On the Overlap Between Aesthetic Disposition, Cultural Eclecticism, and Openness: An Interdisciplinary Study

Abstract

Over the past decades, psychology and sociology researchers have independently identified similar patterns of cultural dispositions. These patterns notably involve differences in terms of eclecticism, openness, and aesthetic disposition. While some scholars have theoretically fused these constructs, the extent to which they empirically overlap is unclear. In addition, the extent to which personality traits vary with social factors has received insufficient attention to date. The present study had 3 main goals. First, we assessed the respective influence of social and psychological factors on aesthetic disposition and eclecticism. Second, we sought to clarify the contours of the constructs of aesthetic disposition, eclecticism, and openness. Third, we examined the social contingency of personality traits. Based on the assessment of aesthetic disposition and of both cinematographic and musical eclecticism in high-school students (N = 873), the conducted analyses revealed that personality trait openness and socioeconomic status were the best psychological and social predictors of cultural dispositions. In addition, our results suggest that the constructs of aesthetic disposition and eclecticism, on the one hand, and of "cultural openness" and personality trait openness on the other hand, cover distinct phenomena. Our findings also indicated that cinematographic and musical eclecticisms correlated moderately. The view of a general, or crossarea, eclecticism might thus be misleading. Finally, a strong positive association between socioeconomic status and personality trait openness was found. All in all, these findings stress the importance of adopting an interdisciplinary approach to cultural dispositions