That's Not Supposed to Happen! Spoilers' Impact on Experience of Narratives With (Un)Expected Endings

• Published in: Psychology of popular media 2024-07, Vol.13 (3), p.281-290
• Main Authors: Ellithorpe, Morgan E., Rosenbaum, Judith E., Brookes, Sarah E.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cognitive Processes; Expectations; Experiences (Events); Female; Human; Male; Narratives; Pleasure; Television
• ISSN: 2689-6567; 2689-6575
• DOI: 10.1037/ppm0000482

Although spoilers are commonly believed to ruin the experience of a story, recent research has produced conflicting results about the role spoilers play in enjoyment. In response, scholars have begun to explore factors that impact the relationship between spoilers and the narrative experience. A series of three studies were conducted to investigate the relationship between spoilers and processing fluency by examining how expectations regarding a narrative's ending can interact with spoilers to affect fluency and the resulting enjoyment. Three online between-subjects experiments exposed participants to a spoiled or unspoiled preview and then assigned them to watch the season finale of a long-running sitcom with either the original ending that defied expectations or an alternate ending that aligned with genre conventions. Results reveal that both spoilers and whether an ending is expected have a complex relationship with fluency, with the three studies producing slightly different interactions between these two variables. In all three studies, fluency was associated with increased enjoyment. Public Policy Relevance StatementThree experiments found mixed results for the relationship between spoilers and processing fluency, and, subsequently, about the impact of spoilers on enjoyment. It is still to be determined whether seeking spoilers about a narrative event is likely to help or hinder enjoyment by impacting fluency.