Browsing online ratings and viewers’ comments is an integral part of the experience of choosing and watching a movie. Current theories have broadened the concept of entertainment beyond amusement (hedonic motives) to include experiences of meaning, value, and self-development (eudaimonic motives). With a between-subjects design, we examined the role of reviewers’ ratings (medium rating vs. high rating), comments (hedonic vs. eudaimonic) and participants’ gratification styles on their interest in watching a movie. Results showed that participants (N = 383) reported a higher preference for the high rating movie. Results also revealed a match between comment type and individual gratification style, with participants with hedonic motives reporting more interest for the movie with hedonic comments, and those reporting eudaimonic motives for the movie with eudaimonic comments.
Nuno Piçarra has a PhD in psychology and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal. His research focus is on the intersection between human behavior and technology. Author Contributions: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Project administration, Writing original draft, Writing review & editing.
Níbia Silva has a master's degree in science on emotions and a degree in sociology from Iscte-University Institute of Lisbon. Author Contributions: Conceptualization, Investigation.
Teresa Chambel received a degree in computer science from the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal (FCUL), has a master's degree in electrical and computer engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico, and a PhD degree in informatics from FCUL. She is an associate professor with the Department of Informatics (DI), FCUL, and a senior researcher at the LASIGE Research Lab, in Human-Computer Interaction, Multimedia and Affective Computing, with the Health and Biomedical Informatics research line. www.di.fc.ul.pt/~tc. Author Contributions: Funding acquisition, Writing review & editing.
Patrícia Arriaga has a PhD in social psychology, a master's degree in clinical psychology and psychopathology, and a degree in psychology. Currently she is an assistant professor with Habilitation at ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal, and a senior researcher at the Centre for Social Research and Intervention of ISCTE-IUL. Her main research interest is the study of socio-affective and motivational processes applied to health and media entertainment. Author Contributions: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal Analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Resources; Project administration, Supervision, Writing original draft, Writing review & editing. http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5766-0489 Email: patricia.arriaga@iscte-iul.pt (Please address all correspondence regarding this article to Dr Arriaga.)