Masters Theses
Date of Award
5-2024
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Major
Psychology
Major Professor
Jeff T. Larsen
Committee Members
Sarah A. Lamer, Patrick R. Grzanka
Abstract
How do Survivor contestants feel when they have just been voted off the island? Given that their goal of winning $1 million dollars has been thwarted by their peers, we might expect the experience to be wholly negative. However, anecdotal evidence from contestants suggest that it may be a mixed emotional event characterized by a combination of positive and negative emotions. To investigate emotional reactions, five coders listened to and read transcripts of 552 Survivor contestants’ “exit interviews.” These exit interviews were in-the-moment self-reports (i.e., they were recorded directly after each contestant was voted out). The coders indicated whether each contestant expressed a variety of emotions regarding how far they got, how well they played, how they felt about their peers, and the overall experience. We found that contestants on Survivor were more likely to express positive affect than negative affect when they were voted out, and 38% of all contestants expressed mixed emotions. Further, contestants who were voted out later in the game were less likely to express negative and mixed emotions. We did not find any evidence for gender differences in emotional expressions. We speculate that, despite all the apparent reasons being voted off the island should be negative, meaningful experiences and their subsequent endings, such as participating on and being voted off of Survivor, may lead to reminiscence and the elicitation of complex emotional expressions, including an increased likelihood of expressing positive rather than negative emotions.
Recommended Citation
Brayton, Emily Ann, "“THE BEST-WORST EXPERIENCE OF MY ENTIRE LIFE”: NEGATIVE, POSITIVE, AND MIXED EMOTIONAL REACTIONS TO GETTING VOTED OFF SURVIVOR ISLAND. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2024.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/11350