OSCARS STICK TOGETHER
NEWS COPY - by Tony Whitfield
The Oscars are biased towards American actors in American films while the BAFTAs favoured British actors, a new study found.
It doesn't matter how talented you are, your acting ability is more likely to be recognised by belonging to the same social group.
That was the conclusion of psychologist Dr Niklas Steffens who explained how to win an Oscar or a BAFTA.
The Research Fellow from The University of Queensland looked at who was nominated for an Oscar and a BAFTA for best actor and actress in a leading role since 1968.
This covered 908 prize winners, comprising 97 winners and 383 unsuccessful nominees for the Oscars and 97 winners and 331 unsuccessful nominees for the BAFTAs.
Both awards state that they aim to recognise best performances in films from all over the world.
Results showed US actors dominated the awards, winning more than 50 per cent of all prizes across Oscars and BAFTAs.
But actors were more likely to win if they shared social group membership with the judges.
This meant that American actors won 52 per cent of all BAFTAs but 69 per cent of all Oscars.
British actors won 18 per cent of all Oscars but 34 per cent of all BAFTAs.
Dr Steffens said: "We know a lot about the factors that increase people's capacity to show exceptional performances.
"However, a somewhat different question is what makes a given creative performance likely to be seen as exceptional.
"This was the question we addressed in this research.
"These results show that whether we see a given performance as extraordinary is not just a function of the objective quality of that performance.
"For perceivers are much more likely to recognise a performance as truly brilliant when perceivers and performers share membership in a social group."
The study also showed that nationality made a difference to actually winning an award.
For the Oscars, American actors received 67 per cent of all nominations but 78 per cent of all awards.
For the BAFTAs, where British actors won 31 per cent of all nominations but 42 per cent of all awards.
Commenting on this pattern, he added: "Shared social group membership becomes even more important when the diagnostic value of a quality indicator increases - that is, when we establish whether something is not just excellent but outstanding.
"In this case, American actors win two out of three of all Oscar nominations but almost four out of five of all Oscar awards."
Subject matter of the film was also important, he noted.
In the Oscars, American artists accounted for 26 per cent of award winners whose performance was in films about non-US culture but for 88 per cent of award winners whose performance was in films about American culture.
Dr Steffens said: "There is a widespread belief that our perception of makes a creation original and outstanding is given by its objective qualities, but in fact it is heavily influenced by the social groups we are members of, and which provide the basis for making sense of the world."
The study was published in the British Journal of Psychology.
ENDS