5 Psychological Preferences for Consuming Media
The Journal of Personality recently report significant research into the dimensions and underlying causes of preferences in media-based entertainment. A recent article, Listening, Watching and Reading, reports on a study of 3000 people and their preferences for consuming different types of movies, books, music and other media-based entertainments. Five factors of preference stood out empirically including communal, aesthetic, dark, thrilling and cerebral.
”Those who score highly on the Communal dimension tend to enjoy media that involve people and relationships, including: daytime chat shows, romantic films, pop music, and cook books.High scorers on the Aesthetic dimension enjoy creative, abstract material, including: poetry, opera, and foreign films.The Dark dimension relates to intense, edgy, hedonistic material, including: heavy metal, horror films and erotica. The Thrilling Dimension is made up of adventure and fantasy material such as thrillers and sci fi.Finally, high scorers on the Cerebral dimension enjoy documentaries, news and current affairs.”
Preferences were the same across different media and were determined mostly by personality type not demographics. The sample size and diversity of the study was good.
Such research, although preliminary, is the first I found that gives specific media consumption profiles based upon cognitive or personality needs. It may have design implications for recommendation engines, media marketing strategies and services aimed at the 55% of our time we spending consuming entertainment media.
