Who's Afraid of Spoilers? Need for Cognition, Need for Affect, and Narrative Selection and Enjoyment

As indicated by the phrase "spoiler alert!" many people actively avoid spoilers. Previous experimental studies into the impact of spoilers on enjoyment (Johnson & Rosenbaum, 2015; Leavitt & Christenfeld, 2011, 2013) produced contradictory findings, and the present study investigate...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychology of popular media culture 2016-07, Vol.5 (3), p.273-289
Main Authors: Rosenbaum, Judith E., Johnson, Benjamin K.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Female
Human
Individual Differences
Male
Narratives
Need for Cognition
Pleasure
Preferences
Psychological Needs
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Summary:As indicated by the phrase "spoiler alert!" many people actively avoid spoilers. Previous experimental studies into the impact of spoilers on enjoyment (Johnson & Rosenbaum, 2015; Leavitt & Christenfeld, 2011, 2013) produced contradictory findings, and the present study investigates whether personality traits moderate the relationship between spoilers and enjoyment. Comprehension theories and resource matching theory are used to develop competing hypotheses about the impact of the interaction between spoilers and need for cognition on narrative preference, enjoyment, and transportation, whereas excitation-transfer theory and mood management theory suggest that the interaction between spoilers and need for affect would produce a decrease in preference, enjoyment, and transportation. An experiment (N = 368) tested these hypotheses and found that those low on need for cognition held a selective preference for spoiled stories, whereas individuals with a high need for affect enjoyed unspoiled stories more. In addition, fiction reading frequency was positively related to the enjoyment of unspoiled stories.
ISSN:2160-4134
2160-4142
DOI:10.1037/ppm0000076