Music plays a vital role in the life of adolescents contributing to their cognitive development, self-perception, peer socialization and social perception, and helping them regulate their mood. This research was aimed to examine the functions that music has in the life of adolescents, their musical preferences and personality traits as important factors in forming musical taste, while controlling for the sociodemographic variables of gender, school success and musical education of the participants. In the theoretical part of the dissertation, the following factors influencing musical preferences were referred to: music characteristics, listener characteristics, music listening context, media and personality traits. Furthermore, these theoretical models of musical preferences were explained: Interactive Theory of Music Preferences (LeBlanc, 1981), Reciprocal-Feedback Model of Response to Music (Hargreaves et al., 2005) and Revised Reciprocal-Feedback Model of Response to Music (Hargreaves et al., 2012). Personality traits, as a significant factor influencing an individual’s musical preferences, have been defined through several personality theories. Special emphasis was placed on the Five-Factor Personality Model (Costa and McCrae, 1992) as the most famous personality model based on the lexical approach, which was used in the research. The model includes five main personality factors that determine personality: extraversion/introversion, neuroticism-emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness and intellect (Dobrota and Reić Ercegovac, 2016). The chapter on the functions of music addresses the reasons for listening to music in adolescence, the messages that young people receive through music, and the function of music in prevention and intervention in adolescents. In this chapter, we have applied the classification of the functions of music according to the model proposed by Boer et al. (2012) known as the Respect-Music Scale, which includes ten factors: the function of social bonding through music with friends; family bonding; venting; emotions; dance; background function; focus; politic; cultural identity and expressing personal values. Empirical research was conducted in Split among graduates of three high schools: 1st Secondary School of Languages, 3rd Secondary School with Extended Program in Science and Mathematics,“Vladimir Nazor”. A total of 295 students participated in the research (F = 166, M = 129). Most of the survey was conducted in the middle of the second semester of 2019/2020, after which schools were closed due to the global pandemic of the COVID-19 virus, so the second part of the survey (30% of the questionnaire) was conducted at the beginning of the first semester of 2020/2021. The questionnaire consisted of four parts: the Listener Characteristics Questionnaire, the IPIP-50 Junior S Questionnaire (Mlačić and Goldberg, 2007), the Respect-Music Scale (Boer and Fischer, 2011) and the STOMP (Short Test of Music Preferences) Questionnaire (Rentfrow and Gosling, 2003). The Listener Characteristics Questionnaire contained 12 closed-ended questions that collected data on the sociodemographic characteristics of the participants: age and gender, school performance, leisure activities and musical experience of adolescents. In the second part of the questionnaire, the personality traits of adolescents were examined using the IPIP-50 Junior S Questionnaire (Mlačić and Goldberg, 2007), which contained 50 items describing the usual behaviors of children and young people. These 50 statements are divided into five personality traits, each of which is measured by 10 items. The task of the participants was to evaluate on a Likert-type scale how much a certain item applies to them. The third part of the questionnaire referred to the functions of music in the life of adolescents. It contained the Respect-Music Scale and consisted of 45 items. Compared to the initial version of the Scale, ten statements were omitted that were not sufficiently saturated with any of the nine extracted factors. The final version of the Scale consisted of 35 statements. By performing exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation, nine factors were extracted, because the background and the focus function of music were combined into one factor – focusing. The nine extracted roots explained 73.399 % of the variance of the music functions. In the fourth part of the questionnaire, the musical preferences of adolescents were examined with the help of the STOMP questionnaire, which contained 16 musical excerpts divided into four musical styles: reflexive-complex (classical music, jazz, blues and folk); intense-rebellious (rock, alternative and heavy metal); upbeat-conventional (pop, country, religious and film music); and energetic-rhythmic (rap/hip-hop, soul/funk and electronic/dance music) (Rentfrow and Gosling, 2003). From each musical style, four representative compositions of the musical style were chosen. Compositions of the same style were not listened to consecutively, and in addition to the factor of liking a certain composition, the 148 participants also indicated the familiarity of an individual composition. By applying exploratory factor analysis, the factor structure of the Music Preferences Questionnaire with all 16 items was verified, but the resulting structure did not replicate the original and expected 4-factor structure. By checking the reliability of the four assumed factors, it was observed that all items of the energetic-rhythmic style have low reliability and that one item of the upbeat-conventional style significantly impairs the otherwise satisfactory reliability of that factor. After omitting those five items of musical excerpts, a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on three factors. With regard to the set goal of the research, three problems were defined: 1) to check the factor structure of the Music Functions Questionnaire and Music Preferences Scale and their metrical characteristics; 2) to examine the connection between sociodemographic characteristics, personality traits, functions of music and musical preferences; 3) determine the individual contribution of sociodemographic characteristics, personality traits and functions of music in explaining the variance of musical preferences of different musical styles. In accordance with the mentioned research problems, a hypothesis was formulated according to which all groups of predictors will significantly contribute to the explanation of the variance of musical preferences, that the functions of music will be positively related to musical preferences and to certain personality traits, and that personality traits, especially openness to experience, will significantly contribute to the explanation of the variance of musical preferences. In addition, one of the initial expectations was that female participants would rate all functions of music as more important compared to male participants. The results of the research showed that all musical styles are correlated with sociodemographic features (gender and higher grades) and all functions of music, except the political function and the function of cultural identity, and with personality traits, particularly agreeableness and intellect. Gender as an important determinant of musical preferences in the conducted research showed a positive correlation with all functions of music except political, the function of cultural identity and spiritual function of music. As for school success, it was found that grades are a sociodemographic factor that has a strong correlation with the musical preferences of adolescents. The musical education of the participants did not prove to be an important factor in relation to musical preferences, which can be explained by the relatively small proportion of participants who had a musical education (16.6%). The greatest correlation between musical 149 preferences and personality traits in the conducted research was shown in the traits of agreeableness and intellect. Agreeableness was the most important correlate of musical preferences as a personality trait positively correlated with the traits of conscientiousness and emotional stability, while intellect was shown to be correlated with a reflexive-complex musical style that includes classical and jazz music. The social function of music was found to be the most important, through the function of social bonding with the family in all three musical styles. Since 2020 was the year of the global pandemic of the COVID-19 virus, the result turned out to be expected considering the context in which the research was conducted, because that time period was significantly marked by extremely strict measures such as lockdown, social distancing and bans on social events and gatherings. In addition to social bonding with the family, social bonding with friends proved to be important for adolescents, mostly through popular music that belongs to the upbeat-conventional style. Based on the results of the research, it can be concluded that music is very important to adolescents. Music represents an important leisure activity and the values that derive from the functions of music, musical preferences and personality traits are all aimed at togetherness and socialization. Social functions of music were found to be the most important in the life of adolescents; therefore, it can be assumed that group work is one of the ways in which these values can be used in teaching. Group work in music lessons could help adolescents mature and understand music better, and consequently to use it more functionally.