Personality traits and reading habits that predict absorbed narrative fiction reading.

Abstract

Even though the experience of narrative absorption has been studied extensively in recent years, relatively little is known about the personality traits of readers who regularly become absorbed while reading narrative fiction. The present study investigated which personality traits predict absorbed reading, with particular attention to the components of the Tellegen Absorption Scale (TAS; Tellegen & Atkinson, 1974) that do so. In an online survey study, introductory psychology students (N ϭ 264) described their most memorable reading experience from the last year and elaborated on that experience by completing the

The Influence of Mental Imagery Instructions and Personality Characteristics on Reading Experiences

“…This suggests that, besides all other aspects involved in reading experiences, these experiences are most strongly influenced by personality characteristics, such as readers' proneness to "fantasy". Fantasy has been suggested to be one of the aspects underlying the "Openness" personality characteristic (Fayn et al, 2015), a characteristic that has also been found to be associated to reading experiences and reading habits in other studies (Kraaykamp & Eijck, 2005;Kuijpers et al, 2018;Schutte & Malouff, 2004). Mental imagery was mainly found to be related to mental imagery-related reading experiences, and not as strongly to other reading experiences.…”

“…Similarly, Need for Cognition was found to be a predictor of transportation experienced while reading stories (Green et al, 2008) or watching films (Hall & Zwarun, 2012). Openness was positively associated with reported interest for stories (which is related to enjoyment/appreciation of stories ;Fayn, Tiliopoulos, & MacCann, 2015), absorption (although indirectly, via reading habits; Kuijpers et al, 2018), and the overall likelihood that people read literature for leisure (Kraaykamp & Eijck, 2005; see also Schutte & Malouff, 2004). Interestingly, Malanchini and colleagues (2017) link differences in reading enjoyment and motivation to genetic differences.…”

“…For example, amount of print exposure is negatively associated with reading difficulties (Stanovich & West, 1989), positively associated with reading skills (Acheson, Wells, & MacDonald, 2008) and positively associated with language ability, school success, Theory of Mind and empathy (Brysbaert, Sui, Dirix, & Hintz, 2020). Additionally, reading habits in daily life are closely related to reading experiences: more habitual readers experience more absorption (Kuijpers, Douglas, & Kuiken, 2018) and enjoy reading more (Mol & Jolles, 2014).…”

Imagining Differently

“…The construction of mental imagery in response to text is potentially mediated by a range of factors. Recent empirical research into text-evoked visualisation (e.g., Green et al 2008;Kuijpers et al 2014) and the effects of reading habits (e.g., Kuijpers et al 2019) and gaming habits (e.g., Happ and Melzer 2014) presents new opportunities for collating results and developing insights. This article reports an empirical investigation of the potential mediating role of reading habits and computer game playing habits (hereafter 'gaming habits') in text-evoked mental imagery construction and perspective-taking, and to a lesser extent the intersecting factors of the person and tense of the text in question.…”

“…Some studies have investigated relationships between trait openness, absorption and reading habits, specifically. On the basis of a review of these studies and related research, Kuijpers et al (2019) find that openness to experience predicts:…”