Papers on learning from fiction

Title: The effect of narratives on attitudes toward animal welfare and pro-social behaviour on behalf of animals: Three pre-registered experiments

Author: Joint with Aino Petterson, Stacie Friend, and Heather J Ferguson

Publication: Poetics, volume 94, October 2022, 101709

Date: October 2022

Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2022.101709

Abstract: We report three randomised and pre-registered experiments examining the effects of narrative fiction (vs. narrative non-fiction vs. expository non-fiction) on concern for animal welfare. In Experiment 1a (N = 363) there was no significant increase in concern for animal welfare or willingness to donate to an animal charity among participants who read a narrative fiction text about a monkey’s plight (vs. narrative non-fiction or expository non-fiction texts about a monkey). In Experiment 1b (N = 121) concern for animal welfare and willingness to donate was greater after reading the narrative fiction text compared to a narrative non-fiction text unrelated to animals. Experiment 2 (N = 184) employed a simplified design and more severe depiction of animal abuse, but showed no beneficial effect of reading a narrative fiction text about a monkey’s plight (vs. a narrative non-fiction text unrelated to animals) on either measure. Experiment 3 (N = 290) compared a narrative fiction and a non-fiction text about a monkey or a lizard; participants who read a narrative fiction text, irrespective of the animal depicted, reported greater concern for animal welfare, monkey welfare, lizard welfare and nature (vs. a narrative non-fiction text). However, participants were no more willing to donate in the narrative fiction (vs. non-fiction) condition. These results suggest that reading a narrative fiction text about an animal’s plight has a limited effect on concern for animal welfare.

Wimmer, L., Currie, G., Friend, S., & Ferguson, H. J. (2022). Opening the closed mind? Effects of reading literary fiction on need for closure and creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 36(1), 24–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2022.2087309

Wimmer, L., Currie, G., Friend, S., & Ferguson, H. J. (2021). Testing Correlates of Lifetime Exposure to Print Fiction Following a Multi-Method Approach: Evidence From Young and Older Readers. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 41(1), 54-86. https://doi.org/10.1177/0276236621996244

Title: Reading Fictional Narratives to Improve Social and Moral Cognition: The Influence of Narrative Perspective, Transportation, and Identification

Publication: Frontiers in Communication, E-ISSN 2297-900X. doi:10.3389/fcomm.2020.611935 (Authors in publication order: Wimmer, L., Friend, S., Currie, G., Ferguson, H.)

Date: 2021

Abstract: There is a long tradition in philosophy and literary criticism of belief in the social and moral benefits of exposure to fiction, and recent empirical work has examined some of these claims. However, little of this research has addressed the textual features responsible for the hypothesized cognitive effects. We present two experiments examining whether readers’ social and moral cognition are influenced by the perspective from which a narrative is told (voice and focalization), and whether potential effects of perspective are mediated by transportation into the story or by identification with the protagonist. Both experiments employed a between-subjects design in which participants read a short story, either in the first-person voice using internal focalization, third-person voice using internal focalization, or third-person voice using external focalization. Social and moral cognition was assessed using a battery of tasks. Experiment 1 (N=258) failed to detect any effects of perspective or any mediating roles of transportation or identification. Implementing a more rigorous adaptation of the third-person story using external focalization, Experiment 2 (N=262) largely replicated this pattern. Taken together, the evidence reported here suggests that perspective does not have a significant impact on the extent to which narratives modulate social and moral cognition, either directly or indirectly via transportation and identification.