Big band, blues, and showtunes fans come in smarter than jazz fans. Latin is a bit higher than I would have guessed, and bluegrass a bit lower.

16 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:58 PM

    Great stuff. Now, what's the ethnic breakdown of the different types, and what's the IQ within ethnic group? For example, I bet that jazz fans are well above average for their respective races, perhaps highest of all relative to their racial averages.

    What % of show tunes fans are gay?

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  2. Steve: 11 gay men were asked this question about showtunes. None liked it a lot, 5 liked it, 5 had mixed feelings, one disliked it, and none disliked it a lot. The corresponding percentages for hetero men were: 7.4, 28.8, 32.5, 26.5, and 5.7. (I'm one of the 7.4.)Twelve lesbians were asked the question. Their numbers were 2, 4, 4, 1,1. Among hetero women, the percentages were 19.1, 43.7, 21.7, 11.7, and 3.8.

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  3. Latin is a bit higher than I would have guessed

    Even gringos get randy and need music to shake their groove thing to. Girls, regardless of IQ, seem more likely to get all hot and bothered by Latin music (mostly from the Caribbean) -- and where in-the-mood girls go, guys of many sorts are soon to follow.

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  4. Steve: I rattled off all these numbers, but never really answered your question. The low numbers do not lead to a confident answer, but 2.8% of male showtune fans are gay--roughly their share of the total male population. (This is based on 5 whole gay guys).

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  5. What? No techno? My guess is those IQs are probably way off the chart--correct?

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  6. I know your data are wrong simply because of how low Bluegrass placed. It is simply impossible for that to be correct.

    Oh, and my IQ is 135 according to that goofy Tickle test, and I'd rather be boiled in oil than listen to opera (Both of my degrees are in music: BM in jazz comp/MM in trad comp).

    Humorous timewaster though.

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  7. Anonymous6:38 AM

    "What % of show tunes fans are gay?"

    So when one of the actors from Buffy (forget which) said that he and Joss Whedon are the only two straight show tune aficionados left in Hollywood, he may have been exaggerating?

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  8. Anonymous7:07 AM

    Is there an accepted "conversion rate" for those Tickle IQ tests?

    I also scored 135 on mine, but based on my SAT tests et al. in high school, I think I'm probably closer to 120-125.

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  9. Anonymous11:42 AM

    The Tickle tests are worthless. They overrate your score as a marketing ploy to make you like tickle, until you max out on the test.

    A better benchmark would be to simply take an SAT (or graduate level standardized test like the LSAT) and use your percentile from that test to figure your rough percentile on the IQ charts. I have a very high IQ based on numerous _professional_ tests, but tickle apparently thinks I am the smartest man alive.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous1:12 PM

    For what it's worth, a study with somewhat differing data - that being that gifted students listen to heavy metal to reduce stress. However it did have a low sample size.
    http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/
    newsandevents/pressreleases/
    gifted_students_beat/

    (sorry for breaking up the link, but your comments section just simply cuts off long links or words!)

    ReplyDelete
  11. I think there are several subgenres not listed here, on which the IQs are likely higher than in the parent genre: alternative rock/metal, progressive rock, and gothic rock. (All of these reject current mainstream rock and metal as superficial.) I would also be interested to see whether death metal attracts lower or higher IQs than thrash metal.

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  12. Was there results from blog poll or something equally as irrelevant and poor in sample size and quality?

    " Heavy metal" is ridiculously low , and most of modern metal could not be classified as such. There are many dozens subgenres . Metal is generally more popular among more educated( engineering and CS majors) and higher IQ countries (Northern Europe, Japan)

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  13. The big band fans' IQ scores may be artificially low due to the high prevalence of senile dementia.

    I love big bands, but I'm in my 40s and a musician. Most fans are well over 70 and not musical at all, unless you count dancing.

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  14. The Tickle tests are worthless. They overrate your score as a marketing ploy to make you like tickle, until you max out on the test. A better benchmark would be to simply take an SAT (or graduate level standardized test like the LSAT) and use your percentile from that test to figure your rough percentile on the IQ charts. I have a very high IQ based on numerous _professional_ tests, but tickle apparently thinks I am the smartest man alive.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous12:19 PM

    Where is the data for this? How many people participated? Self reported IQ or measured? What test?

    ReplyDelete

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