Authors’ Empathy

Keen, Suzanne

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195175769.003.0005

Cited by 9 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…Every participant was able to describe a time when they felt sympathy for one of the characters, and/or when they felt exactly what the main character was feeling. This corroborates research proposing a correlation between reading and empathy (Keen, 2007; Vermeule, 2010; Vezzali et al, 2015), echoing the relevance of character attachment for moral and social–emotional learning. A more novel finding was in the realm of perspective-taking; it involved variation in how participants “see” or “view” the narrative.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…M. Jacobs, 2015), as well as the generation of mental images of narrative events (Kurby & Zacks, 2013). More broadly, scholars in cognitive literary studies have written about various aspects of reader engagement: the role of the imagination (Scarry, 1999), the cognitive and literary intersections of the imagination (Richardson, 2015), the theory of mind and fiction (Zunshine, 2012), the evocation of empathy (Keen, 2007), and readers’ emotional attachment to fictional characters (Vermeule, 2010).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Children’s absorption in fiction: Self-reports by avid and occasional readers.

Prezioso¹,

Harris²

2023

Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts

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Story world absorption is a mental state in which a reader’s attention is captured by immersion in a story. Although there is extensive research on story world absorption in adults, there is very little research on story world absorption in children. This mixed-methods study investigated the mental state of story world absorption in 66 children ages 9–11 years old, asking how they experience that state. Motivated by the hypothesis that, despite differences in their reading frequency, most children can become absorbed by stories, we asked a diverse sample of readers to report on their reading experience. Although 9-year-old frequent readers reported greater overall absorption than 9-year-old occasional readers, 10- and 11-year-old readers reported similar levels of absorption, regardless of their reading frequency. Additionally, frequent and occasional readers across age groups were similar in the extent to which they differentially endorsed the four dimensions of the absorption experience: attention, transportation, emotional engagement, and mental imagery. Semistructured interviews conducted with a subset of the sample (18 children) provided additional information regarding the text types and features that are most likely to absorb child readers. Overall, the findings underline the possibility that both frequent and occasional child readers can become absorbed in a fictional world.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Children’s absorption in fiction: Self-reports by avid and occasional readers.

Prezioso¹,

Harris²

2023

Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts

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“…Consistent with this finding, Keen (2006) argued that nonfiction readers operate in a skeptical and investigative mode, whereas fiction readers become immersed in the lives of the characters. In short, because we mute our appraisal system when we read fiction, we are more likely to allow ourselves to feel powerfully in response to fiction than in everyday life (Carroll, 1996; Harris, 1998, 2000; Keen, 2006, 2007; Mar & Oatley, 2008; Oatley, 1999).…”

Section: Stronger Reactions To Fiction Because the “Appraisal System”...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fiction is argued to be a safe arena for us to experience (and practice) our emotions: In fiction we can experience emotions without need for self-protection, and thus we can allow ourselves to feel more than we would feel in real life (Keen, 2006, 2007; Zunshine, 2006). Because we know that the tragedy on screen will not follow us into our kitchen, we can allow ourselves to feel more strongly.…”

Section: Stronger Reactions To Fiction Because Of the “Safety” Of Fic...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The pleasure of unadulterated sadness: Experiencing sorrow in fiction, nonfiction, and "in person."

Goldstein

2009

Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts

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We often experience intense emotions when we enter fictional worlds in film and literature and often shed real tears. The goal of this study was to determine whether emotional reactions (sadness and anxiety) to fiction are distinguishable from emotional reactions to fact. Fifty-nine young adults rated their sadness and anxiety levels in response to 4 film clips, 2 presented as fiction, 2 as nonfiction, and in response to the recall of an actual sad event personally experienced. Participants experienced equivalent levels of sadness and anxiety in response to films presented as fictional or factual. They also experienced equivalent levels of sadness in response to films and in response to a sad personal event. Anxiety levels, however, were significantly higher in response to personally experienced events. The fact that sadness elicited by films is unadulterated by the anxiety that accompanies the sadness of personal experience may explain, in part, the pleasure we derive from watching sad films.

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“…Stockwell summarises that the feelings experienced when reading are ‘fundamentally the same as authentic real-world emotions’ (2020: 183); literary emotions can thus be viewed as genuinely felt even though they are engendered through simulation. Character identification has also been explored as one of the key factors eliciting narrative empathy (Keen, 2007: 169; Oatley and Gholamain, 1987). Stockwell suggests that the more richly developed a character, the more readers will be able to ‘mind-model’ them to ‘a rich level of impersonation’ (2020: 183), and therefore, these characters are more likely to be the ones whom we feel emotions towards.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The restricted possible worlds of depression: A stylistic analysis of Janice Galloway’s The Trick is to Keep Breathing using a possible worlds framework

Mansworth

2022

Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics

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This article uses a theoretical framework of possible worlds to explore the ways in which Janice Galloway’s novel about grief and depression, The Trick is to Keep Breathing, may elicit emotional responses in readers. I give an overview of some of the emotional responses expressed by readers by using online review data, before employing stylistic analysis to demonstrate how emotional effects may be created through the linguistic construction of degrees of possibility. Drawing on Possible Worlds Theory, I demonstrate how readers’ emotional responses may be linked both to the presentation of possibility and to the restriction of possibility. The combination of the empirical methodology utilised here alongside stylistic analysis allows me to harness the capacity of possible worlds methodologies to cast light on constructions of textual possibility and actuality and to facilitate understanding of some of the mechanisms eliciting readers' emotions.

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Authors’ Empathy

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

Children’s absorption in fiction: Self-reports by avid and occasional readers.

Children’s absorption in fiction: Self-reports by avid and occasional readers.

The pleasure of unadulterated sadness: Experiencing sorrow in fiction, nonfiction, and "in person."

The restricted possible worlds of depression: A stylistic analysis of Janice Galloway’s The Trick is to Keep Breathing using a possible worlds framework

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