By Why do you like a song? I’m sure you have a very clear answer for some of them. But for others, what does your attachment style have to do with all this? In this article we’ll tell you!
Music is capable of producing the whole spectrum of emotions . Every day we delight in listening to our favorite songs, and every now and then we expand our repertoire with a new song or album. Although music is part of everyday life, why do we like some songs and not others?
Over the past few years, various studies have collected data that support the hypothesis that our musical preferences could be a reflection of age, cognitive style, values and personality traits. Music not only entertains us, it also speaks about us .
In this regard, recent research indicates that our favorite songs also reveal our attachment style and how we act in our relationships. Let’s dig deeper.
Favorite songs and attachment styles
Next, we will review two studies we conducted in the research by Alaei et al. (2022), which aimed to examine the extent to which individual differences in attachment security are associated with the lyrics of people’s favorite songs . However, first, we will briefly review the four main attachment styles:
- Anxious: People with this attachment worry about being rejected and seek a lot of security in their relationships.
- Avoidant: They respond to their negative expectations about rejection by shutting down emotionally.
- Mixed: They have confusing expectations and fluctuate between clingy (anxious) and cold (avoidant).
- Confident: These people have optimistic outlooks on relationships, are open communicators, and trust their partners.
Study 1
In this study, researchers asked participants to share their favorite songs and their favorite relationship songs specifically. They then coded attachment themes in the lyrics of these songs and examined the degree of association between these themes and attachment styles.
In this first approach, the researchers found the following results:
- People with avoidant attachment prefer songs with avoidant lyrics.
- Avoidants disfavor lyrics with secure attachment content when their anxious attachment levels are low.
- Participants with anxious attachment disfavored songs with secure attachment lyrics when their levels of avoidant attachment were low.
- Some of the participants’ Big Five personality traits also predicted their attachment styles to their favorite songs: Neurotic and conscientious people preferred more anxious lyrics, while more open-minded people preferred less secure lyrics.
“I expected to see a clear relationship between anxious people and anxious songs because they are the most emotional, but surprisingly, this was the weakest result,” Alaei said in a statement from the University of Toronto.
The avoidant connection we see in these results is not only reflected at the individual level, but also at the societal level. Let’s look at the second study.
Study 2
The researchers coded the narrative of the top songs from 1946 to 2015 that spoke in some way about attachment. The idea was to find out how this had evolved over time.
The results indicate that recent popular music (1990–2015) contains more avoidance content and less safe lyrics compared to early popular music (1946–1965).
“Popular music lyrics parallel sociological trends of social disconnection – people valuing independence over dependence on others and feeling more isolated,” Alaei says.
The decline in privacy, increasing individualism and social disconnection characteristic of Western culture are expressed in increasingly evasive and less secure narratives.
Songs according to the type of attachment
These are some of the songs that participants chose according to their attachment style:
Avoidant
- Beyoncé, Irreplaceable.
- Chris Brown, Say Goodbye .
- N’Sync, Bye Bye Bye.
- Michael Jackson, Billie Jean.
- TLC, No Scrubs.
- Rihanna, Take a Bow.
- The Weeknd, The Hills; Heartless.
Anxious
- Adele, Someone Like You.
- The Police, Every Breath You Take.
- Miley Cyrus, Wrecking Ball.
- Adele, Hello.
- U2, One.
- Seether, Broken.
- No Doubt, Don’t Speak.
- Bruno Mars, When I Was Your Man.
- Drake, Hotline Bling.
Sure
- Sonny & Cher, I Got You Babe.
- Whitney Houston, I Will Always Love You.
- The Beatles, Love Me Do.
- Ed Sheeran, Thinking Out Loud.
- Plain White Ts, I Love You.
- John Legend, All of Me.
- Michael Bublé, Haven’t Met You Yet.
- Beach Boys, Wouldn’t It Be Nice.
- Bryan Adams, (Everything I Do) I Do It for You.
- Etta James, At Last.
- Justin Bieber, Holy.
Mixed
- Carrie Underwood, Before He Cheats.
- Gotye, Somebody that I Used to Know.
- Taylor Swift, Bad Blood.
- Sam Smith, I’m Not the Only One.
- Ne Yo, So Sick.
- Bonnie Raitt, I Can’t Make You Love Me.
- Adele, Rolling in the Deep.
- Rihanna ft. Drake, Work.
- Eminem ft. Rihanna, Love the Way You Lie.
“The lyrics to your favorite songs about relationships can help validate your thoughts and feelings, but they can also reveal things about your relationship experiences that you may not have realized, something you’re repeatedly going through, something you keep dealing with,” Alaei said.
Our favorite songs and musical tastes are a window into our inner selves. They not only reflect our inclinations and personality traits, but they also seem to reflect our way of interacting with others.