Personality traits of adolescents with different musical preferences

The education and development of the younger generation remain pressing issues today, with schools playing a central role in this process. As the pace of individual development accelerates, new problems faced by adolescents emerge, rendering traditional approaches less effective and necessitating new strategies. Understanding the factors that influence adolescent personality development is therefore an important task for both psychology and the education system. In recent years, researchers have increasingly explored the connection between adolescents’ personal characteristics and their interests, inclinations, and preferences. Many authors point to a trend towards the simplification of musical tastes among adolescents, which may negatively impact their development. However, this area remains under-researched, which underscores the relevance of the present study. This empirical study investigates the relationship between adolescent students’ personality traits and their preferred musical genres. The research employed both standardized methods and a self-developed questionnaire. The findings suggest that adolescents who prefer structurally complex musical genres tend to exhibit higher levels of aggressiveness and trait anxiety. At the same time, no significant associations were found between musical preferences and temperament traits or character accentuations. The results may be of practical use to teacher-psychologists of educational institutions, particularly in the context of art therapy interventions, which, along with training sessions, remain the most widely used and proven method of working with adolescents.