It's official: Spoilers 'do' spoil stories

Just when we started believing the 2011 study, which stated that people wound up liking stories better if they'd been told spoilers in advance, a recent experiment reveals we were right all along to live in fear of being "spoiled" for a story by finding out the ending.

The study by researchers Benjamin Johnson (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and Judith Rosenbaum (Albany State University) shows that narrative spoilers can ruin a story by reducing people's entertainment experiences.

The research is the first to show that people's widespread beliefs about spoilers being harmful are actually well-founded and not a myth, says Johnson. Furthermore, in a follow-up study, Johnson and Rosenbaum found that the effects of spoilers are actually linked to people's personality traits.

Johnson noted that while the worry and anger expressed by many media users about 'spoilers' in online discussions or reviews is not completely unfounded, fans should examine themselves before they get worked up about an unexpected spoiler.

These findings contradict a study carried out by two researchers in California in 2011 that found spoilers could improve story enjoyment. Johnson and Rosenbaum attribute the competing results to differences in how enjoyment is understood and measured.

"We found that people who have a low need for cognition prefer their stories to be spoiled, because it makes the plot easier to follow. Meanwhile, people who have a high need for affect enjoy unspoiled stories more, because they desire the thrill of a surprise," says Rosenbaum.

The study is published in Communication Research.