Birds of a Feather Flock Together: The Overlap and Structure of Psychiatric Disorders, Personality, and Culture: Part 1 - Hip Hop and Country Music
Birds of a Feather Flock Together: The Overlap and Structure of Psychiatric Disorders, Personality, and Culture: Part 1 - Hip Hop and Country Music
Hip Hop & Rap
The culture associated with hip hop and rap music, as demonstrated in common lyrical themes, and the characteristics of its artists and listeners is broadly associated with traits that mark fast life history strategies, and mental disorders associated with fast life history strategies. Most studies on music genre preferences and personality group together hip hop with electronic and dance preferences via factor analysis (e.g., Rentfrow & Gosling 2003), the covariance between preferences for hip hop and electronic likely reflects aesthetic preferences (i.e., how it sounds) rather than personal meaning, as the personality correlates of hip hop preference are much different than the correlates of electronic music preference when looked at separately (Zweigenhaft 2008). However, the limited data available still suggests a clear association of hip hop affiliation and psychological traits. Zweigenhaft (2008) found that people who preferred hip hop had higher levels of extraversion, openness (specifically aesthetics, feelings, and values, which primarily relate to the lower level aesthetics/imagination aspect of openness rather than the intellect aspect; Allen & DeYoung 2016), impulsiveness (neuroticism facet), and lower levels of straightforwardness (agreeableness facet) and self-discipline (conscientiousness facet). At the higher level, this shows an association with hip hop preference and the meta-trait plasticity - made up of extraversion and openness, and low stability - made up of high agreeableness, conscientiousness, and low neuroticism (Allen & DeYoung 2016). Carpentier et al. (2002) found that people who showed a preference for rock or rap songs with socially defiant themes had higher levels of disinhibition and rebelliousness. Miranda & Claes (2004) showed that adolescents who showed a preference for rap music were more likely to engage in socially deviant behaviors such as drug use and theft. These findings overall show an association between preferring hip hop and rap with fast life history strategy traits. Hip hop has been accused as creating the associated traits and behaviors, however this is unlikely the case and instead people with such traits are driven toward it due to the relatability of the music - in fact rap music has been successfully implemented as part of therapy programs (Kirkland & King 2019) effectively reducing the traits and behaviors hip hop is accused of encouraging.
Common themes in hip hop music reflect traits and experiences associated with fast life history strategies, including harsh childhood environments (such as poverty, negative family relations, experiences of oppression, being surrounded by crime), experiences of mental illness - particularly mental illnesses associated with fast life history strategies (such as addiction, psychosis, paranoia, impulsivity, mood lability, conduct disorder, depression, and suicide), and behavioral and developmental correlates of fast life history strategies (such as sociosexuality, early maturation, social deviance) (Kirkland & King 2019)(Lopez-Rogina 2015)(Kresovich et al. 2021). Del Giudice (2018) discusses the relationships of the mentioned traits and experiences with fast life history strategies. Lyrical content of hip hop often discusses taboo and ‘sensitive’ topics in a manner that is raw and uninhibited, which deters individuals high in disgust sensitivity - a strong correlate of life history strategies (Del Giudice 2018), which can be seen in common societal perceptions about rap music as glorifying immorality and lacking meaning (Kirkland & King 2019) - it is likely that these perceptions are held by individuals with slower life history strategies that are averse to disgusting, sensitive, or ‘offensive’ topics and language and also lack experiential knowledge of the topics in hip hop. While to my knowledge no study has investigated the relationship between preference for hip hop and psychiatric disorders directly, based on the available evidence, people meeting criteria for antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, ADHD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia spectrum disorders likely make up a notably higher portion of hip hop listeners and artists than the general population. Low conscientiousness, agreeableness, impulsivity, rebelliousness, criminality, high sociosexuality, and social deviance are associated with all of the mentioned psychiatric disorders (Del Giudice 2018). High openness (especially the aesthetics/imagination facet) is associated with bipolar and schizophrenia spectrum disorders (Del Giudice 2018), and both openness and schizotypal traits are associated with introspection, criticism of society and common ways of thinking, and spirituality (Cloudfindings 2023b), which are common themes in rap music (Kirkland & King 2019)(Lopez-Rogina 2015)(Kresovich et al. 2021)(Solli 2015). Disinhibition and rebelliousness are defining characteristics of secondary psychopathy (Benning et al. 2003). Impulsiveness, suicidal behavior, mood lability, unstable relationships, and addiction are associated particularly with borderline personality disorder (Zanarini et al. 2003). Primary psychopathy is associated with exploitative attitudes and criminality, including positive attitudes toward gaining personal wealth using ways that are socially considered immoral (Levenson et al. 1995), which would characterize ‘gangster’ lifestyles, which are a common theme in hip hop. Hip hop subgenres likely correlate with specific psychological traits in addition to hip hop overall - political, philosophical, and non-conformist themes in hip hop may attract individuals with schizotypal traits, “emo” rap may attract individuals with borderline traits, and gangsta rap may attract individuals with primary and secondary psychopathic traits.
Country and Hip Hop as Diametrically Opposed Cultures
If a certain culture is associated with a particular pattern of psychological traits, this implies that there will be an “opposite” culture associated with the opposite pattern of psychological traits. With hip hop music, country music seems to be the best fitting as diametrically opposed cultures [Table 1]. Using the correlations of music genres with big five traits from Zweigenhaft (2008), I conducted a principal components analysis with genres as the variables, and relevant personality traits and facets (that seemed to be related to multiple genres) as observations, each genres scores being the correlation with the personality trait. The results strongly support the characterization of hip hop and country music as diametrically opposed cultures, hip hop loading in the exact opposite direction of country [Figure 1]. The personality traits were superimposed over the genres by their factor scores, multiplied by 2 in order to match the range of scores for the genres. Schizotypal, borderline, narcissistic, paranoid, and histrionic personality disorders show the highest amount of difference in prevalence between cities and rural areas, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder having the lowest, being the only disorder not found to be more prevalent in cities (Masaik et al. 2014). Schizotypy, narcissism, and borderline traits are opposed to obsessive-compulsive personality disorder in their relationship with life history strategy, fast and slow respectively (Del Giudice 2018). OcPD associates largely with higher conscientiousness (Cloudfindings 2023a), and schizotypy with lower conscientiousness (Cloudfindings 2023b), conscientiousness being associated positively with preference for country, negatively with preference for rap. Given these findings, it is possible that people who listen to the country may have higher rates of OcPD, however there isn’t much research on the topic to confirm this. People with OcPD are less sociable and tend to dislike working with other people (Cloudfindings 2022), which may be a factor in driving whether individuals are born in or move to rural areas; OcPD is also associated with anxiety and a need for control (Cloudfindings 2022), and living in a city may reduce the ability of a person to be protected and have control over what goes on. OcPD associates with disgust sensitivity (Cloudfindings 2024), and given that disgusting and antisocial behaviors are more visible and likely to encounter in cities, this provides another reason for individuals with OcPD to avoid cities.
Table 1
Figure 1
Rentfrow & Gosling (2003) The do re mi's of everyday life: the structure and personality correlates of music preferences.
Zweigenhaft (2008) A do re mi encore: A closer look at the personality correlates of music preferences
Del Giudice (2018) Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach
Allen & DeYoung (2016) Personality Neuroscience and the Five-Factor Model
Carpentier et al. (2002) Rock, rap, and rebellion: comparisons of traits predicting selective exposure to defiant music
Miranda & Claes (2004) Rap Music Genres and Deviant Behaviors in French-Canadian Adolescents
Kirkland & King (2019) Rap and recovery: A music therapy process-oriented intervention for adults with concurrent disorders
Lopez-Rogina (2015) Rapping Out the Monsters: Exploring Mental Health Issues In Rap Music
Kresovich et al. (2021) A Content Analysis of Mental Health Discourse in Popular Rap Music
Cloudfindings (2023a) General Psychopathology Masks the Associations Between Psychiatric Disorders and Personality Traits
Cloudfindings (2023b) Schizotypal Fact Sheet (version 2)
Solli (2015) Battling illness with wellness: a qualitative case study of a young rapper’s experiences with music therapy
Benning et al. (2003) Factor structure of the psychopathic personality inventory: validity and implications for clinical assessment.
Zanarini et al. (2003) A screening measure for BPD: the McLean Screening Instrument for Borderline Personality Disorder (MSI-BPD)
Levenson et al. (1995) Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale
Bonneville-Roussy (2013) Music Through the Ages: Trends in Musical Engagement and Preferences From Adolescence Through Middle Adulthood
Mendis et al. (2021) Exploration of Music Preferences among the Socioeconomic Stereotypes: A Cross-Sectional Study
Mack & Martin (2024) Party rocking: Exploring the relationship between music preference, partisanship, and political attitudes
Sonnet (2021) Musical relationships: intersections of race, gender, genre, and listening situation
Endres (1993) A dramatistic analysis of family themes in the top 100 country songs of 1992
Hellson et al. (2018) The Foundation: Indigenous Hip Hop in Canada
Rentfrow et al. (2013) The geography of music preferences
Masiak et al. (2014) Stress, coping styles and personality tendencies of medical students of urban and rural origin
Cloudfindings (2022) Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder as an Autism Spectrum Disorder
Cloudfindings (2024) The Structure of Political Orientations and Underlying Psychological Causes: Part 1 - Statistical Extraction of a Psycho-Political Compass
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