I'm interested in the process by which natural and social factors-- e.g. personality, intelligence, or family SES-- work together to define consumption preferences, especially in music.
--The Cognitive Daily blog discussed the possible relationship between music preference, and certain personality traits; based on a study published in the journal Psychology of Music, they offer that stereotypes about fans of certain music genres, may have some basis in actuality. If you guessed that classical music fans are the largest wine consumers, while rock fans are the most likely to be found in a trippy school-bus, you win the prize.
-- Before I came to Cornell I had few friends who listened to Heavy Metal. Now, some of the people I'm closest to love the thrashing of the latest Scandinavian Guitar-gods. Research links intelligence to music preferences; specifically, the claim is that metal fans have a lot of it. And, I've found an article that claims this, and similar personality make-up, causes metal fans to resemble classical-music fans. This jives with my experience of the goth, metal kid almost always claiming his original favorite musician was Bach.
I hope to explore what factors might determine whose a classical fan, versus whose a fan of death metal. Bourdieu's concept of 'habitus' could offer some insight into this division: the split is mediated by one's level of SES.
Readers: Stay-tuned as I find other articles, and then try to synthesize a broader series of conclusions.
