This paper investigates the impact of atypicality on cultural goods reception. While prior research has assumed controlled and highly cognitive mechanisms in audience evaluations, this paper probes the influence of affective states. We suggest that crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, trigger affective states and sway evaluations of atypical cultural goods. In a longitudinal study on movie evaluations (“Study 1”), we analyze how the external shock of the COVID-19 lockdown announcement — proxying heightened negative affects including anxiety — interacted with movies’ atypicality and their subsequent audience evaluations. Furthermore, two preregistered controlled experiments establish causal links at the individual level. Study 2 corroborates the causal relationship between the COVID-19 lockdown announcement and increased negative affects. Study 3 shows that higher negative affects moderate how perceived novelty mediates atypicality's effect on audience evaluations. Overall, this paper has important implications for research on categorization, social evaluations, and the consequences of COVID-19 policy consequences.

本文研究了非典型性对文化产品接受的影响。虽然先前的研究假设受众评估中存在受控和高度认知的机制，但本文探讨了情感状态的影响。我们认为，新冠肺炎 (COVID-19) 大流行等危机会引发情感状态，并影响对非典型文化产品的评价。在一项关于电影评价的纵向研究（“研究 1”）中，我们分析了 COVID-19 封锁公告的外部冲击（代表包括焦虑在内的负面影响加剧）如何与电影的非典型性及其随后的观众评价相互作用。此外，两个预先注册的对照实验在个体层面建立了因果关系。研究 2 证实了 COVID-19 封锁公告与负面影响增加之间的因果关系。研究 3 表明，较高的负面影响会调节感知新颖性如何调节非典型性对受众评价的影响。总体而言，本文对于分类、社会评估和 COVID-19 政策后果的研究具有重要意义。