The personality characteristics of rock and popular musicians were examined in a sample of 100 musicians who completed the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and a questionnaire about musical background and experience. Profile analysis revealed that rock musicians share a common profile of high Neuroticism and Openness to Experience, average Extraversion and low Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. No background factors such as instrument played, type of music performed, time spent playing, level of musicianship or commercial success moderated this finding. These results are compared with previous research on classical and rock musicians.
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Gillespie et al. (2000) studied this question.
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