It gives me hope that every time I turn the dial to a rock 'n' roll station, my boys complain and insist I put on some classical music. I tell them Led Zeppelin IS classical music, but they'll have none of it.
What predicts best a fondness for classical music: race or intelligence?
The General Social Survey (GSS) asked people how much they like classical music with answer-choices ranging from "like very much" to "dislike very much." With race and IQ as predictors, I used ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to generate estimates. Here are the standardized coefficients (sample size = 916):
Standardized OLS coefficients
IQ 0.31***
Black 0.02
Other non-whites 0.02
***p < .001
The only predictor that matters is IQ: smart people are much more likely to enjoy classical music than dull ones. Blacks tend to not like this type of music (results not shown here), but once you adjust for IQ, the race effect disappears. In other words, the reason why fewer blacks are classic music fans is completely due to lower intelligence. Other races do not differ from whites (results not shown), even before you adjust for IQ.
So, taste in music is more an IQ than a race thing. This might be true of many preferences among Americans.
UPDATE: Immigration and dysgenic trends in fertility are gradually lowering the mean IQ in the United States, so at this rate, we will see falling interest in great music. Bring on the Ranchera!
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What definition of classical music are you using here? The particular period of composers in music history or a general definition of pre-modern music?
ReplyDeleteStop being pedantic you twit.
DeleteThe respondents were asked how much they like classical music--chamber or orchestra.
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One point: what we can learn from this is that the more intelligent you are, the more you will SAY, in response to a survey, that you like classical music. Even in an anonymous survey, you may believe that even if you, personally, don't particularly like classical music, you should say that you do, because you think that it's a good thing, in general, for society to have a lot of people who like classical music.
ReplyDelete