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Suspense and Surprise
2015
Journal of Political Economy
We model demand for non-instrumental information, drawing on the idea that people derive entertainment utility from suspense and surprise. A period has more suspense if the variance of the next period's beliefs is greater. A period has more surprise if the current belief is further from the last period's belief. Under these definitions, we analyze the optimal way to reveal information over time so as to maximize expected suspense or surprise experienced by a Bayesian audience. We apply our
doi:10.1086/677350
fatcat:ppyqsuq7bvhbrfw3a4pzczddta