ABSTRACT

Given that news stories feature many morally-laden topics, this study investigated the effect of moral conflict in news stories on entertainment experiences and learning outcomes. We propose that a reader’s perception of moral conflict in a non-fictional news story will lead to the cognitively engaging experience of appreciation, which is characterized as thought-provoking, moving, and meaningful. Moreover, we suggest that this experience will impact two aspects of knowledge gain: the acquisition of knowledge (objective knowledge) and the perception of having learned something (subjective knowledge). To investigate whether the perception of moral conflict and the experience of appreciation hampers or fosters knowledge gain, an online experiment was conducted in which participants (N= 334) read a feature story that was manipulated to induce the perception of moral conflict. Our results demonstrated that a news article perceived as morally conflicting led to more appreciation than one that was not perceived as morally conflicting. Our findings provide insight into the relationship between perceived moral conflict and learning outcomes, that is, knowledge acquisition and subjective knowledge, and the role of entertainment experiences in this relationship. Results are discussed in relation to the influence of entertainment experiences on learning.

摘要

考虑到新闻故事具有许多寓意于道德的话题，本研究调查了新闻故事中的道德冲突对娱乐体验和学习成果的影响。我们建议，读者对非虚构新闻故事中道德冲突的感知将导致认知上的，引人入胜的欣赏体验，这种体验的特征是发人深省，动人且有意义。此外，我们建议这种经历将影响知识获取的两个方面：知识的获取（客观知识）和对学到的东西的认识（主观知识）。为了调查是否道德冲突和赞赏篮或福斯特知识获取的经验的感知，在线试验，其中参与者（ñ= 334）阅读了一篇故事故事，该故事被操纵来引发对道德冲突的感知。我们的结果表明，一篇新闻被认为在道德上产生了冲突，因此比没有被认为在道德上发生冲突的一条引起了更多的赞赏。我们的发现提供了对感知到的道德冲突与学习成果之间的关系的洞见，即知识获取和主观知识，以及娱乐体验在这种关系中的作用。讨论了有关娱乐体验对学习的影响的结果。