Newspaper Readership and MBTI® Preferences
Stereotypes have grown up around the readership of newspapers, to the extent of becoming, in effect, shorthand for recognised "types" of people. But to what extent does the "personality" of readers of different newspapers relate to these stereotypes? Specifically, what is the relationship of psychological type to newspaper readership?
Background
Extraversion - Introversion
Sensing - Intuition
Thinking - Feeling
Judging - Perceiving
Conclusions
Background to the study: sample
In 1997 OPP developed the new "Step 1" version of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®). As part of this process, a research version of the indicator, containing 196 items (including all 94 Form G items) was administered to a large representative sample of the UK population (n=1,634) by the Office of National Statistics. In addition to completing the MBTI®, participants were asked a number of biographical questions, including which newspaper they read.
The chart below shows how many respondents claimed to read each of the newspapers:
The composition of this sample was as follows:
Back to top ^
Extraversion-Introversion
Of all the four MBTI® dimensions, Extraversion-Introversion showed the least variation by newspaper.
Readers of the Telegraph were significantly more Extravert than those who did not read the paper (independent samples T-test, p=0.024), but there were no other statistically significant differences.
Mean E-I continuous score
Back to top ^
Sensing-Intuition
Readers of a number of newspapers are more likely to be Sensing types than are non-readers:
| Newspaper |
Mean score
difference |
Significance
(T-test) |
| Daily Express |
4.58 |
0.034 |
| Daily Mirror |
7.23 |
0.000 |
| The Sun |
6.31 |
0.000 |
| Daily Star |
3.78 |
0.033 |
Readers of other newspapers are more likely to be Intuitive types than are non-readers:
| Newspaper |
Mean score
difference |
Significance
(T-test) |
| The Times |
10.40 |
0.000 |
| The Independent |
25.36 |
0.000 |
| The Sport |
26.75 |
0.000 |
Mean S-N continuous score
Back to top ^
Thinking-Feeling
Readers of two newspapers are more likely to be Thinking types than are non-readers:
| Newspaper |
Mean score
difference |
Significance
(T-test) |
| The Times |
8.50 |
0.000 |
| Financial Times |
17.28 |
0.000 |
Mean T-F continuous score
Back to top ^
Judging-Perceiving
Readers of the Daily Star are more likely to be Judging types than non-readers (diff.=4.15, sig.=0.032). Readers of three newspapers are more likely to be Perceiving Types:
| Newspaper |
Mean score
difference |
Significance
(T-test) |
| The Telegraph |
9.71 |
0.003 |
| The Sun |
3.65 |
0.028 |
| The Sport |
6.23 |
0.048 |
Mean J-P continuous score
Back to top ^
Conclusions
Newspapers varied widely in readership, from the Sun (348) to the Mail (22).
The S-N dimension showed the most variation between publications; 7 of the 14 newspapers showed a significant difference on this dimension, with a tendency for readers of broadsheet papers to have an Intuitive preference, and for tabloid readers to have a Sensing preference. The exception here was the Sport, whose readers tended to show an Intuitive preference. Sensing types may not enjoy the clear lack of factual content and surreal nature of the stories in this publication.
Readers of the Times and the Financial Times, were significantly more likely to have a preference for Thinking.
Readers of the Daily Star showed a preference for Judging; readers of three papers (Telegraph, Sun, Sport) showed a preference for Perceiving.
Daily Telegraph readers tended to show a clear preference for Extraversion.
In terms of whole type, readers of many newspapers showed very clear preferences.
Back to top ^ |