Conflictual dialogue did not improve story ratings

What the study found: The study found that manipulating stories to include more conflictual, or adversarial, dialogue did not lead to significant changes in story quality or audience response.

Why the authors say this matters: The authors say the work addresses a limited area of experimental research on conflict in stories and suggests that isolated adversarial dialogue may not have the positive effect on stories that is often assumed.

What the researchers tested: The researchers ran a pilot study and two similar repeated-measures experiments in which they changed stories to create different levels of conflictual dialogue. Participants read the stories and rated them using the Perceived Quality Index in the first experiment, and the Audience Response Scale plus additional questions on boredom and story quality in the second.

What worked and what didn't: The conflict manipulation was successful, meaning the stories were changed as intended. However, in the two experiments reported, it produced no significant difference in the outcome measures.

What to keep in mind: The abstract describes a pilot and two similar studies with 47 participants in the first study and 194 in the second, but it does not describe further limitations beyond noting that the results do not support the study hypothesis.

Key points

• Adding adversarial dialogue did not significantly improve story quality or audience response in the reported experiments.
• The researchers tested this idea with a pilot study and two repeated-measures experiments.
• Participants rated the stories using the Perceived Quality Index, the Audience Response Scale, and questions about boredom and story quality.
• The conflict manipulation was successful, but it did not change the measured outcomes.
• The authors say the findings do not support the hypothesis that isolated adversarial dialogue has a positive effect on stories.