Genes affect how much we enjoy music, scientists say

Music is a central element of human emotion and culture—does the ability to enjoy music have a biological basis?

To answer this question, a twin study published in the journal Nature Communications found that enjoyment of music is partly heritable. An international team—led by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands—identified genetic factors that influence how much people enjoy music, and these factors are partly distinct from the genes that affect general reward sensitivity or musical ability.

According to a report on Science Daily, music plays an important role in human emotions, social bonds, and cultural expression. As Darwin previously noted, music "must be ranked among the most mysterious of the traits with which man is endowed." But why do people enjoy music?

Music (iStock)

A big question

Lead author Giacomo Bignardi says: "Answering this big question may open a window onto broader aspects of the human mind, such as how experiences become sources of pleasure," adding that the research team sought to "understand whether genetic differences between individuals lead to variation in how much pleasure people derive from music, and what these differences can tell us about human musical sensibility more generally."

Genetic factors

To test whether genetic factors contribute to enjoyment of music—or what is called "sensitivity to musical reward"—the researchers used the twin-study method, which compares similarities between identical (genetically identical) and non-identical (fraternal) twins. Simply put, if identical twins are more similar than fraternal twins on a trait, this points to a genetic role.

Music (iStock)

Perception of musical features

In collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Germany and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, the team used data from more than 9,000 twins; these data included self-reported measures of how much participants enjoy music and their general reward sensitivity, as well as their ability to perceive musical features such as pitch, melody, and rhythm.

Partly a genetic trait

The results showed that the capacity to feel pleasure from music is partly heritable; using the twin-study approach, the researchers estimated that 54% of the variance in musical enjoyment in the Swedish sample was attributable to differences in DNA between individuals. They also found that the genetic influences on music-related reward sensitivity are partly independent of general reward sensitivity and of musical perceptual abilities, concluding that distinct genetic pathways affect different aspects of musical enjoyment, such as emotion regulation, dancing to a beat, or playing with others.

A complex picture

Bignardi concludes: "These results point to a complex picture in which partially distinct genetic differences contribute to different aspects of musical enjoyment. Future research that investigates which parts of the genome contribute most to the human capacity to enjoy music could shed light on that human faculty that puzzled Darwin more than others, and that still puzzles scientists today."