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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		Do spoilers really spoil stories?
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:03
	Publish Date:		2016-06-04 19:00:00
	Description:		Have you ever overheard people talking about a major plot twist in a movie and end up running out of the room to avoid hearing a spoiler? Well, psychologist Nicholas Christenfeld of the University of California, San Diego says you may want to stick around next time. He led a study in which participants were divided into two groups – one read short stories and rated how well they liked them at the end, and the other group read stories that were “spoiled” by having the endings given away. "The name itself, ‘spoiler’, of course suggests that knowing the ending ruins the stories. Do they live up to their name? And what we found, remarkably, was if you spoil stories, they actually enjoy them more. That is, people reading these stories knowing the ending, with the ending completely given away, report greater pleasure reading them." So, what’s going on? Christenfeld thinks that spoilers allow people to pay less attention to the plot, and focus more on other, richer aspects of the book, film, or TV show. So you may want to think about this the next time you’re about to hear who was the latest casualty on ‘Game of Thrones’.
	Total Play:		0