ABSTRACT
The appeal and enjoyment of media entertainment have been the subject of much research interest in recent years (see Zillmann & Vorderer, 2000). “Why do we like what we like?” is a question that both content providers and social scientists seek to answer. A leading explanation of enjoyment focuses on the affective dispositions that viewers form toward the characters in those presentations; simply put, enjoyment of some types of entertainment is predicted by what happens with and to the characters that we like and/or dislike. Collectively these explanations are known as disposition theory. Although no single collection of statements called “disposition theory” exists to explain and predict enjoyment of all entertainment fare, disposition-based approaches to several types of entertainment have been forwarded.
