Previous research has shown that people tend to choose television shows based on their own identity and which characters they can identify with (McQuail, 1984). With the recent success of "reality television" this experiment is designed to look at this new genre in comparison to the other genres. Rather than looking at the relationship between identity and television preference, this research looked at the relationship between personality, adventurous and impulsive risk taking and their potential relationship television preference. Thirty-eight students (15 male and 23 female) at a small, Catholic, liberal arts college in New England were given the NEO Five Factor Test (NEO-FFI) form S for college students created by Costa and McCrae (2003), and a questionnaire determining adventurous risk taking and impulsive risk taking (Ferguson, Valenti, & Melwani, 1991). Participants were then asked to rate ( i.e. how likely or unlikely it is that they would watch that particular show) the three genres of reality television (real world, dating competition, and physical competition) after watching video clips of each. This was done in order to examine a relationship between personality type and television preference with regard to reality TV.
The results show that there is a correlation between impulsive risk taking and interest in watching physical competition (r =.381, p=.018) as well as how often the participants would watch physical competition (r =.550, p=.000). There was also a correlation between extraversion and how much the participants felt they were like the 'characters' in a physical competition (r =.335, p=.040) and a negative correlation between extraversion and how often the participants would watch real world reality television (r =-.337, .039). Openness was negatively correlated with real world interest (r =-.467, p=.003) and physical competition interest (r =-.413, p=.010). A positive correlation existed between neuroticism and real world interest (r =.354, p=.029), how often the participants would watch a dating competition (r =.331, p=.042), and how interested they would be in a dating competition show (r =.392, p=.015). Finally, a negative correlation was found between conscientiousness and interest in a dating competition show (r =-.338, .038) and how often the participants would watch a dating competition (r =-.385, p=.017). Future research is necessary to look at these categories of reality television more in depth, as well as the other categories of reality television.