Metalhead children of the 1980s are well: scientific study shows that they have become well -adjusted adults

by Finn Patraic

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In the 1980s, Parents' musical resources center (PMRC), an organization co -founded by Tipper Gore and the wives of several other Washington Power brokers, launched a political campaign against pop music, in the hope of putting warning labels on files that have promoted sex, violence, drugs and alcohol. Along the way, the PMRC expressed “The dirty fifteen», A list of 15 particularly reprehensible songs. has created a list of blackballed rock groupsAnd it looked almost the same.)

Above, you can watch Dee Snider by Twisted Sister appear before the Congress in 1985 and accuse the PMRC of having misinterpreted the words of his group and to wage a false war against metal music. Evidence 40 years later suggests that Snider may have one point.

A study by researchers in psychology at Humboldt state,, Ohio State,, UC Riverside And UT Austin “Examined groups, musicians and heavy metal fans from the 1980s to the mature age” – 377 participants in total – and found that, although metal enthusiasts certainly lived a more risky life as a child, they were nevertheless “much happier in their youth and better adjusted today than the comparison groups of university or current age.” This has left the researchers to contemplate a possible conclusion: “Participation in fringe style cultures can improve the development of identity in young people in difficulty.” Without forgetting that Heavy Metal's words do not easily transform children into damaged products.

You can read the report, Three decades later: life experiences and functioning half-life Groups of heavy metal workers from the 1980s here. And, just above, listen to an interview with one of the researchersTasha Howe, an old head of the head herself, who spoke yesterday with Michael Krasny on Kqed radio in San Francisco.

Note: a previous version of this article appeared on our site in July 2015.

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