Personality traits, television viewing, and the cultivation effect.

From a practical standpoint, cultivation research generally points to the effects cultivated worldviews might have on behaviors. Behavioral intentions and protective actions were, in fact, measured in this research, and the range of prevalence estimates and mean world perception significantly associated with intentions to take protective action as well as past protective action, even after controlling on the three personality traits and past behavior (where applicable; see Table 1). To the extent trait anxiety, for example, interacts with TV viewing to influence personal perceptions related to crime, there may be real implications for the likelihood of those individuals taking protective measures. Further, the cultivation effects evidenced in these data suggest TV is doing no additional harm to those who already focus on danger or are not prone to seek out risk, and yet may encourage those who might be less concerned to be more cautious.

The authors acknowledge that in the complex environment in which people live, TV viewing is but one source of influence that explains only a very small portion of variance in prevalence estimates and world perceptions. Still, these data suggest TV exposure has at times the same, at times less, and at times more influence as other arguably critical variables, such as personality traits themselves (see Table 2). Future media research, then, would be well-served to consider not simply how personality traits might influence media selection, as has been the focus in the past, but how such traits affect the cognitive processes associated with media effects. This point is relevant not simply to cultivation, but also to other theoretical approaches to the study of media effects, like social cognitive theory, agenda-setting, or framing, in which personality trait-driven worldviews might affect construct accessibility in ways that could meaningfully influence message perception and interpretation.

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