“Losing yourself” in a fictional character can affect your real life

[CaseAgainstFaith]

COLUMBUS, Ohio - When you “lose yourself” inside the world of a fictional character while reading a story, you may actually end up changing your own behavior and thoughts to match that of the character, a new study suggests.

Researchers at Ohio State University examined what happened to people who, while reading a fictional story, found themselves feeling the emotions, thoughts, beliefs and internal responses of one of the characters as if they were their own - a phenomenon the researchers call “experience-taking.”

They found that, in the right situations, experience-taking may lead to real changes, if only temporary, in the lives of readers.

In one experiment, for example, the researchers found that people who strongly identified with a fictional character who overcame obstacles to vote were significantly more likely to vote in a real election several days later.

“Experience-taking can be a powerful way to change our behavior and thoughts in meaningful and beneficial ways,” said Lisa Libby, co-author of the study and assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University.

There are many ways experience-taking can affect readers.

In another experiment, people who went through this experience-taking process while reading about a character who was revealed to be of a different race or sexual orientation showed more favorable attitudes toward the other group and were less likely to stereotype.

“Experience-taking changes us by allowing us to merge our own lives with those of the characters we read about, which can lead to good outcomes,” said Geoff Kaufman, who led the study as a graduate student at Ohio State. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Tiltfactor Laboratory at Dartmouth College.

Their findings appear online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and will be published in a future print edition.

full article - http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/exptaking.htm

So if I watch a harem anime I too will want a harem someday?  I can't say I would complain though....

[nickiknack]

I didn't know I wanted to be Dark Lord of the Sith and UNLIMTED POWER!!!.Though I would love to have the force lightning power, just saying.

[Yaezakura]

To be fair, in most harem anime, the person with the harem doesn't want it.

If anything, experience-taking from a harem anime would cause you to avoid the ideas of harems.

[VirtualStranger]

Well I guess that explains these people.

[JohnE]

*watches Doctor Who* I'm an experience-taker now. Experience-taking is cool.

[Radiation]

It seems to me that this study is talking about how one can "identify" with the characters in the story which I find to be believable being that I have done it myself on occasion.

I had to read "A Raisin in the Sun" in my ENG 102 class and found myself identifying strongly with the Beneatha character in that I admired the hardships that she had to overcome being an independent black woman wishing to become a doctor, a profession not usually sought out by people of her gender and race back in the 50's. I actually found myself being like her in the sense that I could see certain attributes in her that I saw in me. Not sure if I want to say that I wanted to be Beneatha but that I could see certain parallels.

It seems that the study is saying that the more emotionally charged the story is and the more that the character has to overcome certain obstacles, the more that people will really get themselves involved and invested emotionally into the story.

[R. U. Sirius]

Doesn't this also explain a lot about people taking inspiration from those they admire in real life?

[Søren]

*watches Doctor Who* I'm an experience-taker now. Experience-taking is cool.

This reference is so perfect...

[SpaceProg]

*watches Doctor Who* I'm an experience-taker now. Experience-taking is cool.

This reference is so perfect...

He beat me to it as well. 

[Cerim Treascair]

my response to this article:  Well, NO SHIT SHERLOCK!