Research by Cambridge University psychologists reveals five dimensions on which our preferences vary. People high on the “dark” dimension enjoy intense and edgy genres such as punk and metal music, horror movies and erotic fiction.
Those whose preferences are captured by the “thrilling” dimension enjoy action movies, adventure fiction and sci-fi. “Cerebral” people are drawn to news and current events, documentaries, educational programming and non-fiction.
And highly empathic people are most likely to have entertainment preferences that match the two remaining dimensions: “communal” and “aesthetic”.
Communal preferences focus on people and relationships, including a fondness for TV talk-shows, dramas and romantic movies, and popular music. Aesthetic preferences are more highbrow, running to classical music, arts and history programs and independent and subtitled movies.
The fact these two quite distinct sorts of cultural genres appeal to empathic individuals speaks to the dual character of empathy. On the one hand it leads people to take an interest in the familiar everyday dramas of social interaction. On the other, it draws us into an imaginative engagement with minds, experiences and worlds that are different from our own. [...]
In each of Kidd and Castano’s studies, people who had just read literary fiction performed better on the empathy measures. The researchers argued that any general empathy-promoting function of fiction could not explain this benefit, as it was restricted to literary rather than popular fiction. Instead, they argued, literary fiction facilitates empathy by inducing readers to take “an active writerly role” in understanding the mental lives of the characters.
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