Individual differences and media effects: The linkage between temperament and media use motivations.

摘要

As early as the Payne Fund studies, researchers have asserted that individuals differ in the way that they use media and in the way that the media affects them. Despite this, very little mass media research has addressed the issue of individual differences and most media effects theories are silent on the contribution of individual differences. As Tannenbaum recently wrote, "... we may be overlooking what may be a major result in communication (not to mention other social) research: that people are really quite different from one another in their predispositions to engage in various kinds of communication activity, in their selection of available communication fare, and in their responses to exposure to particular content.".;This study answers the call for individual differences research by examining the relationship between television use motivations and individual differences in temperament. Temperament is a multi-dimensional variable which is biologically rooted, stable across the lifespan and accounts for how individuals differ in behavioral tendencies. A survey was conducted of 285 undergraduates using the Dimensions of Temperament Survey-Revised and the Greenberg Uses and Gratifications scale. Results show temperament is a significant predictor of all five uses and gratifications factors (arousal, relaxation, pass time, diversion and learning), with each television use motivation demonstrating a different pattern of temperament predictors. Motivations that can be tied to central nervous system processing (arousal and relaxation) have more temperament predictors than motivations that appear to be more social in orientation (learning and diversion). The results suggest that media use is driven by the interaction between individual differences in biology and socialization.