USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

Olivia M. Leal

First Advisor

Major Professor: Mark Pezzo, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Dr. Rodriguez, Ph.D.

Third Advisor

Dr. O'Brien, Ph. D.

Publisher

University of South Florida St. Petersburg

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Date

2018

Date Issued

March 22, 2018

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that story spoilers - explaining how a story ends before the person has had a chance to discover it themselves - can either make the story more enjoyable or less enjoyable. This study examined the potential moderating effects of individual differences regarding need for cognition and need for affect. In this study, participants complete 2 individual difference measures and watched an episode of TI1e Twilight Zone. Participants were randomly assigned into one of four conditions: spoiler and explicit, no spoiler and explicit, spoiler and not explicit, no spoiler and not explicit. There was no effect found of spoilers on liking, the extent to which the show made sense, or the likelihood of the viewer recommending the show to another person. This study also manipulated the effect of spoilers being explicit (made known) on enjoyment. Additionally, neither need for cognition, nor need for affect qualified this finding. Potential limitations of the study are discussed.

Comments

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of the Arts Department of Psychology College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida, St. Petersburg

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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