Examining the Relationship Between Songs and Psychological Characteristics

Abstract

Listening to music may serve both as an indicator of the listener’s emotional situation and as an actor on the listener’s emotions. In this study, we explored the relationship between music and listeners’ psychological characteristics. A total of 59 participants’ music playlists were retrieved, and the audio features of each song were extracted via Spotify API. A total of 8,936 songs were analyzed, and 13 different features were extracted. To understand listeners’ psychological characteristics, a survey was conducted. We found that anxiety and stress are closely related to instrumentalness. Also, anxiety is significantly related to liveness and loudness. This study suggests that music playlists can be an indicator of an individual’s psychological characteristics and acknowledges the possibility that music can enhance and reflect the listener’s psychological well-being.