“Musical Preferences and Personality Diagnosis: I. A Factorization of One Hundred and Twenty Themes”, 1954 (; backlinks; similar):
Probably the first sustained attempt to explore the value of music as therapy was made by a group of psychiatrists at the Walter Reed Hospital, during World War II, under the stimulus of the large number of psychiatric casualties requiring treatment. This first pragmatic approach has fortunately been developed into a more permanent research organization by one of the participants, Miss Paperte, in her creation of the Music Research Foundation. The present article proposes to review very briefly the nascent research in this area and to set out the results of a 3-year research project supported partly by the Music Research Foundation and partly by the Graduate School of the University of Illinois.
…The aim of the research report in this and 2 succeeding articles9, 10, sustained partly by the author’s own research resources and partly by the Bonfils Fellowship and other assistance from the Musical Research Foundation, has been to investigate relations between musical choice and personality, in normal and pathological subjects. Secondarily, it aims to produce a music choice test for personality diagnosis11.
…A preliminary list of 200 musical excerpts, from different periods, countries, and styles was tried out with about 50 students and was cut down to 120 by eliminating any piece which seemed very similar to any other or which for some peculiar reason of instrument or period was deemed likely to be unreliable. We then arranged for a skilled pianist to record the 120 excerpts on piano, since we wished to eliminate any chance effects which might be due to cultural attachments of the subjects to particular instruments.
…Factorization of like and dislike reactions to 120 musical excerpts by a population of 196 “normal” men and women in early maturity has yielded 12 factors, 8 of which are confirmed by 2 independent rotations of the material, one more moderately confirmed, and 3 awaiting further research.
Although the definition and soundness of simple structure for these factors is of a high order, little attempt has been made here to infer their nature from the particular association of musical likes and dislikes connected with them, though in some cases “hunches” indicated by the data are mentioned. Our general hypothesis that these independent dimensions of choice will turn out to be personality and temperament factors rather than patterns of specific musical content or school seems sufficiently sustained.
Research leading to more extensive interpretation of the psychological meaning of the factors should be possible now that I.P.A.T. has made the above excerpts available on a single, 12 ins. long-playing record11. Our own interpretations will wait on our use of this instrument in research directed to relating these factors to measured personality factors and pathological syndromes.