Who watches what? Gender and personality predict film preferences
Continuing our enthusiasm with sharing the results with our research, which would not be possible without the help of the kind myPersonality users who allow us to access their Facebook profile data, below we include a summary of some research into movie preferences by Olivia Chausson. Her full paper is available on our wiki.
Are you more likely to enjoy comedies if you’re an extrovert? Do boys like watching horror films more than girls do? Are male and female fans of fantasy sagas similar in terms of personality?
We investigated these intriguing questions by looking at the impact of gender and Big Five personality factors (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism) on nearly 30,000 British residents’ (aged 16-25) preferences for 5 types of films: Action, Comedy, Fantasy, Horror, and Romance. Our results are summarised in the table below where a + means that someone high in that personality trait enjoys that genre of film and a – means that someone high in that trait does not enjoy that genre of film:
| Genre | Openness | Consci. | Extraversion | Agreeableness | Neuroticism |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Action | + | + | - | ||
| Comedy | + | - | |||
| Fantasy | + | - | + | ||
| Horror | + | - | - | + | |
| Romance | + | + | + |
Some highlights include:
- Open individuals were more likely to enjoy comic and fantastic films like Monty Python and Lord of the Rings.
- Neurotic and conscientious individuals really liked romances: e.g. Titanic and Dirty Dancing.
- Conscientious people also enjoyed 300, James Bond and other action movies, but not comedies.
- We also spotted a subtle relation between gender and Openness in people’s preferences for action, comedy and romance genres. Female fans of action and comedy were a lot more open that male fans, and the reverse was true for romantic films where male fans were more open. Intuitively this makes sense, as someone who goes against their gender stereotype is more likely to be unconventional and open to new ideas.
There was also a big difference in terms of gender: the popular notion that girls prefer romance and boys favour action was supported by our data.
Overall, the combination of gender and Big Five personality characteristics is valuable in understanding and explaining people’s film preferences. What you watch can say a lot about who you are…
Olivia Chausson is 3rd year undergraduate at the PPSIS Department at the University of Cambridge.