Why we put on the sorting hat: motivations to take fan personality tests

Autor

  • Steven T. Proudfoot Wayne State University
  • Courtney N. Plante Bishop’s University
  • Stephen Reysen Texas A&M University Commerce

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5114/cipp.2020.91473

Słowa kluczowe:

fans, fanship, personality, self-esteem, escapism

Abstrakt

Background
There is little reason to believe that fan-related personality tests, which tell fans what type of person they are based on their fa-vorite fan content, are valid or reliable. Nevertheless, fan-related personality tests remain incredibly popular online.

Participants and procedure
Building upon existing fan research, the present study tests whether fans may have other motivations for taking such personality tests, drawing upon prior research by Wann. Self-identified fans (N = 425, Mage = 26.41, SD = 8.44) completed measures re-garding degree of identification with their fan interest, motivations to take fan quizzes, and frequency of taking fan personality quizzes.

Results
Highly-identified fans were found to more frequently take fan-related personality tests, an association significantly mediated by both self-esteem and escapism motivations, but not mediated by eustress, entertainment, belongingness, or family motivations.

Conclusions
The results suggest that highly identified fans participate in more fan personality quizzes to escape from the hassles of everyday life and increase positive self-worth. These results are discussed with respect to their theoretical relevance – both for research on personality testing and on fan activities – as well as for their practical implications.

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Opublikowane

2019-12-30

Jak cytować

Proudfoot, S. T., Plante, C. N., & Reysen, S. (2019). Why we put on the sorting hat: motivations to take fan personality tests. Current Issues in Personality Psychology, 7(4), 265–273. https://doi.org/10.5114/cipp.2020.91473

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