Enough with the spoiler alerts! Plot spoilers often increase enjoyment

This article was originally published on The Conversation. A study with a surprising twist In one study, psychologists Jonathan Leavitt and Nicholas Christenfeld had 819 undergraduate students read short stories written by well-known authors like Roald Dahl and Anton Chekhov. The researchers focused on two personality traits: “need for cognition” and “need for affect.” People high in need for cognition like to think and tend to seek out cognitively demanding activities like crossword puzzles. In a study of 368 undergraduate students, the researchers found that students high in need for affect did, on average, tend to enjoy unspoiled stories more than spoiled stories. As part of their study, the researchers also presented the students with brief descriptions of several stories and asked the students how much they would like to read each one.