The Psychology of Dexter - Bella DePaulo [100]
Let’s consider a specific example. In the episode “Remains to Be Seen” (4-2), Dexter was recovering from a car accident. When Dexter’s wife, Rita, hurried to visit him in the hospital, Dexter was preparing to leave. He lied to Rita about the severity of the situation, and said he had been cleared to go. Most Dexter viewers will likely find these events familiar from their own real-world experiences: on some occasions, those viewers may have downplayed the severity of an illness or injury so that others would not worry; on other occasions, they may have come to understand that they were on the receiving end when others understated their pain or discomfort. These real-world memories create a context for viewers to offer Dexter mental advice. They might hear themselves think, “Don’t get Rita worried!” or, “Your lie won’t work!” Viewers don’t need to expend any particular effort to formulate these responses. The content of the narrative automatically evokes viewers’ memories. Those memories, in turn, give rise to these instances of mental advice. Viewers’ own life experiences enable them to encode participatory responses that often take the form of mental advice. Viewers think, “Your lie won’t work!” in response to Dexter for exactly the same reasons, and with much the same ardor, as they would in comparable real-life situations.
Because Dexter is the main character, he is frequently the recipient of this mental advice. Viewers root for Dexter in the moment, as an episode unfolds, regularly embracing his goals. According to research on participatory responses, readers and viewers regularly root in favor of characters’ goals.37 Thus, viewers’ automatic responses to Dexter parallel their responses to other stories (even though they would not support Dexter’s goals in the real world). Consider a scene in “Finding Freebo” (3-2), in which Dexter killed the murderous Freebo by jabbing a knife into his neck. This kill was not business as usual for Dexter: assistant district attorney Miguel Prado sat in his car outside the place where Freebo had been staying. Miguel had been hunting Freebo because of his supposed part in the death of Miguel’s brother, Oscar. It was unclear how Miguel would react to learning that Dexter had just killed Freebo. Before Dexter had finished disposing of his victim’s body, Miguel searched through the house and then exited toward the detached garage in which Dexter had set up his kill room. Viewers were privy to Miguel’s impending arrival before Dexter. As a result, many fans—familiar with the experience of trying not to be caught doing something they shouldn’t be—probably found themselves feeling anxious and mentally or literally shouting, “Hurry up!” or, “Hide the body!”
Research on narratives has provided evidence that the particular content of participatory responses affects how a story is processed. As a narrative unfolds, readers and viewers develop preferences for specific outcomes—the desire for the outcome is what drives their participatory responses. What is also notable about these preferences is that when outcomes match people’s preferences, they find those outcomes easier to absorb than outcomes that do not match those preferences.38 What makes the experience of Dexter unusual, of course, is that viewers appear to develop preferences in favor of outcomes that they should find reprehensible. As a result, even implausible outcomes—so long as they match viewers’ preferences—become easier to accept in a story. This phenomenon might help explain why Dexter’s miraculous ability to avoid getting caught is readily accepted by many viewers. For example, at the end of season