
The Role of Different Spoiler Types in the Experience of Short Stories
By: William H. Levine and Savannah K. Raines
References
- Acheson, D. J., Wells, J. B., & MacDonald, M. C. (2008). New and updated tests of print exposure and reading abilities in college students. Behavior Research Methods, 40(1), 278–289. 10.3758/BRM.40.1.278
- Appel, M., Gnambs, T., Richter, T., & Green, M. C. (2015). The transportation scale-short form (TS-SF). Media Psychology, 18(2), 243–266. 10.1080/15213269.2014.987400
- Bates, D., Mächler, M., Bolker, B. M., & Walker, S. C. (2015). Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67(1), 1–48. 10.18637/jss.v067.i01
- Belke, B., Leder, H., Strobach, T., & Carbon, C.-C. (2010). Cognitive fluency: High-level processing dynamics in art appreciation. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 4(4), 214–222. 10.1037/a0019648
- Berliner, T. (2020). Expect the expected: Aesthetics of planting and payoff. Narrative, 28(2), 174–199. 10.1353/nar.2020.0009
- Bridgeman, T. (2005). Thinking ahead: A cognitive approach to prolepsis. Narrative, 13(2), 125–159.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20107370 - Brookes, S. E., Rosenbaum, J. E., & Ellithorpe, M. E. (2024). Spoilers as self-protection: Investigating the influence of empathic distress and concern for the self on spoiler selection. International Journal of Communication, 18, 1745–1764.
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19466/4538 - Burkett, C., & Goldman, S. R. (2016). “Getting the point” of literature: Relations between processing and interpretation. Discourse Processes, 53(5–6), 457–487. 10.1080/0163853X.2016.1169969
- Busselle, R., & Bilandzic, H. (2009). Measuring narrative engagement. Media Psychology, 12(4), 321–347. 10.1080/15213260903287259
- Cacioppo, J. T., & Petty, R. E. (1982). The need for cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42(1), 116–131.
https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0022-3514.42.1.116 - Cacioppo, J. T., Petty, R. E., Feinstein, J. A., & Jarvis, B. G. (1996). Dispositional differences in cognitive motivation: The life and times of individuals varying in need for cognition. Psychological Bulletin, 119(2), 197–253.
https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0033-2909.119.2.197 - Cacioppo, J. T., Petty, R. E., & Kao, C. F. (1984). The efficient assessment of need for cognition. Journal of Personality Assessment, 48(3), 306–207. 10.1207/s15327752jpa4803_13
- Cohen, A. L., Goldberg, C., Mintz, J., & Shavalian, E. (2023). Spoiler alert: How narrative film captures attention. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 37(3), 612–623. 10.1002/acp.4070
- Daniel, T. A., & Katz, J. S. (2019). Spoilers affect the enjoyment of television episodes but not short stories. Psychological Reports, 122(5), 1794–1807. 10.1177/0033294118793971
- Ellithorpe, M. E., & Brookes, S. E. (2018). I didn’t see that coming: Spoilers, fan theories, and their influence on enjoyment and parasocial breakup distress during a series finale. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 7(3), 250–263.
https://doi.apa.org/doi/10.1037/ppm0000134 - Ellithorpe, M. E., Rosenbaum, J. E., & Brookes, S. E. (2023). That’s not supposed to happen! Spoilers’ impact on experience of narratives with (un)expected endings. Psychology of Popular Media. Advance online publication.
https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/ppm0000482 - Fox, J., & Weisberg, S. (2018). Visualizing fit and lack of fit in complex regression models with predictor effect plots and partial residuals. Journal of Statistical Software, 87(9), 1–27. 10.18637/jss.v087.i09
- Galak, J., & Nelson, L. D. (2011). The virtues of opaque prose: How lay beliefs about fluency influence perceptions of quality. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(1), 250–253. 10.1016/j.jesp.2010.08.002
- Gordon, P. C., Moore, M., Choi, W., Hoedemaker, R. S., & Lowder, M. W. (2020). Individual differences in reading: Separable effects of reading experience and processing skill. Memory & Cognition, 48, 553–565. 10.3758/s13421-019-00989-3
- Green, M. C., & Brock, T. C. (2000). The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narratives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(5), 701–721. 10.1037//0022-3514.79.5.701
- Green, M. C., Fitzgerald, K., & Moore, M. M. (2019). Archetypes and narrative processes. Psychological Inquiry, 30(2), 99–102. 10.1080/1047840X.2019.1614808
- Green, M. C., Kass, S., Carrey, J., Herzig, B., Feeney, R., & Sabini, J. (2008). Transportation across media: Repeated exposure to print and film. Media Psychology, 11(4), 512–539. 10.1080/15213260802492000
- Hunt, R. A., & Vipond, D. (1986). Evaluations in literary reading. Text, 6(1), 53–71. 10.1515/text.1.1986.6.1.53
- Jacoby, L. L., Kelley, C., Brown, J., & Jasechko, J. (1989). Becoming famous overnight: Limits on the ability to avoid unconscious influences of the past. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56(3), 326–338.
https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0022-3514.56.3.326 - Jarmasz, J., & Hollands, J. G. (2009). Confidence intervals in repeated-measures designs: The number of observations principle. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63(2), 124–138.
https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/a0014164 - Johnson, B. K., & Rosenbaum, J. E. (2015). Spoiler alert: Consequences of narrative spoilers for dimensions of enjoyment, appreciation, and transportation. Communication Research, 42(8), 1068–1088. 10.1177/0093650214564051
- Johnson, B. K., & Rosenbaum, J. E. (2018). (Don’t) tell me how it ends: Spoilers, enjoyment, and involvement in television and film. Media Psychology, 21(4), 582–612. 10.1080/15213269.2017.1338964
- Johnson, B. K., Udvardi, A., Eden, A., & Rosenbaum, J. E. (2020). Spoilers go bump in the night: Impacts of minor and major reveals on horror film enjoyment. Journal of Media Psychology, 32(1), 14–25. 10.1027/1864-1105/a000252
- Knobloch-Westerwick, S., & Keplinger, C. (2008). Murder for pleasure: Impacts of plot complexity and need for cognition on mystery enjoyment. Journal of Media Psychology, 20(3), 117–128. 10.1027/1864-1105.20.3.117
- Kryston, K., Ulusoy, E., Grady, S. M., Johnson, B. K., Rosenbaum, J. E., & Eden, A. (2022). Seeking spoilage: The impact of content challenge, self-control, and traits on spoiler selection. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 66(3), 440–463. 10.1080/08838151.2022.2110593
- Kuznetsova, A., Brockhoff, P. B., & Christensen, R. H. B. (2017). lmerTest Package: Tests in linear mixed effects models. Journal of Statistical Software, 82(13), 1–26. 10.18637/jss.v082.i13
- Leavitt, J. D., & Christenfeld, N. J. S. (2011). Story spoilers don’t spoil stories. Psychological Science, 22(9), 1152–1154. 10.1177/0956797611417007
- Leavitt, J. D., & Christenfeld, N. J. S. (2013). The fluency of spoilers: Why giving away endings improves stories. Scientific Study of Literature, 3(1), 93–104. 10.1075/ssol.3.1.09lea
- Lee, C. D. (2011). Education and the study of literature. Scientific Study of Literature, 1(1), 49–58. 10.1075/ssol.1.1.05lee
- Levine, W. H., Betzner, M., & Autry, K. S. (2016). The effect of spoilers on the enjoyment of short stories. Discourse Processes, 53(7), 513–531. 10.1080/0163853X.2016.1141350
- Lorch, R. F.
Jr. (1989). Text-signaling devices and their effects of reading and memory processes. Educational Psychology Review, 1(3), 209–234.https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01320135 - Lüdecke, D. (2018). ggeffects: Tidy data frames of marginal effects from regression models. Journal of Open Source Software, 3(26), 772. 10.21105/joss.00772
- McCarthy, K. S., & Goldman, S. R. (2015). Comprehension of short stories: Effects of task instructions on literary interpretation. Discourse Processes, 52(7), 585–608. 10.1080/0163853X.2014.967610
- Mol, S. E., & Bus, A. (2011). To read or not to read: A meta-analysis of print exposure from infancy to early adulthood. Psychological Bulletin, 137(2), 267–296.
https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/a0021890 - Ohtsuka, K., & Brewer, W. F. (1992). Discourse organization in the comprehension of temporal order in narrative texts. Discourse Processes, 15(3), 317–336. 10.1080/01638539209544815
- Oliver, M. B., & Bartsch, A. (2010). Appreciation as audience response: Exploring entertainment gratification beyond hedonism. Human Communication Research, 36(1), 53–81. 10.1111/j.1468-2958.2009.01368.x
- Oliver, M. B., & Raney, A. A. (2011). Entertainment as pleasurable and meaningful: Identifying hedonic and eudaimonic motivations for entertainment consumption. Journal of Communication, 61(5), 984–1004. 10.1111/j.1460-2466.2011.01585.x
- R Core Team. (2020). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria.
https://www.R-project.org/ - Reber, R., Schwarz, N., & Winkielman, P. (2004). Processing fluency and aesthetic pleasure: Is beauty in the perceiver’s processing experience? Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8(4), 364–382. 10.1207/s15327957pspr0804_3
- Roets, A., & Van Hiel, A. (2011). Item selection and validation of a brief, 15-item version of the need for closure scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 50(1), 90–94.
https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1016/j.paid.2010.09.004 - Rosenbaum, J. E., & Johnson, B. K. (2016). Who’s afraid of spoilers? Need for cognition, need for affect, and narrative selection and enjoyment. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 5(3), 273–289. 10.1037/ppm0000076
- Sanchez, C. A., & Jaeger, A. J. (2015). If it’s hard to read, it changes how long you do it: Reading time as an explanation for perceptual fluency effects on judgment. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 22(1), 206–211. 10.3758/s13423-014-0658-6
- Stanovich, K. E., & Cunningham, A. E. (1992). Studying the consequences of literacy within a literate society: The cognitive correlates of print exposure. Memory & Cognition, 20(1), 51–68. 10.3758/BF03208254
- Stanovich, K. E., & West, R. F. (1989). Exposure to print and orthographic processing. Reading Research Quarterly, 24(4), 402–433. 10.2307/747605
- Szpunar, K. K., Schellenberg, E. G., & Pliner, P. (2004). Liking and memory for musical stimuli as a function of exposure. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30(2), 370–381. 10.1037/0278-7393.30.2.370
- Tolentino, E., Curry, L., & Leak, G. (1990). Further validation of the short form of the need for cognition scale. Psychological Reports, 66(1), 321–322. 10.2466%2Fpr0.1990.66.1.321
- Topolinksi, S. (2014). A processing fluency-account of funniness: Running gags and spoiling punchlines. Cognition and Emotion, 28(5), 811–820. 10.1080/02699931.2013.863180
- Tukey, J. W. (1977). Exploratory data analysis. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.
- Vermeiren, H., Vandendaele, A., & Brysbaert, M. (2023). Validated tests for language research with university students whose native language is English: Tests of vocabulary, general knowledge, author recognition, and reading comprehension. Behavior Research Methods, 55(3), 1036–1068. 10.3758/s13428-022-01856-x
- Vipond, D., & Hunt, R. A. (1984). Point-driven understanding: Pragmatic and cognitive dimensions of literary reading. Poetics, 13(3), 261–277. 10.1016/0304-422X(84)90005-6
- Vorderer, P., Klimmt, C., & Ritterfeld, U. (2004). Enjoyment: At the heart of media entertainment. Communication Theory, 14(4), 388–408. 10.1111/j.1468-2885.2004.tb00321.x
- Webster, D. M., & Kruglanski, A. W. (1994). Individual differences in the need for cognitive closure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(6), 1049–1062.
https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0022-3514.67.6.1049 - Wickham, H., Averick, M., Bryan, J., Chang, W., McGowan, L. D., François, R., Grolemund, G., Hayes, A., Henry, L., Hester, J., Kuhn, M., Pedersen, T. L., Miller, E., Bache, S. M., Müller, K., Ooms, J., Robinson, D., Seidel, D. P., Spinu, V., Takahashi, K., Vaughan, D., Wilke, C., Woo, K., & Yutani, H. (2019). Welcome to the tidyverse. Journal of Open Source Software, 4(43), 1686. 10.21105/joss.01686
- Yan, D., & Tsang, A. S. L. (2016). The misforecasted spoiler effect: Underlying mechanism and boundary conditions. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 26(1), 81–90. 10.1016/j.jcps.2015.05.003
DOI: https://doi.org/10.61645/ssol.190 | Journal eISSN: 2210-4380
Language: English
Page range: 27 - 44
Submitted on: Jun 22, 2024
Accepted on: Apr 4, 2025
Published on: May 5, 2025
Published by: International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Keywords:
© 2025 William H. Levine, Savannah K. Raines, published by International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.