A feeling for fiction: becoming what we behold

Miall, David S.; Kuiken, Don

doi:10.1016/s0304-422x(02)00011-6

Cited by 162 publications

(159 citation statements)

References 20 publications

(22 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

139

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Multiple content analysis studies of reader responses conducted by a research group led by Miall and Kuiken arrived at the concept of »self-modifying feelings« as feelings specific to literary reading (e. g., Kuiken/Miall/Sikora 2004;Miall/Kuiken 2002;Sikora/Kuiken/ Miall 2010;. »Self-modifying feelings« designate a deeper or changed selfunderstanding.…”

Section: Effects: the Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This would provide an explanation for the process of reflection. Miall and Kuiken (2002) offer the theoretical argument that the deep type of reflection that they call self-modifying feelings results from the following sequence: striking features in the texts evoke narrative and aesthetic emotions; these are linked to personal experiences (memories), and used to reflect upon oneself. Narrative emotions would include empathy, sympathy, and identification, while aesthetic feelings would include surprise, admiration and appreciation.…”

Section: Processes: Explaining the Relation Between Reading And Reflementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, during reading, readers can have the cognitive and affective empathic responses towards characters that have been discussed above. This type of empathy can be called »narrative empathy« (after Keen 2007), and it is linked to the broader concept »narrative emotions« (see Kneepkens/Zwaan 1994;Miall/Kuiken 2002;Tan 1996), which consists of all emotions toward the narrative world, including empathy with characters. Third, after reading, cognitive and affective empathic responses to living beings who are similar to the depicted characters can occur (»real-life empathy« as an after-effect), or there could be (for some period of time) a more general increase in one's empathic ability.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Effects of Literature on Empathy and Self-Reflection: A Theoretical-Empirical Framework

Koopman¹,

Hakemulder²

2015

Journal of Literary Theory

153

141

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Various scholars have made claims about literature's potential to evoke empathy and self-reflection, which would eventually lead to more pro-social behavior. But is it indeed the case that a seemingly idle pass-time activity like literary reading can do all that? And if so, how can we explain such an influence? Would the effects be particular to unique literary text qualities or to other aspects that literary texts share with other genres (e. g., narrativity)? Empirical research is necessary to answer these questions. This article presents an overview of empirical studies investigating the relationship between reading and empathy, and reading and selfreflection. We reveal those questions in the research that are not addressed as of yet, and synthesize the available approaches to literary effects. Based on theory as well as empirical work, a multi-factor model of literary reading is constructed.With regard to reading and empathy, the metaphor of the moral laboratory (cf. Hakemulder 2000) comes close to a concise summary of the research and theory. Being absorbed in a narrative can stimulate empathic imagination. Readers go along with the author/narrator in a (fictional) thought-experiment, imagining how it would be to be in the shoes of a particular character, with certain motives, under certain circumstances, meeting with certain events. That would explain why narrativity can result in a broadening of readers' consciousness, in particular so that it encompasses fellow human beings. Fictionality might stimulate readers to consider the narrative they read as a thought experiment, creating distance between them and the events, allowing them to experiment more freely with taking the position of a character different from themselves, also in moral respects. Literary features, like gaps and ambiguous characterization, may stimulate readers to make more mental inferences, thus training their theory of mind. However, apart from literature possibly being able to train basic cognitive ability, we have little indication for the importance of literary imagination over narrative or fictional imagination.Regarding self-reflection, while there is no convincing evidence that literary texts are generally more thought-provoking than non-literary texts (either narrative

show abstract

Section: Effects: the Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Processes: Explaining the Relation Between Reading And Reflementioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Effects of Literature on Empathy and Self-Reflection: A Theoretical-Empirical Framework

Koopman¹,

Hakemulder²

2015

Journal of Literary Theory

153

141

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This aim is not so far-fetched: not only has reading literary fiction often been considered an inherently cultural and social activity (e.g., Bloome & Green, 1984Galda & Beach, 2001) and not a monolithic form of experience (Miall & Kuiken, 1998;1995), literary scholars have also connected reading literary fiction to readers' abilities to imagine other people's situations and to make inferences about their thoughts and emotions (e.g., Keen, 2006;Palmer, 2004;Zunshine, 2006;2015). Moreover, the experience of reading literary fiction has been considered a life experience that can be self-modifying and thus may have impact on readers' self-development (Fialho, 2012;Miall & Kuiken, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of literature education on students' perceptions of self and others: Exploring personal and social learning experiences in relation to teacher approach

Schrijvers¹,

Janssen²,

Fialho³

et al. 2016

L1 Educational Studies in Language and Literature

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Dutch Institute for Curriculum Development argues that literature education is important for broadening students' personal, social and cultural horizons. Indeed, reading literary fiction may alter readers' self-and social perceptions, but little is known about whether adolescents gain such personal and social insights through reading in the secondary literature classroom, nor about how these perceived learning outcomes are related to their teachers' approaches to various aspects of literature teaching. Thus, the aims of this study were to examine the impact of literature education on students' self-and social perceptions and to explore relationships between students' learning experiences and their teachers' classroom practices. Dutch students (N=297, grades 10-12) wrote a learner report about what they learned about themselves and other people through literature education, and completed a measure on familiarity with fiction. Their teachers (N=13) completed the Teachers' Approaches to Literature Education Questionnaire (TALE-Q), which indicated more analytical-interpretative or personal-experiential approaches to three 2 M. SCHRIJVERS, T. JANSSEN, O. FIALHO & G. RIJLAARSDAM aspects of teaching. Students of teachers with distinct approaches to these aspects were grouped to compare their learning experiences. Findings showed that nearly all students (99%) reported to have learned something about themselves and others through literature education, mainly personal characterizations of oneself and others, learning about oneself and others as literary readers, descriptions and evaluations of people's behaviors, and lessons for life. In addition, teachers' reports of more classroom interaction and student autonomy were related to students' more frequent reports of personal and social insights, but this may also partly be explained by students being more familiar with fiction and having a more positive attitude toward literary reading. Implications for personal and social learning in the literature classroom are discussed.

show abstract

“…The emotionally loaded process of expectation -disappointment of expectation -correction of expectation is an important organising principle of the reading process. This process is built into the text and is constructed and reconstructed on the side of the reader (Miall & Kuiken, 2002). Concerning the activation of emotions during reading, van Holt and Groeben (2006) distinguish emotions that are directed at reality, at the fictional world, and at the textual artefact and have also explained this with reference to various studies in reading psychology.…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adolescent reading and the reproduction of literary judgement: what adolescent book reviews of self-selected texts reveal

Bertschi-Kaufmann¹,

Graber²

2017

L1 Educational Studies in Language and Literature

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A contrast is sometimes drawn between prescribed literary texts that develop literary judgement and, contrasting with them, self-selected texts read for pleasure. There is some scepticism in literature didactics about the ability of the latter to develop adolescents' literary judgement. This article reports on a study that questions this scepticism. One aim of the study was to establish whether and how adolescent readers can offer intersubjectively comprehensible and discursively negotiable judgements about the literary quality of texts with which they autonomously engage. A second aim was to determine with which elements of fictional texts they connect these literary qualities. We analysed 55 texts from a corpus of 450 reviews on the Swiss internet site www.jugendbuchtipp.ch in which adolescent readers write about self-selected books. These reviews provide information on the preferences of adolescent readers as well as their ability to perceive and convey their judgements on literary quality. We initially drew on concepts of literary evaluation from reception theory and then further inductively developed a 35-category analytic grid. Participants in a literature didactics research seminar at the University of Basel were closely involved in devising this grid with which to classify the various qualities of evaluation that adolescent readers applied in their reviews. Our analyses confirmed that adolescent readers do verbalise their judgements in intersubjectively understandable statements and arguments. These judgements focus on emotions, the perspective of characters, and the poetic form of texts, three aspects considered central in notions of literary judgement that are currently authoritative in literature didactics. Our findings suggest that autonomously selected texts can provide reading pleasure as well as develop the ability to deliver literary criticism. For literature didactics, our study illustrates the knowledge that teachers may derive from adolescent readers' book reviews about their learners' reading processes and their processes of literary judgement. Furthermore, involving students in the study, enhanced their capacity as prospective teachers to promote the development of adolescent readers' literary judgement. 2ANDREA BERTSCHI-KAUFMANN AND TANJA GRABER

show abstract

A feeling for fiction: becoming what we behold

Cited by 162 publications

References 20 publications

Effects of Literature on Empathy and Self-Reflection: A Theoretical-Empirical Framework

Effects of Literature on Empathy and Self-Reflection: A Theoretical-Empirical Framework

The impact of literature education on students' perceptions of self and others: Exploring personal and social learning experiences in relation to teacher approach

Adolescent reading and the reproduction of literary judgement: what adolescent book reviews of self-selected texts reveal

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About