London [United Kingdom], Feb 6. : Wanna win an Oscar? Well you have landed on the right place coz we know all the right ingredients you need for cooking the dish! In a latest study published in the British Journal of Psychology by Dr Niklas K.
Steffens from the School of Psychology at The University of Queensland, it has been found out that to win an Oscar it is best to be an American actor in a film that portrays American culture.
The researchers conducted a large-scale analysis of the distribution of the Academy Awards for best actor and for best actress in a leading role by the Los Angeles-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (i.e., the Oscars) as well as the award for best actor and for best actress in a leading role by the London-based British Academy of Film and Television Arts (i.e.
the BAFTAs) since 1968. This covered a total of 908 merit 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. The results show that US actors dominated the awards, winning more than 50 per cent of all prizes across Oscars and BAFTAs.
Nevertheless, 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, while 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 data 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.
The same held true for the BAFTAs, where British actors won 31 per cent of all nominations but 42 per cent of all awards.
Another important determinant of success was the subject matter of the film. 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.
Source: ANI
