Psychology Tells Us ... Crap

For two or three decades I had a simple and very effective policy regarding psychology and its pompous pronouncements about human nature: they were all crap. I simply stopped believing in modern psychology as a whole. Completely solved my neuroses because I no longer believed in the existence of neuroses. I loved telling people I had no psychological problems.

Then I ran into Jordan Peterson and had to admit that he had a lot of very wise stuff to say. I even did his online psychological evaluation and it made a lot of sense. But, you know, I still think most psychology is crap. And here is a lovely example: Psychology tells us why older people don’t enjoy new music.

As I’ve grown older, I’ll often hear people my age say things like “they just don’t make good music like they used to.”

Why does this happen?

Luckily, my background as a psychologist has given me some insights into this puzzle.

First of all, let's unpack that a bit. Turns out that it is not "psychology" that is telling us anything. It is rather Francis T. McAndrew, a professor of psychology at an obscure liberal arts college in Illinois, Knox College, whose homepage looks like a marketing seminar gone over the edge on psychedelic drugs.

We know that musical tastes begin to crystallize as early as age 13 or 14. By the time we’re in our early 20s, these tastes get locked into place pretty firmly.

His first link, on the phrase "begin to crystallize" is to a mainstream report on a study of data from Spotify exclusively confined to pop music. So, we need to add this caveat: one psychologist, using undefined statistical methods, found that people who use Spotify and just listen to pop music tend to have the development of their musical tastes arrested in their early adolescence. Well I for one am not too surprised!

But then in the next paragraph he comes up with an entirely different claim:

In fact, studies have found that by the time we turn 33, most of us have stopped listening to new music. Meanwhile, popular songs released when you’re in your early teens are likely to remain quite popular among your age group for the rest of your life.

So is it early teens or is it thirty-three? That first link is to an article about a "study" by Deezer, a music streaming service:

according to a new survey from Deezer, which suggests people stop discovering new music at just 30 and a half.

The music streaming service surveyed 1,000 Brits about their music preferences and listening habits. 60% of people reported being in a musical rut, only listening to the same songs over and over, while just over a quarter (25%) said they wouldn't be likely to try new music from outside their preferred genres.

So is is thirty-three or just thirty and a half? In contrast to the other "study" this one found that the peak year for discovering new music was twenty-four. Also, I really think it is a stretch to call something a "study" when it is just an informal survey of people using a particular service. And again, we are given no hint as to the methodology.

Let's rephrase this all over again: a number of different, highly informal surveys, come up with wildly different estimates of at what point in life people who listen primarily to pop music tend to discover new music or tend to stop discovering new music.

I get this approach, by the way, from my first philosophy professor who would assign us texts making outrageous claims and then, when we argued vehemently against them, would calmly pace back and forth until we finished. Then he would ask, "may I re-phrase that?" After reducing our rants to a succinct philosophical position or claim, he would then demolish it quite handily. Nice thing to learn how to do.

Turns out that all these "studies" and "scientific" claims that we keep seeing in the mainstream media, all turn to mist and vapor when closely examined. Let's call them collectively "vaportruths."

Let me survey myself, just for your entertainment. I was born in 1951 so my musical tastes were supposedly shaped by the music of the middle sixties when I was in my mid-teens (according to still other "studies"). That would include the Beatles whom I do in fact enjoy. But it would also include the Rolling Stones, Eric Burden and the Animals, the Dave Clark Five, Herman's Hermits, Vanilla Fudge and a host of others whom I do not enjoy. Incredible String Band were ok, and yes, I do like Cream. After 1970 I quit listening to pop music entirely for about a decade. Then in the early 80s I heard some stuff I liked from the Talking Heads, David Bowie and the Police. All the other stuff I didn't like. I pretty much missed the 90s as well. The next thing I heard that I liked was Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" in 2009. Unfortunately I didn't much like anything else she did. Then, a couple of years ago I discovered Kanye West and I have liked quite a few things from him. So that's the pop history.

The classical history is rather more complex. Sometime around 1969 a friend played a recording of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto for me and I was very impressed. It seemed to me head and shoulders above any other music I was familiar with. I soon started listening to other classical music and particularly liked Dvorak, Debussy and similar symphonic music. Then I discovered Bach and the Mass in B minor in particular. I also started listening to Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert, again, symphonic music. When I attended university in 1971 I became acquainted with a whole bunch of other music courtesy of Music History 101 that included everything from Gregorian Chant to Machaut, to Monteverdi, to Corelli, to Schumann, to Wagner, to Bartók, to Berg, well, you get the idea. It's a survey course. In six months you get hustled through a thousand years of music history.

So that's the first two years of my encounter with classical music. I think it is safe to say that in the nearly fifty years since, I have become acquainted with at least one new piece of music every week and one significant new composer every year. Right now I am rediscovering Arnold Schoenberg for about the fourth time. The really important composers you "discover" several times at different stages in your life.

Hey, let's listen to some Machaut! Here is a piece, his Messe de Notre Dame, that the professor in that music history course, one Dr. Christine Mather, used to say was really important. The performers are the Ensemble Gilles Binchois: