Photo Credit: Getty Images
New York University published a new study that found that Justin Beiber’s popular hit “What Do You Mean” ranked pretty high among people who were up on the psychopathy scale.
“The cliche is they [psychopaths] are all in prison, but they’re all over,” NYU psychology professor Pascal Wallisch told Jezebel.
The Washington Post reports that NYU researchers “wanted to find out if a preference for certain musical genres is correlated with psychopathy” through a questionnaire.
The researchers asked 190 psychology students questions and statements such as: “For me what’s right is whatever I can get away with” and “Love is overrated.”
The researchers then had the students listen to various songs of different genres and tones. The students rated them on a seven-point scale.
Researchers looked for correlations between which songs were popular and the students’ psychopathy scores. It turns out those with higher psychopathy scores liked Justin Bieber’s “What Do You Mean?”
Eminem’s “Lose Yourself,” and Blackstreet’s “No Diggity” also scored pretty high, but songs like Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” and The Knack’s 1979 pop-rock hit, “My Sharona” were reportedly not popular with psychopaths.
Previously, a survey conducted in the UK by Channel 4 found that those who prefer classical music and jazz are least likely to have psychopathic tendencies. Those who enjoyed rap and heavy metal scored higher on psychopathy tests.
The researchers will present their findings formally in Washington D.C. next week during a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.