Exploring Movie Choice: An Examination of Uses and Gratifications.

This study used an experimental design to examine the effect of several personality characteristics and also of two manipulations on individuals' choice of movie. In doing so, we also considered three theoretical positions: uses and gratifications, mood management and mood adjustment. Overall, there appears to be more solid support for mood management, although there is some evidence suggesting that all three theories may be operating in different stages of the media choice process. First, we found that high sensation seeking predicts a preference for more arousing movies, but also for sad movies. Low sensation seeking, on the other hand, predicts a preference for low arousal movies and high voyeurism is related to a preference for happy movies. Second those in a positive mood were more likely to choose happy, positively affective and arousing movies, suggesting that mood and movie choice may be congruent in some cases. Third, in testing the relative effect of all the variables on movie choices we found that personality predictors consistently predict movie choice, mood management was somewhat supported but only for those in a positive mood, and expectation for future activity did not consistently predict movie choice, offering least support for mood adjustment. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]