Measuring the Culture of C. P. Snow's Two Cultures

Abstract

C. P. Snow's (1964) The Two Cultures has been controversial, and is still much cited in the literature of both the sciences and the humanities. However, there seem to have been no empirical studies of cultural and aesthetic activities in scientists and non-scientists. This study describes a questionnaire which measured 17 different cultural activities in a stratified survey of science and non-science students in London, UK. Science students showed a significantly lower level of activity on 12 of the 17 measures (and were significantly higher on none). Among the scientists, cultural activity overall was lowest in engineering and mathematics students, and highest in medical and biological science students. Cultural activity correlated significantly with the personality measure of Openness to Experience, although the correlation was weaker in scientists than in non-scientists.

Who art thou? Personality predictors of artistic preferences in a large UK sample: The importance of openness

“…Finally, a few studies also found significant effects 2 of sex‐differences on art preference, including males' preferences over those of females for unpleasant paintings of all types (Rawlings, 2003) as well as pop, representational and Japanese paintings (Furnham & Walker, 2001a). In a recent much larger study, however, sex‐differences in general art interests and attitudes were not observed (McManus, 2006).…”

“…In line, Ackerman and Heggestad (1997) conducted an extensive meta‐analysis of the correlations among personality traits and vocational interests, obtaining separated clusters or trait complexes for science/math on one hand, and intellectual/cultural on the other. More recently, McManus (2006) found that science students participated significantly less often than other students in all but one out of 17 cultural activities measured. The largest differences were for the activities of drawing and painting, going to museums and art galleries, reading about art, reading poetry, and going to the theatre, opera and ballet.…”

“…Additionally, extraversion has been associated with appreciation of aesthetic quality and aesthetic relativism (McManus, 2006). Conscientiousness on the other hand has been negatively associated with visual as well as general art activities (McManus, 2006), a preference for representational art and a dislike of pop and abstract art (Furnham & Walker, 2001a). Correlations between Conscientiousness and art judgments have been shown to be both positive and negative (Furnham & Rao, 2002).…”

“…Neuroticism has been shown to positively correlate with preference for abstract and pop art (Furnham & Walker, 2001b). Agreeableness has been correlated with a lesser preference for pop art (Furnham & Walker, 2001a), a greater preference for representational art (Furnham & Avison, 1997), as well as a lesser tendency to participate in general art activities, despite the fact that agreeable people seem to value aesthetics more (McManus, 2006). While all these other four factors of personality have been associated in some form with art interests, the results were often either not replicated or inconsistent across studies.…”

“Fun, Fun, Fun”: Types of Fun, Attitudes to Fun, and their Relation to Personality and Biographical Factors

“…The study had multiple objectives, and in the paper we will describe them in the following order. Firstly, we provide a taxonomy of the types of activities or experiences that people include under the heading of fun, and secondly we examine how the various types of fun experience chosen are related to demographic factors such as age, sex and social class; to personality; and to education and particularly to science education (and in previous studies we have found that studying science is associated with different cultural and aesthetic activities and hence it seems at least possible that they are will also be related to fun [29]). Thirdly, we assessed how attitudes to fun differ, where attitudes refers to people's beliefs about how best to achieve fun and the extent they seek it our under different conditions, and we then looked at how such attitudes relate to the various background factors.…”