Seeking Spoilage: The Impact of Content Challenge, Self-Control, and Traits on Spoiler Selection

ABSTRACT

Two experiments examined whether perceived content challenge, self-control, and trait variables predicted participants’ choice of a spoiled/unspoiled movie review. Study 1 found that perceived content challenge influenced spoiler selection as a function of need for cognition. Self-control had no effect. In Study 2, participants chose spoilers when content was perceived to be cognitively challenging but not affectively challenging. Need for affect moderated these effects. Choosing spoiler-laden reviews was also associated with reduced anticipated enjoyment and intention to watch the full film. The results point to the importance of trait and content variables in spoiler selection.

Disclosure Statement

The authors or the institution of the authors have no relationship, financial or otherwise, with individuals or organizations that could influence the author’s work inappropriately, and no external funding was received to finance the research reported in this manuscript.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ The wording of this hypothesis differs slightly from preregistration but describes the same hypothesized effect. Changes were made to ensure clarity.

² In a deviation from preregistration, which specified N = 413 from a combination of Mechanical Turk and student participants, we instead conducted two studies, one from each population.

³ Additional analyses were conducted using manipulated challenge and are available at (https://osf.io/pgshq).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kevin Kryston

Kevin Kryston (PhD, Michigan State University) is an Assistant Professor at Sam Houston State University. His research focuses on entertainment media psychology, and uses behavioral, psychophysiological, and self-report data to determine how social and narrative cues affect audiences’ selection and enjoyment of entertainment and other media content.

Ezgi Ulusoy

Ezgi Ulusoy (MA, Ewha Womans University) is a Ph.D. candidate at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on the selection mechanisms in media settings. She has worked on research using behavioral and physiological measures to understand psychological and social processes leading to media behaviors, and their effect on health outcomes.

Sara M. Grady

Sara M. Grady (MSc, University of Edinburgh) is a Ph.D. candidate at Michigan State University. Her research explores media psychology from a functional perspective: what motivates narrative entertainment processing, what factors make media use intrinsically rewarding, and how does media help us navigate our relationships and cope with daily life.

Benjamin K. Johnson

Benjamin K. Johnson (PhD, The Ohio State University) is an Associate Professor of Advertising at the University of Florida. His research is focused on why and how people select and share messages in new media settings, especially with regard to psychological processes such as impression management, social comparison, and self-regulation.

Judith E. Rosenbaum

Judith E. Rosenbaum (PhD, Radboud University Nijmegen) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at the University of Maine. Her research focuses on how people use media content in their daily lives and how this usage is related to their identities, relationships, and perceptions of reality.

Allison Eden

Allison Eden (PhD, Michigan State University) is an Associate Professor of Communication at Michigan State University. Her research examines underlying processes in enjoyment from media entertainment, including the role enjoyment plays in attention to and selection of content, responses to characters, and effects of enjoyment on viewer behavior and attitudes.