Dramaturgy and Dramatic Character

Storm, William F.

doi:10.1017/cbo9781316536100

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…The ancient Greek word for character is "ethos", applying both to one's own moral character and to the characters that are found in theatrical dramas (Storm, 2016). Borrowing terminological practice from genetics (Jobling, Hurles, & TylerSmith, 2004), we would like to propose two new terms applying, respectively, to the variants and to the overall category of a character, what we will call ethotype and ethogroup.…”

Section: "Ethotypes" As Character Variantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A classification scheme for literary characters

Berry¹,

Brown²

2017

Psychol. Thought

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There is no established classification scheme for literary characters in narrative theory short of generic categories like protagonist vs. antagonist or round vs. flat. This is so despite the ubiquity of stock characters that recur across media, cultures, and historical time periods. We present here a proposal of a systematic psychological scheme for classifying characters from the literary and dramatic fields based on a modification of the Thomas-Kilmann (TK) Conflict Mode Instrument used in applied studies of personality. The TK scheme classifies personality along the two orthogonal dimensions of assertiveness and cooperativeness. To examine the validity of a modified version of this scheme, we had 142 participants provide personality ratings for 40 characters using two of the Big Five personality traits as well as assertiveness and cooperativeness from the TK scheme. The results showed that assertiveness and cooperativeness were orthogonal dimensions, thereby supporting the validity of using a modified version of TK's two-dimensional scheme for classifying characters.

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Section: "Ethotypes" As Character Variantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A classification scheme for literary characters

Berry¹,

Brown²

2017

Psychol. Thought

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“…For stories about other people (3P perspective), we select one particular other for this role and describe outcomes in terms of his/her interests and welfare. However, the critical caveat here is that the other-asself mechanism ensures that narration operates by developing insights into other people as relatable self-proxies (Storm, 2016). In other words, the protagonists of stories are people like ourselves who we can relate to egocentrically.…”

Section: The Other-as-self (Os) Mechanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

The “Who” System of the Human Brain: A System for Social Cognition About the Self and Others

Brown

2020

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Neuroscientists are fond of talking about brain systems for the processing of "what" and "where" information about objects and their locations. What is critically missing is the concept of a "who" system dedicated to the neural processing of information about social agents-both the self and others-and their interactions. I propose here the characterization of such a system, one that functions not only in perception but in production as well, such as when recounting stories about oneself and others. The most human-specific features of the "who" system are two complementary systems that I refer to as the other-as-self mechanism and the self-as-other mechanism. The major function of the other-as-self mechanism is to perceive other people egocentrically as proxies of the self, as occurs through the processes of mentalizing and empathizing in both everyday life and in the experience of the theatrical and literary arts. The major function of the self-as-other mechanism is to overtly depict other people during acts of communication through vocal and gestural processes of mimicry, such as occurs during quotation in conversation and through acting in the theatrical arts. Overall, the "who" system of the human brain mediates both perceptual and behavioral aspects of social cognition, and establishes the existential distinction between self and other in human cognition. I present neural models for the instantiation of the "who" system in the human brain and conclude with a discussion of how narrative serves as a foundation for human cognition more generally, what I refer to as narrative-based cognition.

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“…If characters were not similar to ourselves, the narrative arts would not be able to serve their primary cultural function as devices for behavioral modeling and social learning. As Storm (2016) points out:It is not only that authors invent characters in order to tell a story, but that the figures they create become vehicles for our own experience as observers or as readers. Characters in drama and in fiction are made to look and be like us (a basic feature of the “real person” concern) and as such they represent us and, in effect, stand in for us .…”

Section: Role Playing: Antagonistic Versus Coordinative Rolesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Self/other Orientationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…People perceive the narrative arts in a third-person manner, mediated by characters engaged in a series of social scenarios that make up the plot sequence in the storyworld. Even though these characters explicitly represent "others," the protagonists of stories are generally designed to be self-proxies (Storm, 2016). In other words, they are similar enough to the intended perceivers of the narrative arts that such perceivers can relate to them and experience their situations and emotions in a vicarious, yet personally meaningful, manner.…”

Section: Core Psychologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Unifying Model of the Arts: The Narration/Coordination Model

Brown

2019

Empirical Studies of the Arts

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The Narration/Coordination model is presented as a unifying model of the arts with regard to psychological processing and social functions. The model proposes a classification of the arts into the two broad categories of the narrative arts and the coordinative arts. The narrative arts function to tell stories, often to promote social learning through the modeling of prosocial behaviors. The coordinative arts function to stimulate group participation through synchronized action, thereby serving as a reinforcer of group affiliation and a promoter of social cooperation. These two categories vary with regard to a number of psychological and social features related to personal engagement, role playing, cognitive structure, and performance. The arts are evolutionarily adaptive because they promote social cooperation through two distinct routes: the simulation of prosocial behaviors via the narrative arts, and the stimulation of group synchronization and cohesion via the coordinative arts.

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Dramaturgy and Dramatic Character

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

A classification scheme for literary characters

A classification scheme for literary characters

The “Who” System of the Human Brain: A System for Social Cognition About the Self and Others

A Unifying Model of the Arts: The Narration/Coordination Model

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