Psychopathy and entertainment preferences: Clarifying the role of abnormal and normal personality in music and movie interests

We examined the associations between psychopathic subdimensions and music and movie genre preferences in a community sample (N = 429). We also considered the extent to which these relations were specific to psychopathy per se as opposed to other personality disorder or general personality traits. Fearless Dominance psychopathy features were moderately related to a variety of entertainment preferences, whereas Self-centered Impulsivity and Coldheartedness traits were largely unrelated. There was a notable lack of specificity in psychopathy subdimensions' relations with entertainment preferences: Leadership/Authority narcissism features, extraversion, and openness to experience were also moderately positively associated with a swath of entertainment interests whereas Entitlement/Exploitativeness narcissism features and Machiavellianism were largely unrelated. The higher-order trait of Beta, comprising extraversion and openness, statistically accounted for most of the associations between Fearless Dominance and entertainment preferences. In accordance with “niche picking” theories, our findings suggest that individuals' may prefer genres of music and movies that most closely align with their respective personality traits.