Unraveling consumer suspense: The role of hope, fear, and probability fluctuations

Suspenseful design: Engaging emotionally with complex applications through compelling narratives

“…Specifically, participants were asked to fill out Moulard's suspense scale (Moulard et al, 2012) and the flow short scale (Rheinberg & Vollmeyer, 2003). Participants were also asked if they "would be upset if the tutorial ended now".…”

“…Moulard (2012) developed a more comprehensive method of measuring suspense through questionnaires in consumer experiences. In the experiment described in Chapter 4, I make use of her validated scale for measuring suspense, which breaks suspense down into two component emotions, hope and fear, as well as a valence-neutral component that corresponds to both positive and negative tension.…”

“…Moulard's suspense scale (Moulard et al, 2012) asks participants to rate their feelings of hopeful suspense, fearful suspense, and valence-neutral suspense using a 7-point Likert scale. Hopeful suspense was probed by the following statements: "I feel eager", "I feel excited", "I feel enthusiastic", and "I am looking forward to what happens next."…”

“…In addition, the questionnaire used to measure suspense (Moulard et al, 2012) may not have been sensitive enough to measure mild feelings of fearful suspense. A modified version of the questionnaire that measures simple concern, rather than strong fear, might have been more effective.…”

A content analysis on features of suspenseful commercials

“…Today, it becomes more and more difficult to attract viewers' attention because of abundant media choices. As an effective way to attract and maintain viewers' attention (Alwitt, 2002), the research and application areas of suspense have been extended: researchers in communication (Wirth & Schramm, 2005;Westerwick et al, 2009;Shafer, 2014), and business (Moulard, Kroff, Folse, 2012), as well as advertising (Alwitt, 2002;Bee & Madrigal, 2012), and recently computer science (Langer, 2014) have begun to study suspense as well.…”