PhD student Lucy Brown, Associate Professor Matthew Grizzard, Senior Lecturer Joe Francemone, Rebecca Frazer (PhD 23), PhD student Annie Dooley, PhD student Chas Monge and MA student Samantha Flanagan won a Top Paper Award in the Communication and Social  Cognition Division for their paper “Victims of Circumstance: The Role of Behavior-Independent Events in the Disposition Formation Process” at the National Communication Association 109th Annual Convention in National Harbor, Maryland, Nov. 16-19.

This paper examined how narrative events outside of a character’s control might influence liking of that character. In two studies, a character who had a negative event befall her was liked more, while a character who had a positive event befall her was liked less – but only in certain contexts. This demonstrates how, beyond a character’s own behaviors, the narrative satisfaction or thwarting of specific egoistic intuitions (i.e., the character’s needs) can lead to unique effects on disposition formation (liking).