Study on hearing + personality: Those who think a lot hear better

There are people who can at least concentrate on reading, perhaps even sleep without problems, despite construction noise, children screaming, and loud dogs barking. And then there are people who find even the loud whistling of the wind or the television from the apartment next door extremely disturbing. The sensitivity of our sense of hearing varies greatly. And as a study shows, it is also linked to our personality.

A group of researchers at the University of Lübeck examined hearing ability in relation to certain personality traits. They administered personality tests, primarily assessing emotional instability, to more than 1,000 participants. People with high levels of this trait tend to worry more often than others.

Study shows: People who worry more hear better

The result: Both subjective and objective hearing ability were better in people who tend to ruminate than in their more relaxed counterparts. And even in a difficult listening task, the test subjects demonstrated better objective hearing ability. "Our results show that personality is an important building block for understanding discrepancies in subjective and objective hearing performance," explains study leader Dr. Malte Wöstmann.

The result for subjective hearing ability was perhaps still predictable—after all, more emotionally unstable people would also be considered more sensitive in other areas. But the fact that brooders actually seem to have better hearing is still surprising. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that they are generally more attentive to the world. Often, perhaps even more attentive than they would like...

In any case, no one needs to accuse the brooding overthinkers of being too sensitive to loud noises anymore—after all, it's now scientifically proven that they DO ACTUALLY hear better. All that remains to be said is: Hurray for noise-cancelling headphones!

Brigitte

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