Accounting for Taste

Different taste in music is directly affecting with personality. In the article, the authors make different assumptions that if that person likes certain kinds of music,  he/she would most likely end up having an corresponding behavior or personality. There are some points they suggest are interesting. For example, there is a part about visual effect. "Sensation-seeking people didn't just enjoy the movie more; they actually salivated more, indicating higher levels of alertness and cognitive processing." This is an interesting fact that people who are described to be sensitive does not have to be a negative comment. Sensitive can be said to be more caution and better information or image reception. I think using horror movies to bring the this result is quite surprising. However, there is a debatable part about the linkage between music and personality. They have an interpretation of different music types resulting a specific type of personality. It mentions, "We assume fans of mainstream popular artists are uncreative and conventional, for instance, or that fans of energetic vocal music are gregarious and sociable." The assumption of pop music listeners is not accurate. I don't think that listening to pop music means that it is not original. There are a lot of creative people who love pop music. It seems to be a bias or even discriminated against pop music listeners. As well as for the fans of energetic vocal music, they are not necessary to be upbeat and sociable. If the writers decided to make these assumptions, they should provide more information to support their ideas. Lack of examples and evidence makes this part to be the weakest part of the whole article.

Relationship between degrading lyrics and sexual activities

After reading the article Exposure to Degrading Versus Nondegrading Music Lyrics and Sexual Behavior Among Youth, I can see that the authors are trying to make one main point - degrading music lyrics is directly influencing the teens' perception of sexual activities in a negative way. It means that these degrading lyrics brings teens into active sexual activities earlier than they should be. It encourages teens to be more active in sex because this should be the norm of the society. I agree that the more exposure of degrading lyrics to teens creates an high percentage of early sex activities because teens are curious at that stage, especially sex. And music is the most common and easiest thing they are in touch with. Automatically, all the doubts about sex they have will link to the music content.Due to the fact that some teens do not have proper guidance from school or parents, they follow whatever they perceive from the surroundings. Another scenario will be teens' worship of some specific singers who do have degrading music. Teens will start to do what the lyrics said because they look up to those people. I think deep down in their hearts, they have already been influenced by these suggestive degrading lyrics. The article has also mentioned that the music video has a huge relationship with the early sex behaviors. It states, "Adding a visual portrayal of sex may reinforce sexual lyrics not only by increasing the number of sexual cues in the message but also by aiding the interpretation of the meaning of a song and clarifying ambiguous lyrics"(68). Clearly, music video emphases the sexual content and even visualized it. Even though the teens who do not know what the lyrics is about can easily imitate the behavior in the music video. Foe example, Rihanna and Lady Gaga are two of the most popular singers among the teens. Their songs are widely heard by more teens or even children. But some of their songs contain degrading lyrics such as "Rude Boy" and "S&M" by Rihanna, "Love Game" by Lady Gaga. These songs are highly popular among people but the lyrics seem to describe the sexual actions of having intercourse. I think this would make the teens want to try it, especially the ones who never have sex before. So these songs are sex encouraging.