Exploring the relationship between music and movie preferences to diversity attitudes. What is the relationship between an individual’s music and movie preference and their diversity attitude?

Think over to your top five favorite music artists of the all-time or perhaps think about the last few movies you had watched which you found enjoyable or perhaps movies you have always found inspiring and entertaining. How diverse would these media products be, in terms of cultures, ethnicities or gender? Several previous studies have highlighted how representation of different groups of people in the music and movie industry have an impact on how individuals view and navigate the world around them. A lot of our views, beliefs and attitudes as people is shaped by the media and it plays an immense role on what we believe to be true about the society. This notion is supported by various theories, and most notably is the Gerbner’s cultivation theory. The main indication of Cultivation theory is that the media is able to cultivate what people think is real and accurate over a long period of time. Nowadays, the public heavily relies on the media to provide them with necessary and crucial facts about what is happening in the world. Therefore, this often leads them to be heavily influenced by those media sources. Hence, music and movie industries can also have an impact towards individuals’ attitudes regarding diversity. Moreover, the Mere-exposure effect also argues that continued exposure to a certain stimulus will increase the liking of that stimulus and lead to rejection of others. Therefore, continuous exposure to diversity in media can lead to the liking and acceptance of diversity in society. People’s preferences of music and movies could tell us a lot about their diversity attitudes. Diversity of attitudes refers to the beliefs an individual has towards others who are different in aspects of culture, behavior, personality, physical characteristics and can be assessed using several measures such as the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ), Reaction-to-Diversity (RTD) Inventory and Munroe Multicultural Attitude Scale Questionnaire (MASQUE). This research was conducted by distributing a survey with both open-ended and close-ended questions, to explore the relationship between an individual’s music and movie preference to their diversity attitude. The research findings showed that music and movie consumption preferences do not have a significant effect on most measures of diversity attitudes. Regardless of respondents’ attitudes towards diversity, their media consumption preferences were always varied.