New research digs into the science behind storytelling, including why we root for underdogs and resent when characters get lucky breaks.

When audiences first met Breaking Bad‘s Walter White, they embraced him as a tragic figure—a humble chemistry teacher who got a bad break with a terminal cancer diagnosis—before he made a single moral choice.

This audience reaction reflects a fundamental aspect of storytelling: exigent events, independent of a character’s behavior, have a powerful effect on how the audience connects with characters.

The new research suggests that behavior-independent events affect audience loyalty in systematic but surprising ways.

University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications Public Relations Assistant Professor Rebecca Frazer and colleagues from The Ohio State University investigated how life circumstances shape audience perceptions. The researchers used affective disposition theory (ADT)—which explores how viewers form positive and negative perceptions of story characters—to show that audience loyalty can be swayed by events beyond a character’s control.

To learn more about how behavior-independent events affect audience perceptions, the researchers gave 397 participants different stories about a student named “Amelia,” with the only variables being what happened to her. In one scenario, Amelia’s family falls on difficult financial times and is forced to sell their car. In another, her parents bought her a shiny new luxury vehicle.

The researchers found that participants liked Amelia more when the car was lost because of finances, and they hoped for her success. On the other hand, when Amelia’s parents gifted her with an expensive ride, the participants’ well-wishes shifted to antipathy.

The researchers then tested whether an audience would empathize with Amelia when she was experiencing health-related events. The team discovered that both positive outcomes (being cleared of a serious illness) and negative ones (receiving a diagnosis) increased audience sympathy—suggesting that different types of fortune or misfortune influence the audience’s connection to a character in distinct ways.

The findings demonstrate that the satisfaction or thwarting of a character’s fundamental needs can systematically alter how audiences form dispositions toward them. When Amelia suffered due to events outside her control, viewers were predisposed to like her more. Conversely, when Amelia benefited due to events outside her control, viewers were predisposed to like her less.

The study challenges existing assumptions about how audiences form connections with characters. While traditional research focuses on moral judgments of character behaviors, this work shows that behavior-independent events—circumstances entirely outside a character’s control—play a crucial role in shaping audience response.

For content creators and researchers, these insights expand understanding of character development beyond actions and choices. The circumstances characters face have a strong influence on creating audience connection, operating independently of the characters’ own behaviors.

The research appears in Media Psychology.

Source: University of Florida