A confession: I am one of the maybe six people left who have never seen an episode of Game of Thrones. Just existing in the world and on the internet means I have, over the years, indirectly absorbeda rough working knowledge of the show, enough that I can sort of follow along with friends’ conversations about it.

我坦白：我就是大約六人里面那個(gè)連一集《權(quán)力的游戲》都沒(méi)看過(guò)的人。我是說(shuō)，只要活在世上而且上個(gè)網(wǎng)，過(guò)去這些年，我對(duì)這部劇的粗略了解也夠我跟得上朋友們的對(duì)話(huà)了。

One study suggested that spoiled stories were actually more enjoyable possibly because they’re easier to process while a later investigation found the precise opposite.

有研究稱(chēng)，劇透的故事情節(jié)其實(shí)更令人愉悅，大概因?yàn)檫@樣的故事更好理解吧，而后又有一項(xiàng)調(diào)查的結(jié)果與之截然相反。

But the answer may be slightly more nuanced than “spoilers good” or “spoilers bad” — maybe, as a new study in the journal Psychology of Popular Media Culture suggests, it depends on your personality.

“劇透“”到底“是好是壞”，答案或許還有些微妙，《大眾媒體文化心理》期刊一項(xiàng)新的研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，這取決于你的個(gè)性。

The study authors, professors of communication at Albany State University, in Georgia, and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, focused on two personality elements: “need for cognition,” or how much a person likes to use their brain for challenging mental activities, and “need for affect,” or the tendency to seek out emotional situations.

研究的作者是通訊方向的教授，來(lái)自美國(guó)紐約州立大學(xué)奧爾巴尼分校和阿姆斯特丹自由大學(xué)，他們重點(diǎn)關(guān)注兩大個(gè)性元素：“認(rèn)知需求”，即一個(gè)人需要多大的腦力活動(dòng)挑戰(zhàn)，和“影響需求”，走出情感局面的傾向。

In the first part of the study, a group of 358 college students read “previews” of short stories, including some that contained spoilers, and then reported which previews made them most interested in reading the full stories. When the volunteers then took personality tests, the researchers found, the same people who had scored low on need for cognition were also the ones who said they’d rather read the stories that’d already been spoiled.

在第一部分的研究中，358名大學(xué)生讀了小說(shuō)的“預(yù)告”，包括部分劇透內(nèi)容，然后報(bào)告他們對(duì)整篇故事里哪部分情節(jié)最有興趣。然后，這些學(xué)生志愿者參加了性格測(cè)試，研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，“認(rèn)知需求”分?jǐn)?shù)低者同樣也是稱(chēng)愿意讀劇情透露故事的人群。

The study authors then gave their subjects copies of a handful of stories that had been included in the previews — some that they’d read spoilers for, and some where they still didn’t know what would happen. When the volunteers rate how much they’d liked the stories, another pattern emerged: The people who had scored higher on the need for affect enjoyed the unspoiled stories more.

研究人員繼而給了實(shí)驗(yàn)參與者一批故事看，這些故事在預(yù)告中已經(jīng)有所涉及，有些已經(jīng)劇透，還有些故事的情節(jié)尚不知如何發(fā)展。后來(lái)這些實(shí)驗(yàn)參與者評(píng)價(jià)他們對(duì)故事的喜歡程度時(shí)，又一個(gè)模式出現(xiàn)了：影響需求分值高者更喜歡讀未經(jīng)劇透的故事。

A confession: I am one of the maybe six people left who have never seen an episode of Game of Thrones. Just existing in the world and on the internet means I have, over the years, indirectly absorbeda rough working knowledge of the show, enough that I can sort of follow along with friends’ conversations about it.

我坦白：我就是大約六人里面那個(gè)連一集《權(quán)力的游戲》都沒(méi)看過(guò)的人。我是說(shuō)，只要活在世上而且上個(gè)網(wǎng)，過(guò)去這些年，我對(duì)這部劇的粗略了解也夠我跟得上朋友們的對(duì)話(huà)了。

One study suggested that spoiled stories were actually more enjoyable possibly because they’re easier to process while a later investigation found the precise opposite.

有研究稱(chēng)，劇透的故事情節(jié)其實(shí)更令人愉悅，大概因?yàn)檫@樣的故事更好理解吧，而后又有一項(xiàng)調(diào)查的結(jié)果與之截然相反。

But the answer may be slightly more nuanced than “spoilers good” or “spoilers bad” — maybe, as a new study in the journal Psychology of Popular Media Culture suggests, it depends on your personality.

“劇透“”到底“是好是壞”，答案或許還有些微妙，《大眾媒體文化心理》期刊一項(xiàng)新的研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，這取決于你的個(gè)性。

The study authors, professors of communication at Albany State University, in Georgia, and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, focused on two personality elements: “need for cognition,” or how much a person likes to use their brain for challenging mental activities, and “need for affect,” or the tendency to seek out emotional situations.

研究的作者是通訊方向的教授，來(lái)自美國(guó)紐約州立大學(xué)奧爾巴尼分校和阿姆斯特丹自由大學(xué)，他們重點(diǎn)關(guān)注兩大個(gè)性元素：“認(rèn)知需求”，即一個(gè)人需要多大的腦力活動(dòng)挑戰(zhàn)，和“影響需求”，走出情感局面的傾向。

In the first part of the study, a group of 358 college students read “previews” of short stories, including some that contained spoilers, and then reported which previews made them most interested in reading the full stories. When the volunteers then took personality tests, the researchers found, the same people who had scored low on need for cognition were also the ones who said they’d rather read the stories that’d already been spoiled.

在第一部分的研究中，358名大學(xué)生讀了小說(shuō)的“預(yù)告”，包括部分劇透內(nèi)容，然后報(bào)告他們對(duì)整篇故事里哪部分情節(jié)最有興趣。然后，這些學(xué)生志愿者參加了性格測(cè)試，研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，“認(rèn)知需求”分?jǐn)?shù)低者同樣也是稱(chēng)愿意讀劇情透露故事的人群。

The study authors then gave their subjects copies of a handful of stories that had been included in the previews — some that they’d read spoilers for, and some where they still didn’t know what would happen. When the volunteers rate how much they’d liked the stories, another pattern emerged: The people who had scored higher on the need for affect enjoyed the unspoiled stories more.

研究人員繼而給了實(shí)驗(yàn)參與者一批故事看，這些故事在預(yù)告中已經(jīng)有所涉及，有些已經(jīng)劇透，還有些故事的情節(jié)尚不知如何發(fā)展。后來(lái)這些實(shí)驗(yàn)參與者評(píng)價(jià)他們對(duì)故事的喜歡程度時(shí)，又一個(gè)模式出現(xiàn)了：影響需求分值高者更喜歡讀未經(jīng)劇透的故事。