The motivation activation measure and media use in Singapore: cross-cultural stability

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is twofold: First, it tests how the Motivation Activation Measure [MAM; Lang, A., Bradley, S. D., Sparks Jr, J. V., & Lee, S. (2007). The motivation activation measure (MAM): How well does MAM predict individual differences in physiological indicators of appetitive and aversive activation? Communication Methods and Measures, 1(2), 113–136] applies in a non-American (i.e. Asian) context, in order to provide evidence for the universality asserted through its theoretical underpinnings as an indicator of biologically based motivation systems. It thus investigates cross-cultural variation in the MAM scores and the associations with established measures of theoretically related personality factors. Second, the paper examines how individual differences in motivational system responsiveness correlate with media use and interests in an Asian culture. Eight hundred sixty-five respondents completed MAM, personality measures and self-reported media preference in an online survey. Findings indicate that the MAM values recorded in the Asian sample associate with the measures of theoretically related human traits as expected, and had a similar pattern of scores with those found in American samples. Moreover, results suggest that audience interests in different types of media can be predicted through their variation in motivation systems activation.

KEYWORDS:

• MAM
• cross-cultural universality
• Asian context
• media use and preferences
• survey

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Lelia Samson (Ph.D., Indiana University, 2013) is a Radboud Excellence Initiative Postdoctoral Fellow of Communication Science at Radboud University. Her research is grounded in media psychology to examine how the cognitive and affective mechanisms potentially explain patterns of media effects and media use.

Benjamin H. Detenber (Ph.D., Stanford University, 1995) is an Associate Professor in the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is a media psychologist who also has interests in political communication and public opinion research.