“Kneweth One Who Makes these Notes…”: Personality, Individual Differences, and Liking of Nouveau Roman and Existentialist Literature and Film

Previous studies suggest that personality and individual difference traits are associated with aesthetic preferences, but have infrequently examined associations within specific genres or across media domains. We examined associations between the Big Five personality traits with preferences (i.e., liking) for two non-conventional genres of film and literature, namely nouveau roman and existentialism, in samples of 548 non-experts and 95 genre experts from Austria. Path analyses indicated that Openness to Experience (positively) and Conscientiousness (negatively) were significantly associated with greater liking of stimuli across genres and media domains, after considering the effects of additional, relevant variables (aesthetic expertise and behaviours, social status, and the motive for sensory pleasure). Path models were stable across non-experts and experts, although the strength of the relationships between Openness and liking was stronger for nouveau roman stimuli. Additional analyses indicated that experts had significantly greater liking for stimuli across both genres than non-experts. These results may have implications for the promotion of non-conventional artworks to wider audiences