A new study, published in the journal Personal relationshipsfound that the lyrics of people’s favorite songs tend to match their attachment styles. I could have saved them the hassle and shown them my Spotify Wrapped from 2018, the year I was dumped unceremoniously by my ex (thanks, Ariana Grande’s next one was my most played song ever year – despite the fact that it came out in November) – but whatever.
For the study, researchers from the University of Toronto asked 570 people to name about a dozen of their favorite tracks, then looked at each song’s lyrics for key feelings and emotions. After analyzing over 7,000 songs, they discovered that a A person’s favorite tunes not only reflect their thoughts and feelings, but can also reveal their attachment style.
“I’m interested in the role music plays in people’s lives. Ever since humans started making music tens of thousands of years ago, songs across cultures have always focused on relationships – making one, maintaining one, or breaking one – so I am wondering if people listen to music that reflects their experiences in relationships? said Dr. Ravin Alaei, lead author of the study.
For the unenlightened, attachment theory was first developed by British psychologist John Bowlby. This suggests that the bonds people form in their early years of childhood impact how they form other relationships later in life, and therefore it is possible to predict patterns in life. how people navigate their adult relationships. There are four possible “attachment styles”: secure, anxious, avoidant, and anxious-avoidant.
Security is obviously the best attachment style – it means you are healthy, confident and comfortable in your relationships. SA person with an anxious attachment style, on the other hand, may constantly check when their partner was last online on WhatsApp and panic if their missed call is not returned within ten minutes. If you avoid, you’ll go the other way and struggle to be emotionally vulnerable with your partner, accusing them of being “needy” for wanting to tell you about their bad day at work. And if you’re really screwed, you can avoid anxiety, which is a bit of both (according to an online quiz I just took, I fall into that category, which is great news).
According to the Toronto study, people with secure attachment styles preferred happy songs like I got you baby by Sonny & Cher (“Tthen put your little hand in mine / There’s no hill or mountain we can’t climb”), which Alaei describes as “pretty much a manual on how to be safely tied up”. The anxiously attached opted for more mournful songs like Adele’s Someone Like You (“I guess she gave you things that I didn’t give you”)while avoiders loved TLC’s No Scrubs (“No, I don’t want your number”). The anxious-avoidants, on the other hand, expressed a preference for Rihanna and Drake’s Work (“work work work work work work”).
“Lyrics matter, so pay attention to them,” says Alaei. “The lyrics to your favorite relationship songs can help validate your thoughts and feelings, but can also reveal things about your relationship experiences that you may not have realized — something you go through repeatedly. , which you constantly encounter. ” BOTA (the baddest of them all) is one of my favorite songs of the last year, so my main takeaway is that I really am the baddest of them all.
Alaei has some additional tips. “As an anxious person, you have to recognize that you are vulnerable to a negative feedback loop and your emotions are snowballing. Music can be a very powerful exacerbator of this. So listening to Olivia Rodrigo lament ‘I I’m so sick of myself/I’d rather be, rather be/Anyone, anyone else” might not be doing wonders for my self-esteem after all? What a surprise!
But surely it’s acceptable – helpful, even – to listen to a song that matches your mood? Admittedly, it’s a little complacent, but isn’t it one of the functions of art: to remind us that we are not alone in our suffering? “Listen to the song several times to help you understand what you are going through and express your thoughts and feelings. You can decide whether listening to songs that reflect your experiences helps you or reinforces self-destructive behaviors,” says Alaei. But – he adds – “at some point you may find it more productive to listen to music that provides a sense of security”.
