Mixing Correlation with Causation in Music
It’s essential when examining data from studies of music to not mix correlation with causation. For example, let’s say, that someone creates a study that shows that listening to “this” type of music is says “this” about your personality. The music may not be the cause. There may be other factors that will make a person more likely to display certain behaviors.
Socioeconomic status, culture, and exposure all have a huge impact on many facets of our lives. To make a broad claim and blame the music is to discount all the other subtle and apparent factors that shape human personality. Listening to certain music doesn’t tell you much beyond you like this particular song, it may provide hints and possibilities, but it is not a hard, indisputable fact.
There are other things to consider. Take confirmation biases for example. Let’s say, “listening to a certain type of music makes you “smart.” Naturally, people who are claimed to be smart will agree with the notion, that’s just human nature. The problem is that anecdotal evidence is not conducive to the fact, and the word “smart” comes with a plethora of meanings. Someone could be academically brilliant but not very street smart. Generalized terms and expressions do little to describe the nature of results from a study adequately.
As Nate Silver once said, “Most of you will have heard the maxim, “correlation does not imply causation.” Just because two variables have a statistical relationship with each other does not mean that one is responsible for the other. For instance, ice cream sales and forest fires are correlated because both occur more often in the summer heat. But there is no causation; you don’t light a patch of the Montana brush on fire when you buy a pint of Haagan-Dazs.”