Choosing and enjoying violence in narratives

We use an interactive story design in which participants read short stories and make two consecutive plot choices about whether protagonists commit low- or high-violence actions. Our study has four main findings. 1) People who choose high violence report greater satisfaction with the story, while th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2019-12, Vol.14 (12), p.e0226503-e0226503
Main Authors: Lagrange, Victoria, Hiskes, Benjamin, Woodward, Claire, Li, Binyan, Breithaupt, Fritz
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Aggression
Aggressiveness
Biology and Life Sciences
Choice Behavior
Computer & video games
Computer and Information Sciences
Female
Fiction
Fictional Works as Topic
Genre
Humans
Hypotheses
Male
Morality
Narration
Narratives
Pleasure
Population
Sex Factors
Social Sciences
Studies
Violence
Violence - psychology
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Summary:We use an interactive story design in which participants read short stories and make two consecutive plot choices about whether protagonists commit low- or high-violence actions. Our study has four main findings. 1) People who choose high violence report greater satisfaction with the story, while those switching to or staying with no violence show lower satisfaction. 2) However, when participants encounter these stories without choices, they reliably rate higher-violence stories as less satisfying than lower-violence stories. 3) Regret seems to account for the low satisfaction of those who choose or switch to low violence. 4) There is a large segment of people (up to 66%) who can be persuaded by different story contexts (genre, perspective) to choose extreme violence in interactive fiction and as a consequence of their choice feel satisfaction. We hypothesize that people who opt for high violence enjoy the story as a result of their choice. Overall, we suggest that choosing violence serves as a gateway for enjoyment by creating an aesthetic zone of control detached from morality.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0226503