Minor Tonality Music Preference and Oral Dependency

Abstract

The literature on the affective connotations of musical tonality is reviewed, and the preference for minor (as opposed to major) tonality is hypothesized to relate to a stance of beseeching and need. This stance is congruent with the personality stereotype of oral dependence as it is formulated in psychoanalytic theory. Subjects (N = 108) were administered the Rorschach, which was scored for the psychosexual fixation areas by using content-scoring techniques; the subjects were also presented four musical passages, each of which was played on the piano in both major and minor key. Preference for minor tonality was shown to correlate with oral dependency, although the portion of variance accounted for by this relation was small. The modest confirmation of the hypothesis is discussed in the context of similar result patterns in other empirical studies of psychoanalytic theory.