The kind of music kids listen to when they’re 12 seems to predict their chances of being delinquent at age 16 better than it predicts their current delinquency and even better than their music preferences at 16 predict delinquency at the same age, according to a study from the Netherlands.
The study, published in the February edition of Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, found that 12-year-olds who like some types of music—specifically, rock (including heavy metal, Gothic, and punk), African-American music (rhythm and blues, hip-hop), and electronic dance music (trance, techno/hardhouse)—are more likely to engage in delinquent behavior when they’re 16 than 12-year-olds who like other types of music, including conventional pop (chart pop), classical, and jazz.
This study doesn’t give in to the notion held by many senior citizens that rock music makes kids evil. Rather, it adds to our knowledge that music is a significant component in the lives of young people today, as it has been in the past. It’s an observational study, conducted with a questionnaire, so it can’t show a causation, and the correlations are in the .15 range, which is pretty low. Still, the types of music you like when you’re 12 seem to predict the chances you’ll be delinquent at age 16.
Now, scientists have for decades been able to link preferences among adolescents for loud, rebellious, and so-called “deviant” music with problem behavior, such as delinquency, promiscuity, and substance abuse. But here we have evidence that music preferences in middle school are a better predictor of delinquency in high school than they are even of delinquency in middle school. That’s what’s new in the current study.
More importantly perhaps, this study suggests music preferences for 16-year-olds don’t seem to predict delinquency in those 16-year-olds nearly as well as their music preferences at age 12 do. This difference may occur because music preferences change during adolescence or because 12-year-olds are just connecting neurons in the brain at a higher rate. That is, the music they like when they’re 12 is more in tune with their developing brain than the music they like when they’re 16.
As far as changing music preferences are concerned, researchers determined that the average preference for chart pop and trance declined linearly as children grew from 12 to 16, while a significant increase in the preference for classical music, jazz, and techno/hardhouse was found in middle to late adolescence. Preferences for R&B, hip-hop, and rock (as well as metal, Gothic, and punk) didn’t change significantly between age 12 and 16.