“To know about a show that you don’t know about is to have power,” said Mr. McCracken, who has taught at the University of Cambridge, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Harvard Business School. “I live in the future that you are about to occupy.”

Netflix plans to use the research as the basis for a new digital promotion that features a question-and-answer flow chart to help people classify their style for spoiling.

Spoil a show on purpose as part of a power play? That’s the so-called power spoiler. (Think an employee who spoils a plot twist for a boss, or a daughter who spoils a drama for her mother.) Spoil a show by accident, out of sheer excitement for the characters, the plot and the series? That’s the “impulsive” spoiler. The “shameless” spoiler believes that once a television show is live, it’s fair game to talk about. The “clueless” spoiler reveals the plot secrets accidentally and thinks that once he or she has seen a show, so has the entire world.

And then there is the “coded” spoiler, who is a “master of saying it without saying it, because you know spoilers can be as intriguing as they are devastating.” The coded spoiler behavior is the latest to emerge, Mr. McCracken said.

The research, along with the Netflix promotion, are part of a broader push at the streaming service to understand the changing nature of television in society. The company is building its business on the theory that Internet television is replacing traditional television, apps are replacing channels, remote controls are disappearing and screens are proliferating.