Daniel Levitin's The World in Six Songs (O2, O5)
Daniel Levitin, a neuroscientist and musician, wrote The World in Six Songs about how music shaped the human brain and human nature itself. He puts music at the center of the story, on its quotes page: "Anyone who wants to understand human nature, the interaction between brain and culture, between evolution and society, has to take a close look at the role that music has held in the lives of humans." His argument runs on two Big Five facets.
Being moved by music is Artistic Interests
The first is Artistic Interests (O2), under Openness, your responsiveness to art, beauty, and above all sound. Levitin notes how deep and shared that response runs, on the same page: "The dominant mode of musicality throughout the world and throughout history has been communal and participatory." A high scorer is moved by music and reaches for it. A lower scorer enjoys a song without being stirred to their core, and reads the book more as science than as recognition.
The science of why we sing is Intellect
The second is Intellect (O5), under Openness, the appetite to understand why we are the way we are. Levitin is not only celebrating music but explaining it, tracing how six kinds of song, from friendship to comfort to love, helped build human nature. A high scorer is drawn to that kind of big evolutionary question. A lower scorer would rather just listen than learn the mechanics, and takes the argument or leaves it.
Read your O2 and O5 to know how The World in Six Songs lands. If your artistic interests run high, Levitin gives your love of music a deep origin story. If your intellect runs high, his case that song made us human is a rich puzzle to chew on. The book is half hymn and half hypothesis. Levitin insists the music and the science are the same story.
Read the book: The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature by Daniel Levitin.
See Where You Fall
Where do you actually fall? The 30-facet OCEAN personality test takes about 15 minutes and scores all five domains and the facets underneath them. Take the test
Research Citations
Levitin, D. J. (2008). The world in six songs: How the musical brain created human nature. Dutton.
Blood, A. J., & Zatorre, R. J. (2001). Intensely pleasurable responses to music correlate with activity in brain regions implicated in reward and emotion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98(20), 11818-11823.
Johnson, J. A. (2014). Measuring thirty facets of the Five Factor Model with a 120-item public domain inventory: Development of the IPIP-NEO-120. Journal of Research in Personality, 51, 78-89.
Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) professional manual. Psychological Assessment Resources.