Authors

• Pulkkinen, Lea (University of Jyväskylä. Department of Psychology)

Keywords

cinema, leisure time, leisure time activities, motivation, personality development, personality traits, television, television programmes, television viewing

Abstract

The data are part of the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development (JYLS), in which the same individuals have been followed over 30 years. At this data collection wave the subjects completed the NESTA personality inventory and a TV viewing questionnaire.

NESTA is an official adapted version of the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI), which is developed for assessing five personality traits considered universal: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. In the adapted version, one fourth of the original American questions are replaced by Finnish counterparts. The test contains 181 statements, which are answered using a 5-point Likert scale (strongly agree - strongly disagree).

The respondents' TV viewing was charted by asking them to indicate how often they watched various programmes (e.g. news, sports programmes, family and relationship movies) aired by particular channels. They were also asked questions on watching different cable and satellite channels and videos. The respondents estimated their average daily TV viewing time on weekdays and weekends. They were also presented with a set of attitudinal statements on various motives and needs connected to watching TV. In addition, they told what kind of programmes they would want to see more on TV.

Background variables included the respondent's gender, marital status, education, socioeconomic status, and the year of birth of children living in R's household.