The Relationship between Multicultural Effectiveness and Artistic Preferences

This research explored students’ artistic preferences for musical and visual arts (paintings) from different world cultures, outside the dominant Western European and Anglo-Saxon art field. The main goal of the research was to examine the possibility of predicting these preferences based on multicultural personality traits, within the concept of multicultural effectiveness. A total of 427 participants took part in the study. The following instruments were used: General Data Questionnaire, Multicultural Personality Inventory, Musical Preferences Questionnaire, and Painting Preferences Questionnaire. The results indicated a significant correlation between age and musical preferences, as well as between artistic experience (attending theatre productions and art exhibitions) and musical/painting preferences. Among the multicultural personality traits, only open-mindedness and cultural empathy positively correlated with artistic preferences. Results of regression analysis in which preferences were used as criteria showed that, after demographics of participants and their artistic experience have been controlled for, open-mindedness positively predicted musical and painting preferences, while both open-mindedness and cultural empathy proved to be significant positive predictors of painting preferences. Other significant predictor for both preferences was attending art exhibitions. Musical preferences were related with older age, while vocational high school education predicted higher preferences for paintings. Although predictors explained relatively small amount of criterion variance, the obtained results confirmed that multicultural personality dispositions have little, but significant contribution to world artistic preferences.


Introduction
Multiculturalism refers to the state of a society or the world in which there exists numerous distinct ethnic and cultural groups, seen to be politically relevant, but also to the program or policy promoting such a society (Ivison, 2015).According to the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Song, 2020), multicultural refers to the fact of diversity in a society, but the focus is on multiculturalism as a normative ideal in the context of Western liberal democratic societies.Cultural diversities arise as a result of globalization and increased international mobility and are an important component of modern life.Almost all countries of the world are turning into heterogeneous societies, composed of different ethnic, cultural, and religious groups as a result of mobility, i.e. of immigration processes, international students travelling across the world, or expatriates working in different cultural settings.In a globalised world, the success of functioning within a multicultural context is an important aspect of an individual's personal, social, and professional progress.It can be expected that multiculturalism determines the trends of the future development of society.Today, more than ever before, individuals interact with members of different cultures, in both personal and professional spheres.The ability to survive in such diversity is becoming an important aspect of their personal, social, and professional development (Summerfield et al., 2021).
The results of previous studies indicate that personality is one of the significant predictors of an individual's successful coping in intercultural contexts (Huang et al., 2007;Shaffer et al., 2006) because it determines the way an individual perceives different intercultural situations.It also influences the way an individual behaves in such situations (Connor-Smith & Flachsbart, 2007).Some authors noted that personality traits, such as cultural empathy and intercultural self-efficacy, are better predictors of intercultural effectiveness than some more general personality traits, such as those encompassed in the Big-Five Model (McCrae & John, 1992;Wilson et al., 2013).
Multicultural effectiveness refers to psychological well-being in a new cultural setting and successfully operating in that environment, together with the ability to successfully interact with people from different cultural backgrounds (Matsumoto & Hwang, 2007).Van der Zee and Van Oudenhoven (2000) define multicultural effectiveness as the successful functioning of a person "in the areas of professional efficiency, personal adjustment and intercultural interactions" (p.293).The aforementioned authors developed a model of multicultural effectiveness that includes five multicultural personality dispositions -cultural empathy (the ability to identify with the feelings and experiences of people with different cultural backgrounds, the ability to clearly show interest in members of other cultures, the ability to observe and reflect on other people's thoughts, feelings and experiences), open-mindedness (the capacity for an open attitude without prejudice towards members of the outgroup and towards different cultural norms and values), social initiative (a person's tendency to approach social situations proactively and the degree to which a person easily interacts with members of other cultures and makes friends in cultural groups outside their own), emotional stability (a person's capacity to remain calm in stressful situations as opposed to the tendency to express strong emotional reactions in stressful circumstances), and flexibility (a person's ability to adapt their behaviour in accordance with the requirements of a new and unknown situation) (Petrović & Vučetić, 2014).Previous research on samples of students or expatriates showed that multicultural effectiveness is associated with better mental health and adjustment of international students (Van der Zee & Van Oudenhoven, 2000;Van Oudenhoven & Van der Zee, 2002;Ward et al., 2009).
The assessment of intercultural effectiveness can be particularly important in the educational context.Namely, as a reaction to the growing diversity in the field of higher education, universities are integrating an international dimension into their programs, so that students in the labour market can integrate as easily as possible into different intercultural contexts (Summerfield et al., 2021).However, such attempts are sometimes met with resistance and tensions due to the prejudices and unpreparedness of students for multicultural interaction as well as their preference to work in familiar cultural environments (Volet & Ang, 2006).Van Oudenhoven and Van der Zee (2002) noted that results on the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire predict the ability of international students to adapt to new environments.Petrović and Vučetić (2014) emphasize the importance of multicultural effectiveness of teachers for work in multicultural classrooms in order to prepare students as successfully as possible for life in a modern society characterized by globalization and increasing diversities.Art and artistic content in the educational context is a domain within which it is possible to develop and promote intercultural and multicultural competencies and encourage sensitivity to different cultures through their artistic achievements.
The aim of this research was to examine whether there is a relationship between preferences for musical and artistic creations (paintings) from different world cultures, outside the dominant Western European and Anglo-Saxon artistic field, and to answer the question whether multicultural personality traits predict preferences for such works of art.As far as the authors of this research are aware, there have been no published studies exploring the relationship between specific personality traits related to cross-cultural context and intercultural competencies, and preferences towards the arts of different cultures.Previous research in the area of artistic preferences and personality were mostly focused on general personality traits from the Big Five model.Those studies showed that openness to experiences is generally associated with preferences for visual arts (Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2004;Feist & Brady, 2004;McManus & Furnham, 2006), but also with preferences for different musical styles.Indeed, the results of numerous studies have confirmed openness as the most significant predictor of musical preferences, especially musical genres that fall under the reflexive, complex, intensive, or rebellious musical styles (Brown, 2012;Dobrota & Reić Ercegovac, 2014;Langmeyer et al., 2012;Reić Ercegovac & Dobrota, 2011;Reić Ercegovac et al., 2015;Greenberg et al., 2022).Other personality traits associated with artistic preferences and interests, although less consistently, include extraversion (Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2004), conscientiousness (McManus, 2006), and neuroticism (Furnham & Walker, 2001).Considering that openness to experience was found to be significantly related to all four factors of cultural intelligence (Ang et al., 2006), a concept very similar to multicultural effectiveness, and openness was found to be the most important personality predictor of artistic preferences, it is to be expected that multicultural personality traits could also demonstrate the relationship with artistic preferences.Given that, of all the personality traits, the Big Five model has so far captured the greatest attention of researchers, and that the relationship between artistic preferences and personality traits from the Big Five model has been well researched, this research focused on the relationship between more specific personality traits related to multiculturalism and preferences of artistic works from different cultures.

Method Participants
A total of N = 427 students participated in the study.They were all students at the University of Split, studying social sciences and humanities, with an average age of M = 21.34 years (SD = 2.04), ranging from 18 to 28 years.The majority of the sample consisted of female students (92%).The gender ratio is similar to the actual ratio of students at the studies included in the research.Two-thirds of the participants (67%) completed general education secondary school, and one-third of the participants (33%) finished four-year vocational school.One-fifth of the participants (21%) attended music school or some other form of music education.Nearly a third of the participants (32%) had never been to a theatre or classical concert, and almost three fifths of the participants (58%) had never visited an art exhibition.Regarding the study program, 60% of participants in the sample learned about the arts of different cultures directly as part of their study programme at the University.There was no correlation between attending the programme that includes art and previous art-related behaviour of participants (r = .01,p = .822,for theatre or classical concert attendance; r = .02,p = .737,for art exhibition attendance).

Instruments
For the purposes of the research, an instrument was constructed that consisted of a General Data Questionnaire, a shortened version of the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ-SF-40; Van der Zee et al., 2012), Music Preferences Questionnaire, and Painting Preferences Questionnaire, both created for the purpose of the current research.
The General Data Questionnaire consisted of eight closed type questions for collecting data on gender, age, study major and year of study, type of completed secondary school (general/vocational), musical education (no/yes), playing or listening to music in free time (no/yes), attending classical music concerts or theatre performances (no/yes), and attending art exhibitions (no/yes).
The Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) is widely used for measuring individuals' intercultural traits.The shortened version (MPQ-SF-40) used in this study consists of 40 items that measure five components -Cultural Empathy (8 items which assess the ability to empathize with members of other cultures; for example, Senses when others get irritated), Social Initiative (8 items that measure active access to social situations and taking the initiative, for example, Is often the driving force behind things), Open-Mindedness (8 items assessing the absence of strong prejudices against different cultural groups, for example, Is looking for new ways to attain his or her goal), Emotional Stability (8 items that measure the ability to keep calm in stressful situations, for example, Keeps calm when things do not go well), and Flexibility (8 items that assess the ability to observe new situations as positive challenges and adapt to a new cultural environment, for example, Works according to strict scheme).Since the instrument was administered for the first time on a Croatian sample, the items were translated by three independent translators and the final translation of the items was agreed upon by consensus.Confirmatory factor analysis showed an acceptable fit of the data to the five-factor model (RMSEA = .07;chi-square/df = 3.28).Previous research showed good reliability of the subscales, with reliability coefficients ranging from .60 to .85 (Hofhuis et al., 2020;Korol, 2017;Leone et al., 2005;Summerfield et al., 2021).Reliability coefficients and other descriptive parameters of the MPQ-SF are presented in Table 1.
Musical preferences were examined with 10 musical excerpts (Appendix A) and a questionnaire with the sequence number of the musical excerpt and a preference rating scale from 1 to 5 for each musical excerpt.After listening to each musical excerpt, the participants had to indicate to what extent they liked it by circling a number on a five-point scale (1 = I don't like it at all; 5 = I like it very much).Musical pieces were chosen in such a way that two experts, a musician and a music educator, suggested a larger number of compositions representing different cultures from which the researchers selected 10 musical excerpts in instrumental forms representing compositions from as many different cultures as possible.Also, all compositions ranged from slow to moderate tempo, with no extremely slow or fast examples since tempo, in addition to other musical features, can independently influence preference (Dobrota & Reić Ercegovac, 2014;LeBlanc et al., 1988).The total score for musical preferences that was used in further analysis was formed as the sum of the preferences for each of the musical pieces.Descriptive parameters for the scale are presented in Table 1.
For examining painting preferences, 10 paintings (Appendix B) and a questionnaire with the sequence number of the painting and a preference rating scale from 1 to 5 for each painting were used.The presentation consisted of 10 paintings belonging to different world cultures.After each painting being displayed, the participants had to indicate to what extent they liked it by circling a number on a fivepoint scale (1 = I don't like it at all; 5 = I like it very much).Paintings were first chosen by two experts.an academic painter and a professor of fine arts, each offering larger number of paintings representing different world cultures with human figures as theme.Researchers selected 10 paintings, each from a different culture similar to cultures presented in the musical excerpts (India, Turkey, Philippines, Japan, China, Iran, Africa).The total score for painting preferences used in further analysis was formed as the sum of the preferences for each of the paintings.Descriptive parameters for the scale are presented in Table 1.

Procedure
The research was conducted during the winter semester of the academic year 2021/2022 at the University of Split, as part of regular classes.Participation in the research was voluntary and anonymous.The data collection was conducted in groups, with the size of the groups varying from 20 to 40 participants.The lecture halls in which the data were collected had good sound insulation and equally adequate lighting, which were important conditions for listening to musical excerpts and observing paintings.For assessing musical preferences, 10 musical excerpts of world music, each lasting approximately 60 seconds, were recorded on a CD and presented through a CD player.For assessing painting preferences, paintings were presented on the screen in front of the class by the use of computer, projector and power-point presentation with each of the paintings been presented for 30 seconds.In each group, the data collection lasted for 35 minutes on average.The instruments were applied in four different orders for each group.One pattern included filling out the General Data Questionnaire and the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire, followed by the musical excerpts and, finally, the paintings.The second pattern included a different sequence of listening to the musical excerpts and observing the paintings.The third situation included assessment of the paintings and then of the musical excerpts, followed by filling out the questionnaires (General Data and MPQ), while last pattern included listening to the musical excerpts, then viewing the paintings, and finally filling out the General Data Questionnaire and MPQ.Considering mean values and measures of variability in preferences and personality traits, there were no differences between the different patterns of filling out the instruments.

Data Analysis
The statistical software STATISTICA14 (Tibco Software Inc) was used to analyse the collected data.Since all the measures used had parameters of skewness and kurtosis within the -1 to +1 range, parametric analysis procedures were applied, specifically descriptive parameters and correlation and regression analyses.

Results
Table 2 shows the correlation matrix of all variables in the study.Age was significantly positively related with musical preferences and attending theatre performances, classical music concerts and art exhibitions.As for gender, female students attended theatre performances and concerts more than male students; had higher cultural empathy and lower emotional stability than male students.When interpreting these results, one should consider the very small representation of male participants in the sample.Among the personality traits, there was a significant positive correlation between cultural empathy and social initiative; A significant positive correlation between musical and painting preferences was established.Furthermore, both musical and painting preferences were significantly positively related to cultural empathy and open-mindedness, while there was no correlation between preferences and other personality traits.
To answer the main research question and explore whether musical and painting preferences could be predicted by multicultural personality traits, two regression analyses were performed.For testing the issue of multicollinearity, Variance Inflation Factors (VIF) and Tolerance were calculated.VIF for independent variables ranged from 0.87 to 1.63, while Tolerance ranged from 0.61 to 0.96.Since VIF values less than 2.5 or 5 and Tolerance values higher than 0.25 are considered as showing low or acceptable collinearity (James et al., 2017), regression analyses were performed and their results are presented in Table 3.In the first step of the analysis, gender and age were introduced into the equation.Age was a significant predictor only for musical preferences with older participants expressing higher preferences.Variables of school type and artistic experiences were introduced in the second step.Art exhibition attendance significantly positively predicted both musical and painting preferences, while theatre and concert attendance were a positive predictor for musical preferences only.In the final step, personality traits were introduced in the analysis and significantly contributed to the explanation of both criteria variances, Note.Gender was coded as 0 = male, 1 = female; High school was coded as 0 = vocational school, 1 = general education secondary school; Music education was coded as 0 = no music education, 1 = some kind of music education; Music in free time was coded as 0 = not listening or playing music in free time, 1 = listening or playing music in free time; Theatre and concert attendance was coded as 0 = never attended, 1 = attended; Exhibition attendance was coded 0 = never attended, 1 = attended.* p < .05;** p < .01.
PSYCHOLOGICAL TOPICS, 32 (2023), 1, 143-161 with open-mindedness being a significant predictor of musical and painting preferences.Theatre and concert attendance lost their significance in predicting musical preferences in the final step of the analysis (Table 3).Note.Gender was coded as 0 = male, 1 = female; High school was coded as 0 = vocational school, 1 = general education secondary school; Music education was coded as 0 = no music education, 1 = some kind of music education; Music in free time was coded as 0 = not listening or playing music in free time, 1 = listening or playing music in free time; Theatre and concert attendance was coded as 0 = never attended, 1 = attended; Exhibition attendance was coded 0 = never attended, 1 = attended.* p < .05;** p < .01.

Discussion
The aim of this research was to examine preferences for music and paintings from different world cultures and to verify the assumption that multicultural effectiveness is a significant predictor of such preferences.The results showed that there was a significant positive correlation between preferences for music and paintings, which points to the conclusion of common underlying processes that determine preferences for works of art belonging to different modalities of world cultures.These results are in line with the observations made by Gridley (2013), who analysed preferences for abstract arts and concluded that findings with food, music, and visual stimuli suggest the existence of cross-modal relations in aesthetic preferences.Furthermore, he points out that "the irregular, jarring combinations of pitches that constitute dissonance in music may be analogous to irregular patterns in visual stimuli, as in paintings by Wassily Kandinsky, Willem Dekooning, and Jackson Pollock" (p.466).Other research also found significant relationships between preferences for works of art of different cultures across musical and visual art modalities (Dobrota et al., 2022).
The results indicated a significant positive correlation between age and musical preferences, but not between age and painting preferences.The relationship between age and musical preferences for world music was already confirmed in previous studies (Dobrota et al., 2022) and can be attributed to a greater experience with world music that older students have.It can be assumed that musical works from different cultures are more easily accessible to young people compared to paintings, so it is possible that greater exposure to different musical styles and genres with age favours the development of preferences for world music.Namely, it has been proven that familiarity and experience with certain types of artistic creations have a positive effect on preferences (Dobrota & Sarajčev, 2021;North & Hargreaves, 2008;Teo et al., 2008;Yoo et al., 2018).This is in accordance with the processing fluency theory (Reber, 2012), which suggests that appreciation of the object depends on how fluently an individual can process the object.Generally, in the artistic preferences context, it means that familiarity, or prior exposure to the art work, positively influences preference.In the current research, a significant positive relationship was found between previous artistic experience (attending concerts, exhibitions, theatre productions) and artistic preferences, which is in line with previous research.For example, Dobrota and Reić Ercegovac (2017) have found significant correlations between the frequency of attending classical music concerts and preferences for certain musical styles as well as between attending musical theatre productions and preferences for jazz and world music.Chamorro-Premuzic et al. (2008) found that visits to galleries were positively correlated with preferences for visual art stimuli presenting different artistic styles.
Among the multicultural personality traits, open-mindedness has proven to be a significant predictor of both artistic preferences, while cultural empathy additionally contributed to painting preferences.Therefore, the starting hypothesis was only partially confirmed because other facets of multicultural effectiveness (emotional stability, flexibility, and social initiative) did not prove to be correlated with artistic preferences.Overall, the selected variables explained a relatively small proportion of the variance in preferences, 13% for musical preferences and 8% for paintings.This leads to the conclusion that in addition to the selected variables, there are a number of significant determinants of artistic preferences, which are also discussed in preference models of different art modalities (Chamorro-Premuzic et al., 2007;Hargreaves et al., 2005Hargreaves et al., , 2012;;LeBlanc, 1982;Palmer et al., 2013).The results concerning open-mindedness were expected for several reasons.Openmindedness includes receptiveness to ideas and things that are different, odd, or unfamiliar and art pieces used in the current research present world arts that are less familiar and relatively unknown to our population.Furthermore, open-mindedness is related to openness to experiences, a facet of the Big Five that was already proven to be one of the most important personality predictors of preferences for a variety of art modalities and styles (Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2004;Furnham & Walker, 2001;Langmeyer et al., 2012;Rentfrow & Gosling, 2003;Reić Ercegovac & Dobrota, 2011;Reić Ercegovac et al., 2015;Yoo et al., 2018).In an attempt to explain the relationship between open-mindedness and preferences for music and paintings from different world cultures, it should be noted that earlier research has found that traits that can be considered the opposite of open-mindedness, such as religiosity, dogmatism, and authoritarianism, were negatively related to abstract art preferences (Knapp & Wulff, 1963;Rosenberg & Zimet, 1957).Gridley (2013) noted that the relationship between the aforementioned traits and disliking of abstract art can be explained by the fact that people with these traits prefer a simple order, and the lack of simple order that can be observed in abstract art repels people with high dogmatism, religiosity or authoritarianism.Similarly, Furnham and Walker (2001) found conservatism negatively correlated to abstract art preference, while sensation seeking was positively related to abstract art preferences and negatively to preferences for representational art (Furnham & Bunyan, 1988).In discussing determinants of artistic preferences, Gridley (2013) concluded that both personality traits and thinking (cognitive) styles significantly contribute to preferences for abstract vs. representational art.Preference for abstract art is related to traits and styles reflecting open-mindedness, attraction to novelty, ambiguity, dissonance, and acceptance of change.Change is something open-minded people are not afraid of, instead, they proactively search for new experiences due to their curiosity which, in the art context, can be expressed in better acceptance and/or higher preferences for less familiar art pieces, as shown in the current research.Previous research has shown that an open personality is related to interest in art activities and emotional aesthetic judgment style (Afhami & Mohammadi-Zarghan, 2018).
When discussing the contribution of cultural empathy in explaining painting preferences variance, it should be noted that cultural empathy refers to an individual's capacity to identify with emotions, thoughts, and behaviours of individuals from different cultures and to show interest in members of another culture.Participants who scored higher in cultural empathy obviously expressed greater liking for art pieces from cultures that are very different from their own (for example, the Philippines, China, Cuba, Ethiopia India, Iran, etc.), probably because they better understood or were more successful in identifying themselves with the content or emotions conveyed by the paintings.According to Rusu (2017), artists convey their own experiences, visions and emotions with their works, but also bring much more into them, such as features of their closest environment, community, and culture.Openness and empathy towards different cultural backgrounds enable the perceiver to have a more successful encounter with artists' experience, values, or emotions.The intersection between their own and the emotions of the artist are important for the aesthetic experience of the work and the assessment of liking or preference for a particular painting or musical piece.This could be one of the possible explanations for the contribution of the multicultural effectiveness facets, specifically open-mindedness and cultural empathy to preferences of world art.Furthermore, previous research in the area of cross-cultural competencies and artistic preferences showed that action and care, as facets of intercultural attitudes, were positively related to world music preferences (Dobrota, 2016(Dobrota, , 2022)).In a study combining musical and visual art pieces, correlation between intercultural sensitivity and preferences for both music and visual art from cultures of the world was confirmed (Dobrota et al., 2022).
There are several limitations of the current research that have to be emphasised.The sample in the research was quite homogeneous with regard to gender, since predominantly female respondents were represented.This is important because earlier research showed that women generally show more artistic preferences and more interest in art activities (Afhami & Mohammadi-Zarghan, 2018;Dobrota & Reić Ercegovac, 2014).Furthermore, although experts from the field of music and visual arts were consulted during the selection of works of art used in the research (music and paintings), there is always the possibility that the choice of different works of art would have resulted in different outcomes, especially if we consider that there are differences in the preferences of musical pieces with regard to a variety of musical components (tempo, tonality, pitch, instruments, etc.) (Dobrota & Reić Ercegovac, 2014;Finnas, 1989;Hunter et al., 2008;LeBlanc et al., 1988;Thompson et al., 2001).Similarly, preferences for paintings also vary according to other characteristics that were not included as a variable in the current study, for example representational or abstract art (Gridley, 2013;Komar & Melamid, 1997).Nevertheless, given that the main research question was whether it was possible to predict preferences for world art based on multicultural personality traits, the research managed to confirm that cultural empathy, and especially open-mindedness, as facets of multicultural effectiveness, are significant determinants of preferences for art works of world cultures outside the dominant Western European and Anglo-Saxon art field.
cultural empathy and open-mindedness; flexibility and emotional stability; social initiative and emotional stability; social initiative and open-mindedness, and emotional stability and open-mindedness.

Table 1
Descriptive Parameters of Measures Used in the Research

Table 2
Correlation Matrix of All Variables Used in the Study

Table 3
Results of HRA with Musical and Painting Preferences as Criteria