Listen Closely and Carefully: The music you listen to affects your personality and behavior towards others when listening consistently

Over the past couple years, the claim holds that babies may turn into laser-blasting super heroes or Bob Ross painter Buddhists by simply listening to the right music.

18 years later, past my non-Beethoven listening years, my playlist is a compilation breakfast buffet of rap, indie, folk, pop and techno tunes. Still, those mom blogs and parenting podcasts may have had a point — the genre of music you play can affect your behavior, mood and day-to-day actions. And, orchestra music does have some benefits, just wasn’t my cup of milk as an infant.

Music is everywhere. You hear lullabies as a baby, learn the alphabet song and hum along to TV show theme songs. It plays in elevators, stores, earbuds and YouTube ads, but we rarely consider the impact of our own song choices. 

Let’s start with rap — whether you blast it on the way to parties or in the post-game locker room moshpit, a recent UK study showed how lyrically and musically harsh rap music can actually increase aggression, according to CNN. 

Translation? Your Spotify playlist that only shuffles NLE Choppa, Lil Baby and Polo G might be the reason you feel the need to punch holes in your bedroom wall instead of seeing a therapist.

The study also found that violent rock songs —by artists like Rage Against, the Machine or SlipKnot — can induce similar behaviors.

It’s like watching what you eat. Downing McDonalds burgers and shakes for every meal harms physical health the same way that music can impact your mind. So it’s your choice: a rap-Big Mac or R&B salad?

There’s also a correlation between preferred musical genres and our capacity for empathy, according to a study by Plos Ones. While listening to music, people use empathy when emotionally and physiologically analyzing different types of songs.

The same study found that listening to gentle and chill — even what some may consider as sad music — sounds such as R&B and soft rock music with emotional depth correlate to greater empathy. Listening to my playlist named “Chill Drive” of Lumineers, Noah Kahan and Hozier, with lyrics like “Keep your head up love” or “I’ll love you when the oceans dry, I’ll love you when the rivers freeze” may make me cringe on the surface, but they provide meaningful, sympathetic messages.

Music like this leads people to not only think about the actual lyric, but when jamming out in the car, windows down arm out the window, physically speaking these words out into existence help replicate the same mood or lifestyle the members of Lumineers were trying to express. 

The Plos Ones study also showed that those who listen to heavy metal or rap music tend to be more logical than empathetic in their behavior. In comparison to the previous study, these genres don’t only create aggression and punching-a-wall behavior found in the earlier study — so maybe keep a few Waka Flocka Flame songs in your playlist.

I love my dose of Ice Cube, Kendirck Lamar and A$AP Rocky, but I choose not to absorb these lyrics like I do with more soothing bands like Caamp and Mt. Joy. When rapping my favorite Kendrick verse, I don’t allow myself to pick up on the lyrics. When humming the folky Mt. Joy tune, it’s simply more calming than the intense beat and bass vibrating my rear view windows. 

Just because you listen to heavy rock or intense rap music doesn’t mean you’re an aggressive or strictly logical and unemotional human. That all relies on how much value you choose to give those lyrics and how you are interpreting them in order for your brain to process. The more consistently you only listen to one genre, the harder it is to subconsciously stop yourself from absorbing the aggressive lyrics.

Music is a universal language and can express emotions that maybe we can’t. So consider replacing a couple of your rap songs about snorting lines in strip clubs with songs about love and living a happy life if you’re in need for a positivity boost.