Listening, watching, and reading: the structure and correlates of entertainment preferences.

People spend considerable amounts of time and money listening to music, watching TV and movies, and reading books and magazines, yet almost no attention in psychology has been devoted to understanding individual differences in preferences for such entertainment. The present research was designed to examine the structure and correlates of entertainment genre preferences. Analyses of the genre preferences of more than 3,000 individuals revealed a remarkably clear factor structure. Using multiple samples, methods, and geographic regions, data converged to reveal five entertainment-preference dimensions: Communal, Aesthetic, Dark, Thrilling, and Cerebral. Preferences for these entertainment dimensions were uniquely related to demographics and personality traits. Results also indicated that personality accounted for significant proportions of variance in entertainment preferences over and above demographics. The results provide a foundation for developing and testing hypotheses about the psychology of entertainment preferences.

[1]  Theodor W. Adorno,et al.  Dialectic of Enlightenment , 2020 .

[2]  B. R. Schlenker.  Social psychology and science. , 1974 .

[3]  Elizabeth C. Hirschman,et al.  A multidimensional analysis of content preferences for leisure-time media. , 1985 .

[4]  D. Buss.  Selection, evocation, and manipulation. , 1987, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[5]  James B. Weaver,et al.  Exploring the links between personality and media preferences , 1991 .

[6]  W. Wood,et al.  Effects of media violence on viewers' aggression in unconstrained social interaction. , 1991, Psychological bulletin.

[7]  George Comstock,et al.  Television and the American child , 1991 .

[8]  L. A. Pervin.  Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research , 1992 .

[9]  G. Saucier.  Mini-markers: a brief version of Goldberg's unipolar big-five markers. , 1994, Journal of personality assessment.

[10]  Carolyn N. Hedley,et al.  Thinking and literacy : the mind at work , 1995 .

[11]  William C. Tirre,et al.  Reading interests: Their dimensionality and correlation with personality and cognitive factors , 1995 .

[12]  Richard Potts,et al.  Sensation seeking, television viewing motives, and home television viewing patterns , 1996 .

[13]  F. Hesse,et al.  Relative effectiveness and validity of mood induction procedures : a meta-analysis , 1996 .

[14]  S. Srivastava,et al.  The Big Five Trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. , 1999 .

[15]  L. R. Goldberg.  A broad-bandwidth, public domain, personality inventory measuring the lower-level facets of several five-factor models , 1999 .

[16]  Tally Katz‐Gerro,et al.  Cultural Consumption and Social Stratification: Leisure Activities, Musical Tastes, and Social Location , 1999 .

[17]  杨文秀,et al.  此处“personality”译法探析 , 2000 .

[18]  Adrian C. North,et al.  The importance of music to adolescents. , 2000, The British journal of educational psychology.

[19]  Koen van Eijck,et al.  Social Differentiation in Musical Taste Patterns , 2001 .

[20]  P. Rozin.  Social Psychology and Science: Some Lessons From Solomon Asch , 2001 .

[21]  Daniel R. Anderson,et al.  Early childhood television viewing and adolescent behavior: the recontact study. , 2001, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

[22]  D. Zillmann,et al.  Mood Management via the Digital Jukebox , 2002 .

[23]  E. Jephcott,et al.  Dialectic of Enlightenment , 2002 .

[24]  S. Gosling,et al.  PERSONALITY PROCESSES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES The Do Re Mi’s of Everyday Life: The Structure and Personality Correlates of Music Preferences , 2003 .

[25]  Shin-Kap Han,et al.  Unraveling the Brow: What and How of Choice in Musical Preference , 2003 .

[26]  James B. Weaver,et al.  Individual differences in television viewing motives , 2003 .

[27]  James D. Johnson,et al.  The Influence of Media Violence on Youth , 2003, Psychological science in the public interest : a journal of the American Psychological Society.

[28]  John M. Malouff,et al.  UNIVERSITY STUDENT READING PREFERENCES IN RELATION TO THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS , 2004 .

[29]  Cheryl K. Olson.  Media Violence Research and Youth Violence Data: Why Do They Conflict? , 2004, Academic psychiatry : the journal of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training and the Association for Academic Psychiatry.

[30]  S. Gosling,et al.  e-Perceptions : Personality Impressions Based on Personal Websites , 2004 .

[31]  Amanda J. Holmstrom.  The Effects of the Media on Body Image: A Meta-Analysis , 2004 .

[32]  Paul Rozin,et al.  Mutual exposure or close peer relationships do not seem to foster increased similarity in food, music or television program preferences , 2004, Appetite.

[33]  G. Kraaykamp,et al.  Personality, media preferences, and cultural participation , 2005 .

[34]  David Gauntlett,et al.  Moving Experiences: Media Effects and Beyond , 2005 .

[35]  L. R. Goldberg.  Presidential Paper Doing it all Bass-Ackwards: The development of hierarchical factor structures from the top down , 2006 .

[36]  Brenda White,et al.  DEPARTMENT OF LABOR , 2006 .

[37]  S. Gosling,et al.  Message in a Ballad , 2006, Psychological science.

[38]  James A. Anderson,et al.  Media Violence and Aggression: Science and Ideology , 2007 .

[39]  J. Bryant,et al.  Temporal Changes in Mood Repair Through Music Consumption: Effects of Mood, Mood Salience, and Individual Differences , 2007 .

[40]  Lewis R. Goldberg,et al.  The Comparative Validity of 11 Modern Personality Inventories: Predictions of Behavioral Acts, Informant Reports, and Clinical Indicators , 2007, Journal of personality assessment.

[41]  Adrian C. North,et al.  Lifestyle correlates of musical preference: 2. Media, leisure time and music , 2007 .

[42]  C. Ferguson.  The school shooting/violent video game link: causal relationship or moral panic? , 2008 .

[43]  S. Gosling,et al.  The Secret Lives of Liberals and Conservatives: Personality Profiles, Interaction Styles, and the Things They Leave Behind , 2008 .

[44]  Rutger C. M. E. Engels,et al.  Adolescents' music preferences and personality characteristics , 2008 .

[45]  L. M. Ward,et al.  The role of the media in body image concerns among women: a meta-analysis of experimental and correlational studies. , 2008, Psychological bulletin.

[46]  Ronald E. Dahl,et al.  Sad Kids, Sad Media? Applying Mood Management Theory to Depressed Adolescents' Use of Media , 2008, Media psychology.

[47]  M. Kerr,et al.  Punks, Goths, and Other Eye-Catching Peer Crowds: Do They Fulfill a Function for Shy Youths? , 2009 .

[48]  S. Branje,et al.  The role of music preferences in early adolescents' friendship formation and stability. , 2009, Journal of adolescence.

[49]  The effects of media on body image , 2011 .