Everyone should read the following article regarding the relationship between musical & reading taste and SAT scores:
Music that makes you dumb
A couple of points:
1. This is a really interesting analysis and does show how much interesting data there is out there to be analyzed.
2. Even though the author quoted “Correlation does not equal causation–duh”, the article STILL implies a causal link here! Beethoven will NOT make you get a higher test score! …nor will listening to rap make you get a lower one. At least, this data is not sufficient to demonstrate that relationship. It could be that that the causal arrow points the other direction–that getting lower or higher scores encourages greater empathy with a certain type of music or literature; or that a completely different (3rd variable) is responsible for both: for instance, low levels of cognitive complexity could lead to liking of particular music and books AND drive lower test scores.
Still, quite an interesting topic, even if the media reporting on it is typically flawed. On second thought, given the url of the original page created by the study author “booksthatmakeyoudumb.com”, I wonder how deeply this mistaken interpretation goes. I’ll have to check back some time when the site comes up again–at this point, both of the original sites have crashed due to increased traffic… Still, some good food for thought!