Do you know what music people like listening to? If you ask them，you may likely get many different answers.Why do different people have different musical preferences(偏好)? What do these differences say about us?

Researchers from Cambridge University set out to answer these questions.They asked 350，000 people from 50 different countries.Then，they discovered musical preferences have some relation with personality.Outgoing people，for example，prefer danceable music with strong beats such as rap.Country music fans are shown to be more serious in their jobs.One of the findings is quite interesting.The researchers thought that people with much stress should like either sad music or rhythmic(有节奏的) music.But it turned out that these people like neither.

Instead，they prefer loud music.Perhaps they like to listen to this kind of music to lower their stress.

The researchers also found that climates(气候) may influence people's musical preferences and personalities.People in hot weather prefer danceable music.They are more outgoing.This may be a result of longer daylight hours.They encourage people to go outdoors to dance.

Of course，nothing is clearcut.We may not group people simply by their musical tastes.The Cambridge study just showed us that people of different cultures are more similar than we think."People are divided by language and culture，" said Dr.David Grenberg，the leading researcher."But if an outgoing person in one part of the world likes the same music as outgoing people elsewhere，then we can say that music is really like a bridge."