In Bret Easton Ellis's book 'American Psycho', the protagonist Patrick Bateman famously had a love of '80s acts like Phil Collins and Huey Lewis.

If the book was set in modern times, however, Bateman might have been listening to Justin Bieber - or at least that's what one study has ascertained. According to researchers at NYU's Psychology Department, their study concluded that psychopaths are more likely to listen to the likes of Bieber than they are classical music or what appears to be 'aggressive' music like heavy metal.

190 NYU students filled out a questionnaire that rated their psychopathic tendencies, and then asked them to rate a number of songs and different styles of music. The result was that those with the most psychopathic tendencies gravitated toward 20 or so of the same songs - most notably Bieber's 'What Do You Mean?', Eminem's 'Lose Yourself' and Blackstreet's 'No Diggity'.

Songs that scored lower on the scale included The Knack's 'My Sharona' and Dire Straits' 'Money for Nothing'.

Although the study hasn't yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal - nor has a pattern for a type of music that psychopaths gravitate toward been established - we reckon they may be on to something...

Via The Washington Post