If you’ve judged someone by their music tastes in the past, you should know your judgements may have been legitimate…

A new article written in The Hill looks at a few past studies, and notes that one, “shows a link between preferred musical genres and our capacity for empathy, with results across samples showing that empathy levels are linked to preferences even within genres.”

They specifically found that those with a bias toward empathizing preferred mellow music that might fall within the genres of R&B and soft rock, while those who prefer genres such as heavy metal or hard rock tend to show a bias towards logic-based thinking, rather than showing empathy.  Another study found that self-assured people were more likely to enjoy positive music, while those who seek excitement prefer higher arousal music, and those who are open-minded had a more general preference for music overall, and were also more open to music that spanned genres.

Researcher David Greenberg with University of Cambridge adds, “The idea that music is solely entertainment, or even just a pure aesthetic experience, is very misguided.  Music is a form of language.  It’s part of human evolution, and it’s deeply embedded into our brains.”