The Moral Laboratory: Experiments Examining the Effects of Reading Literature on Social Perception and Moral Self-Concept (Utrecht Publications in General and Comparative Literature)

THE MORAL LABORATORY

UTRECHT PUBLICATIONS IN GENERAL AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

Editorial Board Hans Bertens (chair) – Douwe Fokkema – Harald Hendrix Joost Kloek (secretary) – Sophie Levie – Ann Rigney

International Advisory Board David Bellos (University of Manchester), Keith Busby (University of Oklahoma) Matei Calinescu (Indiana University), Yves Chevrel (University of Paris-Sorbonne) Erika Fischer-Lichte (Free University Berlin), Armin Paul Frank (University of Göttingen) Gerald Gillespie (Stanford University), Hendrik van Gorp (Catholic University of Louvain) Thomas M. Greene (Yale University), Claudio Guillén (Harvard University) Walter Haug (University of Tübingen), Linda Hutcheon (University of Toronto) Elrud Ibsch (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), Jørgen Dines Johansen (University of Odense) Donald Maddox (University of Connecticut), Virgil Nemoianu (Catholic University of America) John Neubauer (University of Amsterdam), Stephen G. Nichols (University of Pennsylvania) Willie van Peer (University of Munich), Roland Posner (Technical University of Berlin) Bernhard F. Scholz (Groningen University), Maria-Alzira Seixo (University of Lisbon) Mario J. Valdés (University of Toronto) Inquiries and submissions should be addressed to: The editors, Utrecht Publications in General and Comparative Literature Vakgroep Literatuurwetenschap, Utrecht University Muntstraat 4, 3512 EV UTRECHT, The Netherlands

Volume 34 Jèmeljan Hakemulder The Moral Laboratory Experiments examining the effects of reading literature on social perception and moral self-concept

THE MORAL LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS EXAMINING THE EFFECTS OF READING LITERATURE ON SOCIAL PERCEPTION AND MORAL SELF-CONCEPT

JÈMELJAN HAKEMULDER Utrecht University

JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA

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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Cover illustration Ilja Bos

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hakemulder, Jèmeljan, 1966The moral laboratory : experiments examining the effects of reading literature on social perception and moral self-concept / Jèmeljan Hakemulder. p. cm. -- (Utrecht publications in general and comparative literature, ISSN 0167-8175 ; v. 34) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and indexes. 1. Literature and morals. 2. Literature and society. 3. Books and reading. I. Title. II. Series. PN49.H319 2000 801’.3--dc21 00-027895 ISBN 90 272 2223 1 (Eur.) / 1 55619 680 6 (US) (Hb; alk. paper) CIP © 2000 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O.Box 75577 • 1070 AN Amsterdam • The Netherlands John Benjamins North America • P.O.Box 27519 • Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 • USA

For Roel

Contents

CHAPTER 1. APOLOGIES 1.1 Taking position 1.2 What effects are we talking about? 1.3 Narrativity 1.3.1 Models for imitation 1.3.2 Stories as teaching instruments 1.4 Truth and fiction 1.4.1 Powerful misrepresentations 1.4.2 Truth beyond facts 1.5 Emotional intelligence 1.5.1 A library of human psyche 1.5.2 Complexity of characterization 1.6 Appeal to emotions 1.6.1 Composed readers through catharsis 1.6.2 Experimenting with roles 1.6.3 Rhetoric and persuasion 1.7 A challenge to ethical reflection 1.7.1 Life’s problems and social criticism 1.7.2 Reconsider and look again Notes

1 1 3 5 5 7 8 8 10 11 11 14 16 16 17 18 20 20 22 27

CHAPTER 2. CHANGING READERS 2.1 Introduction 2.1.1 Correlations 2.1.2 Qualitative approaches 2.2 Experimental research 2.2.1 Criteria for evaluation 2.2.2 Effects of literature per se

29 29 29 30 32 33 37

Table of contents

viii 2.3

Notes

38 39 41 43 45 45 46 48 48 49 50 53 54 56 59

CHAPTER 3. A BLUEPRINT FOR MORAL LABORATORIES 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Taking a character’s role 3.2.1 Construction of causal coherence 3.2.2 Understanding a character’s emotions 3.2.3 Empathic response: role-taking 3.3 Effects on norms and values 3.3.1 Introduction 3.3.2 Three mechanisms 3.4 Effects on self-concepts 3.4.1 Introduction 3.4.2 Definition of self-concept 3.4.3 Implications of self-concept change 3.5 Five assumptions left Notes

61 61 62 62 65 68 76 76 78 84 84 84 88 94 95

2.4

2.5

Range of the claims: internalization 2.3.1 Stability of the effects 2.3.2 Emotional and behavioral changes 2.3.3 Social desirability Range of the claims: generalizability 2.4.1 Necessity of postprocessing 2.4.2 Effective texts 2.4.3 Age and gender differences 2.4.4 Summary Fitting research findings to theorists’ constructs 2.5.1 Pre-ethical effects 2.5.2 Ethical effects 2.5.3 Moral effects 2.5.4 Summary

CHAPTER 4. UNDERSTANDING OTHERS 4.1 Introduction 4.2 What do we need stories for? 4.2.1 Study one 4.2.2 Study two

97 97 99 99 104

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4.3 Study three: the effects of role-taking 4.4 Conclusion Notes

108 112 114

CHAPTER 5. MORAL SELF-KNOWLEDGE 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Text manipulation 5.2.1 Focalization 5.2.2 Story outcome 5.3 Method 5.4 Results 5.4.1 Character morality 5.4.2 Moral self-concept 5.4.3 Empathic ability 5.5 Discussion Notes

117 117 121 122 124 125 129 129 131 140 142 144

CHAPTER 6. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 6.1 Adequacy in ethical reflection 6.2 Summary 6.3 Implications for society 6.3.1 Moral edification 6.3.2 Valuable reading 6.4 Future research

147 147 149 158 158 161 163

Appendix

169

References

183

Index of names

197

Index of terms

203

Chapter 1

Apologies

Though not useful, it may be said it [poetry] is highly ornamental, and deserves to be cultivated for the pleasure it yields. Even if this be granted, it does not follow that a writer of poetry in the present state of society is not a waster of his own time, and a robber of that of others (…). In whatever degree poetry is cultivated, it must necessarily be to the neglect of some branch of useful study: and it is a lamentable spectacle to see minds, capable of better things, running to seed in the specious indolence of these empty aimless mockeries of intellectual exertion. Thomas Peacock1

1.1 Taking position Beliefs about the ethical effects of reading literature have been quite persistent. Presumably since the moment ‘literature’ emerged, people have speculated about what these effects are, whether they could justify its existence, or reading or writing literature, or whether they would necessitate censorship. Theories of literature have frequently included assumptions about its contribution to moral education, as well as its ability to corrupt. This book ventures to examine such assumptions. We should perhaps consider first whether such a project is worthwhile, since several positions question its merits. One is that examining the ethical effects of literature may be a waste of time. To some people it seems obvious that reading literary texts can change our norms, values, and behavior. Why hammer on an open door? Another, opposing, position is the assumption that it is impossible to put one’s finger on the effects of literature. A study like the present one, therefore, would be futile. People who take this view argue that literature is about much deeper stuff than morality. They see its quintessence as elusive; therefore it is pointless to say anything about those moral effects, let alone to examine them (cf. Rhees 1949). A related position is that literature

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should not have anything to do with ethics. It is not necessarily denied that reading may affect our norms and values, but opening the door to ethics would be harmful. First, it tarnishes the aesthetic quality of literature (cf. Bohrer 1978). On top of being distasteful, allowing ethics to enter the domain of aesthetics poses the threat of censorship. Therefore, it seems much better to keep literature aloof from the domain of ethics. On the other hand, some maintain that ethics should be an integral part of the way we deal with literature. In summing up his Protocols of Reading, Scholes (1989) proposes that a response to literature remains incomplete until the texts are absorbed and transformed in the thoughts and actions of the reader. “I believe that reading can, and should answer to social and ethical concerns,” Scholes writes (page x). A position deviating from the previous ones is the view that reading literature has no significant or lasting influence. Stolnitz (1991) and De Jongh (1993) argue that the arts do not elevate human beings in a moral sense; nor are they able to change their character. Otherwise, the world would have been a better, more beautiful place, they argue. Clearly there is some unresolved disagreement here. The aim of this book is to clarify the discussion. To do this, we should note that there are two distinct dimensions to the dispute. The first relates to claims about reality: reading literature does, or does not have ethical effects. The second one pertains to value judgment: a comprehensive understanding of literature should, or should not include ethical aspects. These two topics require two distinct approaches. Empirical research methods are appropriate for measuring the effects of reading texts, while conceptual analysis and logical critique are better suited to clarify the question of norms. I shall primarily be concerned with the former. In my view, the empirical question precedes the normative one. For example, discussions about whether we should consider ethical effects in aesthetic judgment may become more informed when we know what effects, if any, reading literature has. Still, we should pause, and ponder whether an investigation of literature’s ethical effects is not a waste of time. I think, however, that we have good reason to believe such an investigation to be worthwhile, namely the fact that the claims contradict each other. In such cases it seems a good idea to look at the evidence. However plausible some ideas about the effects of our reading may be, we should always keep in mind that our intuitions may be wrong. Consider also the potential advantages of finding out that literature has

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neither a beneficial, nor a damaging influence. Such demystification could relieve literary studies of a burdensome moralism and would allow us to concentrate fully on aesthetic matters. Critics would no longer have to worry about the effect of, for instance, unfavorable portrayals of women, Jews, black people, or homosexuals. Dictators could rest at ease, and dismiss their censors. And people concerned with moral education would be freed of illusions regarding the use of literature for their purposes. Also, literary scholars could dump their endless speculations on literature’s ethical influence on personality and society. In short, sorting out the issue might save people a lot of time. It could also lead to a reconsideration of our theories of literature. In this chapter I shall take a close look at these theories. I will try to specify the assumptions about the effects of reading literature, which will guide me in my exploration of the evidence in the next chapters. Furthermore, I will try to make clear why I think that the present project concerns the foundations of our understanding of literature. As we will see, definitions of literature often include assumptions about its effects. Some of them are handed down to us through the ancient genre of apologies written by dedicated defenders of literature (e.g., Sir Philip Sidney’s An Apology for Poetry and Shelley’s Defence of Poetry).2 Ancient does not mean antiquated: some of the old arguments in favor of literature still play a role in present-day debates about literature’s relation to ethics. Another source of ideas about beneficial effects of reading is the anxiety about alleged effects of other forms of entertainment, like popular fiction and television. Several of the assumptions I will discuss find their origins in definitions proposed by literary scholars (e.g., Shklovsky). Others are rooted in statements by literary authors, and are to be found in essays, critiques, or prefaces to their own work (e.g., Musil, Zola). I intend to argue that these assertions are in one way or another linked to ethical effects. As will become clear, this will add many more decisive ‘apologies’ for the present undertaking to the ones already mentioned.

1.2 What effects are we talking about? To make this point clear, let me first sharpen the terminology. Ethics generally refers to an inquiry into our actions from the viewpoint of norms and values, good and evil, responsibility and choice.3 Morals refer to the whole of behavioral norms accepted in a given community. What then are ethical effects? I

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propose to reserve this term for the enhancement of ethical reflection. When we read a philosophical essay on the quality of life this presumably stimulates our reflections on the subject. Similarly, a narrative text dealing with some ethical issue may enhance readers’ ethical deliberations. Of course, joining the author of a text in his or her reflections does not necessarily include a conversion to the perceived moral of the story. Therefore I will reserve the term moral effects for the actual persuasion in favor of some moral position. Readers of Shakespeare’s Othello may become convinced that jealousy is a vice, because the play compellingly shows how it destroys trust, and thus the foundation of companionship. These readers, then, have been subject to moral effects. As we shall see, moral and ethical effects do not cover the total range of effects attributed to reading literature. Several claims pertain to the enhancement of abilities which are likely to help us in making ethical inquiries. These I will call pre-ethical effects.4 Sometimes we are confronted with a moral conflict between two or more parties. A choice forces itself upon us while we are uncertain as to which norm is applicable. Such situations require particular abilities, for instance, being able to understand the conflicting demands, being able to determine our own norms and values, and predicting the consequences of either option of the dilemma. Some theorists assume that reading literature enhances such abilities. DePaul (1993), for example, points out that comprehension of a literary narrative compels readers to make inferences, so as to understand the emotions and motivations of the characters. Frequently being involved in making such psychological inferences, readers may develop a capacity for making these deductions. This is neither a moral, nor an ethical effect, although it seems plausible that it increases the likelihood of such effects. Therefore, it is pre-ethical. Talking about pre-ethical, ethical and moral effects of reading literature also requires a specification of the term ‘literature.’ This is important, because it is not always clear what kind of texts the theories refer to. For instance, hardly any contemporary theory is concerned with the effects of reading poetry. Most of the assumptions refer to narratives (or stories); in some cases their literary quality is emphasized, in others not. Literary narratives, as understood in the present study, belong to the diffuse set of texts qualified as literature in literary criticism and general usage. Later, in Chapters 2 and 3 I will discuss empirical evidence for the alleged effects of reading literature. In some parts of the research that I will refer to, it remains unclear precisely what texts have been used. Often the texts that were used were not appended, and if

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they were, it is not always easy to determine whether the experimenters considered them to be literary. Sometimes the materials are simple narratives written by the experimenters themselves, without any literary pretension. To avoid confusion I will, whenever relevant, try to explicitly indicate whether the theories and research under discussion pertain to literary narratives, or rather to narratives in general. In Sections 1.3 to 1.7 I will show that most of our theories of literature imply ethical and moral effects or a training of pre-ethical abilities. In each section I will specify what the effects are and how they are assumed to come about. The purpose of this is not to construe a coherent theory, but to create a point of departure for Chapter 2. There I will examine whether there is any evidence to support the assumptions put forward in the present chapter. First I will discuss what effects have been associated with narrative form (Section 1.3). In Section 1.4 (Truth and Fiction) and 1.5 (Emotional Intelligence) I will focus on effects linked to contents. The last two Sections, 1.6 (Appeal to Emotions) and 1.7 (A Challenge to Ethical Reflection), deal with emotional and cognitive processing of narratives.

1.3 Narrativity 1.3.1 Models for imitation Novels and short stories that form the bulk of published literature today are narratives. It is in particular the narrative nature of these texts that has been associated with specific effects. Stories are an important instrument for socialization. Growing up in a community involves becoming familiar with its behavioral norms. Narratives often embody such norms (e.g., Miller & Moore 1989; M.H. Brown 1985; Hafferty 1988). Children encountering a new and confusing situation may find help in the stories their parents tell about the time they themselves were young. Newcomers to a working environment may quickly become aware of the cultural code of the company, simply by listening to the stories their colleagues tell. There are also less obvious ways in which socialization through stories may take place. As Van Asperen (1994) argues, the stories we tell each other in our daily conversations function as a means to explore common ground. The way we narrate our experiences reveals a lot about what we think is important. Such stories are implicitly

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about who we are, or what we do not want to be. The tacit moral nature of the stories we tell each other is also uncovered by the fact that some occurrences are narrated, while others are not. We select which events are worth telling. Some propose that the criterion for ‘reportability’ is principally a moral one (Rigney 1991). What we consider worth telling a story about are typically events in which human values are at stake. Often, however, people around us cannot tell the stories we need to hear. They do not have the necessary experience, or they are less competent narrators. In such cases fiction by ‘professional’ narrators may take over. Consider, for instance, the case of Emma Bovary. In his novel, Madame Bovary, Flaubert describes how Emma was put into a convent when she was thirteen. Growing up among nuns, she relied on popular romances for her information about the outside world. Unfortunately, these proved to be not the most trustworthy sources. High expectations were raised by fictional worlds filled by “love, lovers, loving, martyred maidens swooning in secluded lodges, postilions slain every other mile, horses ridden to death on every page, dark forests, aching hearts, promising, sobbing, kisses and tears, little boats by moonlight, nightingales in the grove, gentlemen brave as lions, tender as lambs, virtuous as a dream, always well dressed, and weeping pints” (28). After marrying Charles, a provincial doctor, life turns out to be rather less thrilling. Frustrations and depressions follow. However, Emma does not give in easily. The pursuit of her fictionally inflicted desires eventually lead her into adultery. Having Rodolphe for a lover, she thought she would finally enter “…something marvellous where everything would be passion, ecstasy, (…) She summoned the heroines from the books she had read, and the lyric host of these unchaste women began their chorus in her memory, sister-voices, enticing her. She merged into her own imaginings, playing a real part, realizing the long dream of her youth, seeing herself as one of those great lovers she had so long envied” (131). Again her hopes are set too high. Disappointingly, Rodolphe is not prepared to take up his pistols to duel with Charles Bovary. Neither is he prepared to carry Emma off. The effect narrative fiction had on Emma illustrates how our experiences are filtered through “already seen images,” as Eco (1986) suggests. Booth (1988) adds that ‘real life’ is lived in images derived in part from stories. As he puts it, “though usually our imitations are not highly dramatic, especially once we pass adolescence, everyone who reads knows that whether or not we should imitate narrative heroes and heroines, we in fact do” (229). Throughout this chapter I will try to capture such assumptions in explic-

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itly formulated hypotheses, each of which will be held against the light of available empirical research in Chapter 2. At this point, we can ascertain our first hypothesis. Narratives affect readers’ beliefs or expectations about their lives. This includes consequences for their behavioral norms, e.g., cultural or social codes (Hypothesis M1).5

In my terms this is a moral effect. The suggestion is that reading narratives influences readers’ morals, that is, their belief about what are right, proper or acceptable ways of behaving. 1.3.2 Stories as teaching instruments Narratives are considered to have more influence on beliefs than other forms of discourse. Following Horace’s dictum of combining the utilitarian with pleasure (“qui miscuit utile dulci”), many educators believe that narratives can be more effective instruments in teaching moral lessons than philosophical treatises. For centuries, authors of children’s literature, educators, preachers and probably many parents have assumed that Horace was right. Since Antiquity stories about heroes, explorers, and inventors were supposed to be a way to teach the virtues these characters represented (Dasberg 1994). Eighteenthcentury Enlightenment gave children books filled to the brim with knowledge. Up until recently, poetic justice, that is, the virtuous and the base characters both getting what they deserve, has been a dominant formula in writing these narratives. In a more recent call for the use of narratives in education, Egan (1988) argues that stories are the most effective didactic instruments to organize events and facts in a way that places them in a meaningful relation (see also Coles 1989). Horace’s principle has also been considered to apply to grown-ups. With the rise of the novel in the eighteenth century, several apologists of literature gratefully made use of this argument (Van den Berg 1994). Also, in religious education or conversion, stories are assumed to be more persuasive than abstract dogmas. The underlying concept can be summarized as follows. A narrative presentation is more persuasive than a non-narrative one (Hypothesis M2).

Concluding this section, it seems clear that narrativity gives rise to certain expectations about the effects of reading. Narrative representations are sup-

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The Moral Laboratory

posed to affect our norms, desires and expectations (as it did in Emma’s case). Also, narratives are thought to have stronger effects on our beliefs than nonnarratives. Considering the scope of the alleged effects I discussed, it will be interesting to see whether they were ever put to the test.

1.4 Truth and fiction 1.4.1 Powerful misrepresentations Some assume that the effects of narratives I discussed in the previous section are not necessarily impaired by the fictionality of its contents. On the contrary. For example, Downs (1977) claims that the impact of Kemble’s Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation, as compared to that of Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was much less influential, because the latter “wrapped its moral lesson up in an exciting story” (82). But as our brief excursion into Flaubert’s novel already showed, fiction may present an unreliable source of information. Therefore, hypotheses M1 and M2 left undecided whether reading narratives enhances correct beliefs. Plato may have been the first to warn against the fact that literary narratives are fictional, that is, untrue.6 What are the ethical implications of supposing, as Plato does, that literature offers the reader a mere semblance of the world as we perceive it, which in turn is to be considered as a mere guise of the Realm of Ideas? According to Plato, literature blurs the distinctions between truth and untruth. It also aims at the readers’ most vulnerable and lowest faculties, that is to say, their emotions. This extremely dangerous combination enhances irresponsibility, reason enough for Plato to conclude there should be no place for literature in his utopian state. The idea that a biased fictional representation of the world may distort our perception seems widely accepted, though with few references to Plato. If fiction does shape our perception, there are far-reaching consequences to be considered. For one, should we not watch closely over the things children read? Had the nuns kept Emma from reading trash romances, a tragedy could have been averted. The idea that fiction may breed misconceptions has frequently put researchers to hard work, analyzing the content of stories in teenage magazines, television advertisements, soap operas, popular romances, etc. (e.g., Peirce 1993; Rajecki et al. 1994; Chamove & Mullins 1992). Suspected

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biases in, for example, children’s literature seem sufficient ground to scrutinize how sex roles are represented, or how cultural minorities are portrayed. This may be an important matter, because of the supposed socializing influence of reading. A similarly firm belief in the effects of narrative fiction can be detected in what is known as the canon debate. Some suggest that the highly acclaimed works of literature are used as an instrument of suppression (e.g., Herrnstein Smith 1988). It is assumed that things which are not represented in the stories we read do not become part of our beliefs about the world. Failing to put intelligent, accomplished women on the stage, canonized authors make us think these women do not exist, it is believed. A related argument is the one against censorship. It may be that leaders of totalitarian regimes worry little about the possibility that fiction does not represent Plato’s World of Ideas properly. Steiner (1989) supposes their uneasiness is caused by literature’s power to stimulate readers’ fantasy. This fantasy, he says, can be subversive. The aesthetic is inherently critical, for it tells the reader that things could have been different from what they are. Whether this is what actually vexes censors remains to be seen. Some cases suggest the opposite, namely that a too close resemblance between fiction and reality is considered utterly rebellious. A case in point is the staging of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People in China. In the play, Stockmann, a public health inspector, discovers that the allegedly curative baths of his hometown are contaminated. As Stockmann wants to make his findings known, the mayor stops publication and prevents him from speaking at a public meeting. Next, the business leader of the baths, fearing the discovery may daunt tourists, leads a mob in denouncing the doctor as an enemy of the people. Dealing with corruption, inhibition of freedom of speech, and the use of demagogy against a ‘dissident,’ the play has been perceived as having a bearing on situations in China. For instance, the manipulation of the masses in the persecution of Stockmann seems dangerously close to the suppression of ‘counter-revolutionaries’ during the Cultural Revolution.7 Such similarity may well be among the reasons why the production of the play has frequently been impeded by the Chinese authorities. Whether it is a resemblance to reality or a divergence from it which actually breeds censorship, clearly some strong effects are expected. This does not mean, however, that the effects do occur. It may very well be that censors are mistaken about what literature may do to us. One reason to

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suppose so, is that, judging by some of the antics of censorship, it seems not to attract an intelligent type of person. Rushdie (1991) recalls Pakistan’s censors pestering him when he tried to stage Albee’s The Zoo Story. Using the word ‘pork,’ for example, was prohibited, irrespective of its context, which made that part of the play, as Rushdie saw it, “superb anti-pork propaganda” (38). Since we have not seen any conclusive arguments to accept that the fictional content of narratives can go together with effects proposed in Hypotheses M1 and M2, we will examine in Chapter 2 whether there is any empirical support for the following assertion. The fictionality of narratives does not impair its effects on readers’ beliefs and behavioral norms (Hypothesis M3; compare Hypothesis M1).

1.4.2 Truth beyond facts In one sense the effects of reading fictional stories on beliefs may be a distortion of reality. However, a fundamental assumption underlying Western literature concerns the special status of its truth content. As part of our literary socialization we come to believe that literary representation (or mimesis) imparts more profound or universal insight in reality than, for instance, historical monographs, newspaper reports or courtroom proceedings (cf. Aristotle’s Poetics). Authors of the latter are merely preoccupied with recording particularities, like what exactly Pericles said to the Athenian assembly. Poets, on the other hand, are involved with general truth, describing what a character like Odysseus may have said or done. Therefore, literature is considered to carry deeper philosophical implications.8 The expectation that the truth content of literature goes beyond mere facts has given rise to certain opinions about the effects of reading, for instance that literary texts affect readers’ ideas about probability. To explain this, let me first exemplify some of the consequences of Aristotelian poetics. Following Aristotle, Gardner (1978) proposes that authors let the succession of events they describe be determined by laws of probability. Writers wonder constantly, he says, what seems likely to happen next, given the situation their character is in, and given the character’s virtues, vices, and goals. Sometimes they do not even know themselves where the events will take the story. “Throughout the entire chain of causally related events, the writer asks himself, would a really cause b and not c, etc. and he creates what seems, at least by the test of his own imagination and experience of the world, an inevitable

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development of story” (109–110). According to Gardner, this is how moral fiction distinguishes itself from moralistic fiction. The latter is written to communicate a doctrine. In this case writers know before they start what it is that they mean to say. They do not allow their mind to be changed by the process of telling the story. On the other hand, “true moral fiction is a laboratory experiment, too difficult and dangerous to try in the world but safe and important in the mirror image of reality in the writer’s mind. Only a madman would murder a sharp old pawn brokeress to test the theory of the superman; but Dostoevsky can without harm send his imaginary Raskolnikov into just that experiment in a thoroughly accurate but imaginary St. Petersburg” (115–116). The implied assumption here is that the significance of literature lies in the fact that the observer of the laboratory experiment (i.e., the reader) learns from its results. Thus, the probability criterion for the contents of narrative fiction leads to a first hypothesis about pre-ethical effects: A sequence of events presented in a story affects readers’ beliefs about causality: “action a leads to consequence b” (Hypothesis PE1).

Gardner’s poetics goes back to the concept of literature as a moral laboratory. The term is Musil’s, but the concept was proposed earlier by Zola in his essay Le Roman expérimental (1880). The alleged effect is pre-ethical. As most ethicists would agree, knowledge of the consequences of behavior is a prerequisite to all ethical inquiries. The more we know about the probable effects of our actions, the more adequately can we weigh our moral decisions.

1.5 Emotional intelligence 1.5.1 A library of human psyche Reading literature is often believed to affect readers’ empathic ability, that is, their ability to form an impression of another person’s thoughts and emotions. In daily life it is often hard to obtain reliable information about someone’s motives and feelings. Usually, we can only guess what his or her true motives are. In many literary works, we get a unique opportunity to study motivations of people ‘from within.’ For example, while reading Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, we are allowed to look straight into Anna’s heart. We directly perceive what moves her:

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The Moral Laboratory Through Anna had obstinately and with exasperation contradicted Vronsky when he told her her position was impossible and tried to convince her to tell everything to her husband, at the bottom of her heart she regarded her own position as false and dishonorable, and she longed with her whole soul to change it. On the way home from the races she had told her husband the truth in a moment of excitement, and in spite of the agony she had suffered in doing so, she was glad of it. After her husband had left her, she told herself that she was glad. Now everything was out in the open, and at least there would be no more lying and deception. It seemed to her beyond doubt that her position was now made clear forever. It might be bad, this new position, but it would be clear; there would be no indefiniteness or falsehood about it. The pain she had caused herself and her husband in uttering those words would be rewarded now by everything being made clear, she thought. (304)

While we may believe that Anna’s confession is not entirely in her own interest, the text makes us understand what caused her to do so. It may enrich our imagination about what moves a person in a situation like Anna’s. She was anxious to relieve her mental dissonance, without having a carefully calculated plan. Instead of assuming clear-cut mechanical laws of human motivation, we may come to realize the complexity and unpredictability of life. As we read on, we learn about the mental states Anna goes through. First she tells herself that she is glad she has confessed. From now on she will be free from lies and deceit. The inevitable pain she has caused Karenin was a sacrifice well-worth. But the next morning she feels regret and is astonished she could have acted the way she did. Moreover, she wonders why she did not tell Vronsky she had confessed to her husband: And in answer to this question a burning blush of shame spread over her face. She knew what had kept her from it, she knew that she had been ashamed. Her position, which had seemed to her clear the night before, suddenly struck her now as not only not simple but as absolutely hopeless. She felt terrified at the disgrace, of which she had never thought before. When she thought of what her husband would do, the most terrible ideas came to her mind. She had a vision of being turned out of the house, of her shame being proclaimed to the whole world. She asked herself where she could go when she was turned out of the house, and she could not find an answer. (305)

Anna’s initial clarification, and her readiness to meet the consequences have changed to a fundamental uncertainty about her future. While she had imagined that her step would open the way to change her strained circumstances, she had not really felt her way into all the possible scenarios her confession could generate.

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Palmer (1992) elaborates on the idea that reading texts like Tolstoy’s novel may enhance our understanding of fellow human beings. He suggests that identification with a character results in a special form of knowledge, which he calls ‘knowledge by acquaintance what an experience is like.’ In the case of Anna Karenina, most readers will be strongly involved with her fate, and will therefore know, without having been in a similar situation themselves, what it must be like to be in her position. In acquainting ourselves with Anna’s experience, we learn that one can be so eager to escape a situation that one does not fully reflect on the possible consequences, consequences which suddenly become threatening and destructive as soon as the options become real. Along similar lines, Doeser (1990) argues that narratives are an ideal way to communicate such insight into human character (what he calls practical knowledge), because they combine situation, motivation, action, and its consequences. Reading Anna Karenina may sharpen our perception about why someone comes to commit adultery, what emotions such a person may have, and what the consequences may be. The proposed consequences of reading narratives may be summarized as follows. Reading narratives enhances the ability to make psychological inferences about the emotions, thoughts, and motives others have in certain situations (Hypothesis PE2).

How are we to understand the relation between this alleged effect and ethics or morality? Some suggest that the enhancement of insight into human thoughts and emotions may bridge individual as well as cultural differences. The Dutch novelist and critic Otten argues that even though the norms and values of the characters are not our own, we are able to feel the do’s and don’ts just like them. “You may become afraid of things the character is afraid of, though you know you yourself wouldn’t care. In principle the same phenomenon makes it possible to understand for example how difficult it must be for a fourteenyear-old Moroccan girl to wear a headscarf in school.”9 Similarly, Richard Rorty (1989) proposes that reading novels enriches our moral awareness, because during the reading experience we find ourselves in the shoes of a wide diversity of people. Thus, we get better and better at understanding moral situations from different points of view. What good would that do? Some books, Rorty argues, help us to become less cruel. These books come in two categories: (1) those that help us to see the effects of social practices and institutions on others (like Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Les Misérables); (2) those

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that help us to see the effects of our private idiosyncrasies on others. These works typically show: the blindness of a certain kind of person to the pain of another kind of person. By identification with Mr. Causaubon in Middlemarch or with Mrs. Jellyby in Bleak House, for example, we may come to notice what we ourselves have been doing. In particular, such books show how our attempts at autonomy, our private obsessions with the achievement of a certain sort of perfection, may make us oblivious to the pain and humiliation we are causing. They are the books which dramatize the conflict between duties to self and duties to others. (141)

It seems obvious that these effects yield important benefits to ethical reflection. Since they may enhance the quality of ethical reflection, but are not ethical themselves, I call them pre-ethical. As Rorty makes clear, we need these pre-ethical abilities to make morally reflected choices for ourselves. Furthermore, we need them to form our judgment about the behavior of others. Before passing judgment, we may want to know something about the actors’ motives, as well as to take the consequences of their actions into consideration. Indeed, as Swap (1991) shows, when we form our judgment about someone’s behavior, we do in fact make attributions about both motivation and consequences. Furthermore, in several measures of moral development, scores largely depend on subjects’ ability to do so (Piaget 1932; Kohlberg 1969). These tests typically consist of a story describing events which lead to a moral dilemma. To understand that it is a dilemma subjects have to make inferences about the protagonists’ emotions and intentions. Furthermore, they have to be able to imagine the possible consequences of choosing either the one or the other way out of the dilemma. If reading narratives enhances insight into human character, this would indirectly improve the quality of our ethical inquiries, at least on measures used in the social sciences. Considering the possible refinement of ethical reflection, it seems we have found another strong argument to investigate whether literature actually increases knowledge of the human psyche. 1.5.2 Complexity of characterization It could be countered that other (non-literary) discourse types may have similar beneficial effects. Soap operas might equally contribute to insight into human character. One property which distinguishes literary narratives from other narrative discourses, however, is its complexity. What does this mean?

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Generally, it is supposed that literary texts represent and presumably produce more complex emotional experiences than, for example, popular fiction does. Making sense of the emotions of characters in a popular romance, story usually does not demand much reflection or imagination. But literary characters like Anna Karenina are not so one-dimensional. Their personalities are like full-blown human beings; puzzling and complex, rather than rudimentary and stereotypical. This quality of literature may boost some of the effects of narratives I have discussed before. Some argue that a diet of texts that offer oversimplified and shallow prototypes of emotional life may hamper the development of readers’ imagination about or their view of other people’s emotions, that they may even impair the development of their own emotions (DePaul 1993; Bloom 1987; Van Peer 1986b). In contrast, the relatively high psychological complexity of literary characters may delay response, and require a higher degree of concentration. In turn, this may stimulate readers to make more perceptive inferences about someone’s intentions and emotions. If we consider going through such processes to be some kind of training, we may expect them to lead to a more adequate perception of others’ emotions in everyday situations, or at least a more imaginative expectation about other people’s inner-lives. In Chapter 2 I will examine whether there is any empirical support for the following assertion: The complexity of literary characters helps readers to have more sophisticated ideas about others’ emotions and motives than stereotyped characters in popular fiction, (Hypothesis PE3).

It is in this sense that we have to understand Nussbaum’s (1990) claim that literature reveals the complexity of making moral decisions. Literary novels, she argues, offer detailed descriptions of concrete situations involving moral problems. Their sheer length also allows the development of a historical dimension. This should make the reader aware that ethical decisions are not simply a matter of applying the appropriate moral rules to a particular problem. The usefulness of Exodus 20:14 “Thou shalt not commit adultery” may turn out to be of limited value when we have to deal with a concrete case like Anna Karenina’s. The way popular culture deals with such issues is hardly inducive to sophisticated moral discrimination. In addition to previous hypotheses about psychological insight (PE1 and PE2), it is therefore expected that: The attention given to the genesis and development of moral problems in literary texts raises our awareness of the complexity of ethical problems (Hypothesis PE4).

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Up until now, I have focused on aspects of contents. Next I will pay attention to effects that are associated with literary reading processes. First I will specify the effects expected from readers’ emotional involvement.

1.6 Appeal to emotions 1.6.1 Composed readers through catharsis It is commonly accepted that reading literary texts may generate emotions. Some suppose this aspect of literature to induce effects which are, in my terms, pre-ethical. Their claims may be without foundation, but let us first see what they are. To start with, an emotional reading experience is thought to produce catharsis, a process in which emotional tensions are diminished by an intensification.10 The Aristotelian concept is somewhat ambiguous and has led to several interpretations, the most influential one being Breuer and Freud’s method of ‘psycho-catharsis.’ In this therapy, patients are brought in a state of light hypnosis. Repressed events in the patient’s past are subsequently actualized. The patient is thus made aware of past traumas. The emotions generated by this awareness lead to relief. The temporal increase of burdensome emotions may also be attained by acting them out in therapeutic ‘as if’ situations. Emotional reading experiences are believed to have similar effects. In a practice known as bibliotherapy patients read a story about a character whose experiences resemble the traumatic events in the patients’ past (see Fuhriman et al. 1989). Identification may be a kind of therapeutic ‘as if’ situation, in other words, an imaginary role play. In this way patients supposedly come to recognize their repressed emotions, and thus make the first step in learning to deal with them. According to Beardsley (1958), catharsis is not only recommendable for psychiatric patients. Often in daily life, he argues, we build up a certain amount of frustration and irritation. This can rise to such an extent that it can seriously hamper our social, creative, and economic performance. Reading literature may reduce our destructive psychological impulses, Beardsley argues. This effect, he says, has an important advantage. While reading, we go through strong emotions of moral indignation or hate without harming anyone in the process. Also, in sublimating destructive feelings and emotions, reading

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may enhance our “capacity of outgoing and affectionate relations, reduce the amount of irrational emotional outbursts, lessen prejudices and lasting resentments, make us more tolerant and forgiving” (560). The cathartic effect of literature may even have implications exceeding the relevance for our personal lives. As Bertrand Russell said in his Nobel Prize speech, reading may satisfy our love for excitement, and avoid that this yearning leads to social unrest and war.11 Cathartic effects are an example of a pre-ethical effect. Relief of emotional tension is neither moral nor ethical in itself. But, as has been argued, it may affect our behavior, and set our frame of mind to make more wellconsidered judgments and thus contribute to ethical reflection or moral action. Participating in an imaginary role-play may produce an awareness of repressed emotions, thus enabling more reasonable judgment (Hypothesis PE5).

1.6.2 Experimenting with roles Besides cathartic effects, participation in imaginary role play is assumed to contribute to character formation, in that it gives readers a chance to experiment with roles that are not theirs (yet). Reading involves temporarily sharing the same desires and anxieties characters have, Booth (1988) proposes. The plot of most narratives is set into motion by desires, by goals characters want to reach, or by a task they have to accomplish (see Bremond 1966). Readers’ arousal may be explained by the adoption of a character’s perspective. They may temporarily feel, for instance, the same fear a fictional murderer may have of being caught. Booth (1988) argues that having these feelings may contribute to character formation. According to him, fiction offers a multitude of opportunities to experiment with roles and values. When we have read 300 pages of a novel and have come to know a character like Anna Karenina pretty well, we may feel the same desires and fears she has. The reading experience enlarges, what Booth calls, our ‘imaginative diet.’ In other words, reading stimulates our imagination about who we are and what we may be. The result of such an experiment with roles is that we become aware of the attraction of being like the characters. Booth recalls from his own experience of reading Ulysses “a sense of envy and awe — not of Joyce but of Stephen. If only my own stream of consciousness could flow at that high philosophical level, what a bright young man I would be! And I can remember (…) mumbling that mouth-filler: ‘ineluctable modality of the visible’. Thus in my emulation I was

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moved, in however slight a degree, toward the character of a philosophical man.” (274) That was Booth as a young man; now he is a professor at the University of Chicago. The ‘experiment’ with roles may also work in the opposite direction. We may also become aware of what we do not want to be like, as Scholes (1989) experienced while he read George Eliot’s Middlemarch. He relates how this caused an ethical turn in his life: “I found myself far too closely mirrored in the character of Fred Vincy, who is nicely summed up by the narrator as one of those ‘young gentlemen whose consciousness is chiefly made up of their own wishes’” (139). Whether Booth became a professor thanks to Ulysses, or whether Scholes became a better man because of Middlemarch is hard to say. As Booth points out himself, what we read does not necessarily determine what we are. It may also be the other way round. Nineteen-year-olds who want to read Ulysses, may already have something of a philosopher in them. Moreover, even honest and earnest attempts to reconstruct how we became what we are, may contain inaccuracies. In Chapter 2 I will hold the following hypothesis against the light of available empirical evidence. Reading narratives is a thought-experiment. Readers try out certain roles and reflect on the consequences of these roles (Hypothesis E1).

So, reading Ulysses helps readers to clarify whether and why they would value intellect over other values, and their reflections on their reading of Middlemarch makes them realize they do not want to be an egoist like Fred Vincy. The thought-experiment itself is a method of ethical inquiry. Its effects are ethical effects of reading literature. But, as these examples already indicate, readers’ ethical reflections can lead to a moral conclusion. 1.6.3 Rhetoric and persuasion Until now I have discussed the enhancement of emotions through a perceived resemblance between story events and a reader’s past (e.g., stories mirroring traumatic experiences). Another element of literature’s appeal to emotions is assumed to come from rhetoric, the art of persuasion. “Rhetorical devices,” Tuve (1947) says, “move a reader’s affections,” but also “affect his judgment; they move him to feel intensely, to will, to act, to understand, to believe, to change his mind.”12 Rhetorical schemes and tropes are often assumed to

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contribute to the persuasive power of Biblical texts, political essays, pamphlets, courtroom pleas, and advertisements. When this power results in changing behavioral norms, this is a moral effect. As Booth (1961, 1988) has pointed out, rhetoric is an almost omnipresent phenomenon in fiction. In fact, handbooks on rhetoric frequently refer to literary examples for illustration (from Aristotle’s The Art of Rhetoric to Corbett 1971; see also Van Peer 1994). Most of the rhetorical devices can be found inside as well as outside literature. Take irony, for instance. An example from an ad for a telephone company: “Sure you could live without the Yellow Pages (or without newspapers or automobiles or clocks)”. If such rhetoric works in an ad, may not the same persuasive effect occur while reading a literary text like this one: “For Brutus is an honorable man; So are they all, honorable men.” (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar III, ii, 91–92)?13 Mark Antony’s famous speech does indeed stir the mob he addresses. While Brutus had been able to assure the Plebeians that the assassination of Caesar was necessary to preserve the Republic, Antony persuades them to a diametrically different opinion. With the help of rhetorical devices, he creates a mood of hostility towards Brutus and the other conspirators. This is a clear case of a moral effect. We see a change of judgment, from “Live, Brutus, live, live!” (III. ii, 50) and “Let him [Brutus] be Caesar,” (53) to “Revenge! – About! – Seek! – Burn! – Fire! – Kill! – Slay! Let not a traitor live” (216). Here we have a fictional audience being swayed by rhetoric. What happens to Shakespeare’s readers? It seems unlikely they are also swept into moral indignation and action. Most readers will realize Brutus and Antony are fictional characters, and that no immediate action on their part is called for. In addition, these characters are too ambiguous for such an overt response. They are both good and evil. Brutus’ intentions are not all wicked. He seriously means to save his country. Similarly, Antony is not without fault. He stirs an angry mob and starts a devastating civil war, which results in many innocent deaths. What does seem likely is that some readers will notice a moral ambiguity at the heart of the play. The piece may work in such a way that readers come to realize the moral importance of avoiding civil disorder and violence. Julius Caesar seems to show that a political status quo is to be preferred to the pursuit or control of power, even for apparently just or moral purposes. Literature may come to function as, what Booth (1988) calls, a macro-metaphor, in case of Shakespeare’s play, as a macro-metaphor for certain problems of government. If it is true that, as Booth claims, these

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metaphors can have an ‘awesome’ influence on us, reading Shakespeare may well affect readers’ behavioral norms concerning politics. By means of rhetorical devices narratives move readers to accept a perceived behavioral norm, or to sense a renewed awareness of it (Hypothesis M4).

A literary text and a political pamphlet are two different things. Unlike the message of a pamphlet, literary meaning cannot be reduced to a blunt motto. Simplifying Shakespeare to one moral message seems a gross impoverishment. Moreover, attempts to do so result in truisms most people will be well aware of without the help of any literary text. Nevertheless, this does not refute the claim that part of the reading experience may include a reduction to a motto, as well as a renewed awareness of some principle. Remember that we are not concerned with what readers should, but what they may learn from literature. In this section I have argued that if literature enhances emotions, it may have effects besides pure aesthetic delight. Catharsis and its psychological correlates warrant a serious investigation of their consequences. I have also proposed that readers’ identification with characters may lead to an impact on their self-concept. An examination of these assertions could have important social applications and deepen our understanding of literary communication. The effects of rhetoric may also be of interest. Rhetorical devices like metaphors, irony, and repetition may, or may not have the persuasive effect they are supposed to have. If they do have such effects, people in the business of persuasion may want to know. It may also be that the rhetorical devices work anywhere except in literature. In that case, it may be interesting to know why.

1.7 A challenge to ethical reflection 1.7.1 Life’s problems and social criticism The previous section focused on emotional involvement and its alleged effects. I will now consider the implications of cognitive processes. By now it must be clear that assumptions about pre-ethical and moral effects of reading literature are deeply rooted in our Western concept of what literature is, but also that few of these theories are based on empirical evidence. The same holds for ethical effects. Intuitively it seems plausible that some literary texts

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stimulate readers to reflect on ethical problems, but what do we know about the place of such reflections in actual reading experiences? Before answering that question in Chapter 2, let us look at what the claims are. First I will look at some ideas about effects on personal reflections. Many literary texts are believed to address ethical issues (e.g., Mooij 1987; Gregor & Nicholas 1962; Gardner 1978). This is not to say that they contain moral messages. According to Van Asperen (1994), literature typically deals with questions regarding the meaning of life, what makes a life worth living, and what does not. Thus, readers may come to reflect on choices and actions, or on qualities like courage, loyalty, compassion, goodness, and reliability. Participating in the experiences of literary characters, argues Van Asperen, gives us more food for reflection than our own experiences could. “Literature is, in that sense, a laboratory of human possibilities, and that always implies moral possibilities as well” (45). Rorty (1989) and Nussbaum (1991) similarly argue that literature is closely geared toward ethical problems we meet in daily life. Literary texts show us ethically relevant details, acknowledging the particularity of the circumstances, and the ineptness of universal moral laws. Reading literary narratives enhances ethical reflection on problems in daily life (Hypothesis E2).

Literature is also thought to stimulate reflection beyond the private. This assumption pertains to two domains: critical reflection on philosophies of life, and contemporary developments in society. As to the former, Steiner (1989) argues that our understanding of many literary texts remains incomplete if it does not include cross-references to other texts or historical events. This may create an implicit philosophical dialogue. For example, we may read Golding’s Lord of the Flies as an ideological comment on Ballantyne’s Coral Island, thus putting into the pillory the optimistic belief in civilization the latter represents. Similarly, Gadamer (1996) asserts that our present set of norms and values may change while we attempt to understand literary works of past eras. Interpretation involves putting ourselves in the ‘horizon’ of the author, but during this transposition our own horizon tags along. According to Gadamer the encounter forms or tests our norms and values and the existing by themselves” (306). Others have proposed that ensuing dialogue may result in a “fusion of these horizons supposedly literature functions as the public’s conscience and enhances our awareness of certain abuses.14 Indeed, it seems that criticism of contemporary developments in society is frequently expressed in literature. In

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his A Defence of Poetry [1840] Shelley even claimed poets to be the unacknowledged legislators of this world. And many authors criticized what they felt were undesirable developments in their society. Examples that spring to mind are Swift’s satires on the sciences of his day, Dickens’ critique on the downside of industrialization, the criticism on bourgeois morality by Flaubert, Kafka’s view of bureaucracy, or Gogol’s Dead Souls, regarded as a bitter attack on corruption in Czarist Russia. A more recent debate few have missed is the discussion about freedom of expression and Islamic views following Khomeiny’s fatwa pronounced over Salman Rushdie. His suffering has not been in vain, Rushdie thinks: “I really think that the publication of The Satanic Verses and the following discussion, forced many people to reflect on some very important issues, outside as well as inside the Islamic community. It is interesting to see one novel may go a long way, and that the genre still has that power.”15 It could well be that the highly canonical texts and authors mentioned here are subversively critical, rather than conserving some repressive establishment as suggested earlier in Section 1.3 (Herrnstein Smith 1988; see Van Peer 1996). It seems likely that, as Fokkema (1986) argues, the canon is an open system that represents a matrix of possible answers relevant for the times we live in. Times change, and so do the questions we ask. History shows that the canon changes along with them. Reading literary narratives enhances reflections about ethical problems related to contemporary developments in society (Hypothesis E3).

1.7.2 Reconsider and look again What makes literature a particularly suitable instrument for reflection on private and public problems? First, it is supposed that literary reading involves looking at things from a different perspective than we are used to. Central to our concept of literature is that its quality does not lie in what is represented, but in how it is represented. Shklovsky [1917] was perhaps the most eloquent spokesman for this principle. In his phrasing, literary texts provide readers with new ways to perceive the world. By “making things strange,” literature produces an intense and immediate experience of the world. This process of estrangement goes against the automatization of our perceptions. Looking through the eyes of a horse, readers of Tolstoy’s story ‘Cholstomer’ renew their perception of the world of humans. The horse’s incomprehension of

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words like ‘my’ and ‘mine’, embodying the concept of ownership, makes readers see human relations anew. According to Shklovsky, defamiliarization is a function of the literary devices authors use. In contrast to everyday language, literature employs these devices with largely aesthetic purposes; their effect is to slow down communication. Shklovsky was not concerned with the moral implications of these effects. He focused on aesthetic aspects, such as the intensification of perception. A poem about a stone helps readers to powerfully realize the ‘stoniness’ of a stone. However, the same devices may affect readers’ awareness about other things too, for example their own position in society. Brecht’s [1948] theory of Verfremdung stresses the potential of literary ‘estrangement’ to bear on social change.16 Things that have existed for a long time seem unchangeable to us. Brecht works toward a form of literature that, through an estranged mode of seeing things, may help us realize that even the organization of society can be changed. Instead of being merely persuasive in a crude way, this effect results in open-mindedness, Bronzwaer (1986) adds. Reading helps us to reflect on the world, on our prejudices, thus avoiding the fossilization of our political and social norms. These effects are pre-ethical — in other words, they precede and improve the basis for ethical reflection. Defamiliarization effects of literature generate an open-minded attitude, enabling readers to look at ethical problems in a new, fresh, and intense way (Hypothesis PE6).

This is a strong argument to suppose that literature is particularly suitable to enhance ethical reflection. While television soaps may broach ethical issues, the predictable way in which such matters are dealt with can hardly defamiliarize and subsequently renew readers’ entrenched categories. The typical defamiliarization devices of literature, by contrast, may generate ethical effects of an intensity not encountered in the more popular media. Adorno (1967) would have agreed. He argues that mass media impede people from becoming autonomous, independent thinking individuals and thus are a menace to democratic societies. There is an additional reason to believe that unfamiliar perspectives enhance the quality of ethical reflection. In every work of literature, says J.E. Miller (1968) we may find a new perspective on life. As a result of reading literature, one may become familiar with a large diversity of ways of looking at the world. Reading broadly, Miller assumes, exposes one to a multitude of ethical systems and moral perspectives, and thus causes an expansion and

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Literature makes readers become acquainted with a wider range of moral perspectives (Hypothesis PE7).

Being aware of various possible points of view is a precondition for adequate ethical reflection. Therefore, this hypothesis pertains to a pre-ethical effect. Another line of reasoning emphasizes the reflective distance typical for literary communication. For Althusser [1966], great novelists like Balzac and Solzhenitsyn are able to let us perceive the ideology that normally curtails our perception of society by taking a step backward. This creates an internal distance toward the very same ideology from which their novels originate. Habermas (1983) argues that literature cannot provide behavioral rules. Its moral ambiguity makes that readers are typically unable to come to an univocal moral judgment. However, in being free from the pressures to make moral decisions, this creates a sanctuary for ethical reflection. As Milan Kundera (1995) puts it, literature, or the novel, is a realm where moral judgment is suspended, which “stands against the ineradicable human habit of judging instantly, ceaselessly, and everyone; of judging before, and in the absence of, understanding” (7). Several authors (e.g., Winkler 1985; Euben 1990) point out that there were times when this temporary suspension of judgment was even a public function of literature. Others add that nowadays it is at least a psychological need for all of us (Rushdie 1991). DePaul (1993) argues that we often need to insert a mental distance to our situation in order to come to an adequate judgment. This is especially important when we are personally involved in, for example, a domestic quarrel. Not being able to take a detached viewpoint will make it difficult to recognize what is important and what is not. Precisely because of our distance from the events described in literary narratives, reading offers us an opportunity to train our ethical ‘faculty.’ The gist of these views are captured in the following two hypotheses. The ambiguity of ethical positions in a literary text stimulates ethical reflection (Hypothesis PE8). The mental distance readers maintain toward fictional events in literary texts allows them to make more careful moral inquiries (Hypothesis PE9).

Considering these arguments, it seems that reading literature enhances the quality of ethical reflection. In addition, the involvement in ethical reflection itself may improve future reflections. J. Hillis Miller (1987) argues that reading literature may enhance readers’ ability of interpretation. This, in turn,

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may help them to have a better understanding of ethics and its conceptual study, which in turn may have implications for their moral, social and political life. So, ethical reflection (an ethical effect of reading literature) trains readers to make more discerning ethical inquiries (a pre-ethical side effect). This brings us to a last hypothesis. Reading literary narratives stimulates ethical reflection, which enhances the understanding of ethical discourse (Hypothesis PE10).

Shelley wrote his Defence of Poetry to argue that writing poetry is not simply a waste of time as Peacock bantered. Similarly, I think the arguments put forth in this chapter suggest that it is worthwhile to examine whether certain assumptions about the effects of literature are valid. We have seen that several of our most central beliefs about literature imply effects on the reader. Some of these effects are relevant to ethics, either directly or indirectly. Still, not everyone seems convinced that these effects take place. And they have a point. People who made these claims did little to find out whether their arguments were valid. Novels may be quoted, cases may be brought forward, intimate self-observations may be revealed, but this will not convince the true sceptic. Now that some of the conceptual issues about what reading literature may do to readers have been clarified, let us move on to a review of the available evidence. The table below lists the hypotheses presented in this chapter. It will function as a point of reference for the next chapter, where I will examine the evidence.

Overview of the hypotheses Pre-ethical effects 1. A sequence of events presented in a story affects readers’ beliefs about causality: “action a leads to consequence b” (see Section 1.4). 2. Reading narratives enhances the ability to make psychological inferences about the emotions, thoughts, and motives others have in certain situations (1.5.1). 3. The complexity of literary characters helps readers to have more sophisticated ideas about others’ emotions and motives than stereotyped characters in popular fiction (1.5.2).

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4. The attention given to the genesis and development of moral problems in literary texts raises our awareness of the complexity of ethical problems (1.5.2). 5. Participating in an imaginary role-play may produce an awareness of repressed emotions, thus enabling more reasonable judgment (1.6.1). 6. Defamiliarization effects of literature generate an open-minded attitude, enabling readers to look at ethical problems in a new, fresh, and intense way (1.7.2). 7. Literature makes readers become acquainted with a wider range of moral perspectives (1.7.2). 8. The ambiguity of ethical positions in a literary text stimulates ethical reflection (1.7.2). 9. The mental distance readers maintain toward fictional events in literary texts allows them to make more careful moral inquiries (1.7.2). 10.Reading literary narratives stimulates ethical reflection, which enhances the understanding of ethical discourse (1.7.2). Ethical effects 1. Reading narratives is a thought-experiment. Readers try out certain roles and reflect on the consequences of these roles (1.6.2). 2. Reading literary narratives enhances ethical reflection on problems in daily life (1.7.1). 3. Reading literary narratives enhances reflections about ethical problems related to contemporary developments in society (1.7.1). Moral effects 1. Narratives affect readers’ beliefs or expectations about their lives. This includes consequences for their behavioral norms, e.g., cultural or social codes (1.3.1). 2. A narrative presentation is more persuasive than a non-narrative one (1.3.2). 3. The fictionality of narratives does not impair its effects on readers’ beliefs and behavioral norms (1.4.1). 4. By means of rhetorical devices narratives move readers to accept a perceived behavioral norm, or to sense a renewed awareness of it (1.6.3).

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Notes 1.

Peacock [1820].

2.

Shelley’s Defence is a response to an essay written by a good friend of Shelley’s, Thomas Love Peacock. His The Four Ages of Poetry should not be taken to be a serious attack on poetry (see Brett-Smith’s introduction to Peacock’s essay).

3.

See philosophical dictionaries such as Sandkühler (1990) and Lacey (1976); see also De Graaf (1980).

4.

Cf. Bronzwaer (1986): 69.

5.

M1

6.

Plato’s The Republic. Book III (129) and X (433).

7.

See Steven Mufson’s article ‘Is Ibsen an Enemy of the People’s Republic?’ International Herald Tribune (4 September 1996) on the production of the play by Wu Xiaojiang.

8.

There may be exceptions to this rule, as recent attempts to write virtual history show (Ferguson, 1997).

9.

Discussion about the ethical side of Racine’s Phèdre by Willem Jan Otten in NRC Handelsblad, 23 December 1994.

10.

See Aristotle’s Politica (1342a 14–15), and On the Art of Poetry (6).

11.

Quoted in Beardsley (1958): 574.

12.

Quoted in Vickers (1988): 277.

13.

Corbett’s examples (1971: 489–490).

14.

See for some examples Downs (1978).

15.

Interview with Bas Heijne, published in NRC Handelsblad, 2 December 1994.

16.

See Brecht 1976: 99n.

to distinguish it from hypotheses about pre-ethical (PE) and ethical effects (E).

Chapter 2

Changing Readers

Die Erkenntnis beginnt nicht mit Wahrnehmungen oder Beobachtungen oder der Sammlung von Daten oder von Tatsachen, sondern sie beginnt mit Problemen. Karl Popper1

2.1 Introduction The first time you call at your friends’ or colleagues’ home, you often find yourself secretly browsing through their bookshelves. While the hosts are getting drinks from the kitchen, we guests seem to think the titles will reveal some aspect of our hosts’ personality. How reliable are such inferences? This chapter reviews a wide range of studies suggesting that bookcases may be quite revealing. The main focus will be on studies of an experimental nature, relating them — wherever possible — to the hypotheses outlined in Chapter 1. I will start the exploration of the field by briefly looking at some results of correlational and qualitative approaches. 2.1.1 Correlations Our friends’ library may be quite telling. Instead of merely revealing hobbies and aesthetic preferences, it may help us to predict some of their norms and values, their standpoints in politics and social issues, and their personality (Miall & Kuiken 1995; Hakemulder 1995; Van Assche 1981; Perine 1977; Wilson 1956). Thus, Perine (1977) found correlations between orientations toward literature and approaches to moral judgment. Van Assche (1981) showed that aesthetic preferences and ranking of values are strongly associated. Subjects in his study were asked to choose one of six poems as their favorite. Clear differences in preferences occurred between subjects who endorsed intimate-oriented values such as ‘happiness,’ and ‘true friendship,’

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and those preferring more world-oriented values like ‘world peace,’ and ‘equality.’ In another study, the degree of literary reading habits, or “literary participation,” correlated significantly with adherence to particular opinions (Hakemulder 1995). In a random sample in the city of Utrecht approximately 200 subjects participated in a telephone questionnaire. Analysis of the responses showed that adherence to liberal, progressive, and postmaterialist opinions correlated strongly with literary participation. Conversely, no correlation was found between literary participation and opinions related to conservatism, restrictivism, and materialism. Wilson (1956) found that scope and depth of literary experience was significantly correlated to construction (i.e., the desire to build ideas or objects, to execute projects and create new things) and cognizance (the desire for knowledge of all varieties). Furthermore, a negative relation was found with extroversion. In five separate studies Miall & Kuiken (1995) found that subjects’ attitude to literature is a reliable predictor of scores on several personality measures, such as: readiness to be captured by imaginal events, and readiness to modify them; learning style; approaches to morality; and tolerance for complexity. In conclusion, knowing someone’s reading habits helps us to predict his or her opinions and personality. However, it is unclear whether we can assume that there is a causal relation between literary participation and personality traits. Also, if there is, what is the direction of this causality? Does reading affect readers’ personality and values, or is it the other way around? 2.1.2 Qualitative approaches In several studies the question about the effect of reading was addressed directly to the readers themselves, which resulted in testimonies that supposedly exemplify that reading does shape the reader (e.g., Culp 1985 & 1977; Ebersole 1974; Lachenmann 1999; Shirley 1969; Wilson 1956). In Shirley’s study, a large group of high school students completed a questionnaire on how literature had affected their beliefs, attitudes, or behavior. Subsequently, a number of informants was selected for case studies. Some of their statements suggest that reading literature stimulates ethical reflection on everyday problems and social issues. One reader reported that through his reading of Golding’s The Lord of the Flies he “gained insight into how civilization is a thin veneer and how people can change when away from it” (Shirley 1969: 372). Miller’s Death of a Salesman brought another reader “to the

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realization of how very easy it is to get lost in the shuffle of life and that once you get behind, it’s nearly impossible to find your place again” (372). The response of the following reader of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment suggests the kind of moral self-evaluation discussed in Chapter 1: “After reading the book I discovered how self-centered I was and how quick I was to form my opinions” (410). One of the readers of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men shows the kind of compassion literature supposedly arouses: “to see the plight of the poor common laborer and how he is taken advantage of by better educated men. I felt sorry for them… I felt depressed. I cried after reading Of Mice and Men” (406). Several other qualitative studies pointed out that literature is a suitable vehicle for ‘tackling sensitive issues’ (Cheek 1992; Mullarkey 1987; Rhodes 1990; Sullivan 1987). Sullivan describes experiences with a bibliotherapeutic program used in a fourth grade classroom. Listening to and discussing stories proved to be helpful in getting problems out into the open, problems relating to parental divorce, human relations and handicaps. Rhodes analyzed responses of six students to a novel and concluded that her subjects concentrated on issues with which they might be confronted in their own lives. In a similar study, Mullarkey reports that reading enhanced subjects’ insights about their personal lives. Her analysis of recorded responses to novels suggests that the insights were prompted by identification with the fictional characters. Cheek’s observations of classroom discussions of literature showed that teachers frequently focused students’ attention on ethical aspects of the texts. It seems that in literary education students are often stimulated to reflect on ethical issues. All this may add to the plausibility of the hypotheses advanced before. There are reasons, however, to subject them to further tests, preferably in experimental settings. Subjects in self-report studies may be sincere in their self-observations, but their personal reconstruction of their past experiences and the formative effect of these on their character may not always be reliable and is scarcely verifiable. In Chapter 1 we saw that many (Western) theories of literature incorporate assumptions about the effects of reading. It may be that reader reports reflect these beliefs rather than actual influence. As we saw earlier, the results of correlation studies are not conclusive either. It remains unclear whether there is a causal relation between literary participation and personality variables. Determining whether reading literary texts has any effects requires experimentation, allowing researchers to maximize control over potential and relevant variables, so that it can be estimated whether

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independent variables (e.g., exposure to a literary text) have an effect on dependent variables (e.g., readers’ norms and attitudes).

2.2 Experimental research In my search for experimental evidence I used the following sources. For the period 1980 to 1995 I consulted the Psychological Abstracts and Dissertation Abstracts International. To track experiments conducted before 1980, references in a number of articles and books (e.g., Kimmel 1970; KlementzBelgardt 1981) were checked. Finally, forty scholars were asked for information about their own work, and whether they knew of any other relevant studies. The effort yielded a total of 54 experiments relevant to the research problem at hand. Where information was missing, an attempt was made to contact the author or to search for a more complete report. The studies were first categorized according to the effects researchers were after, resulting in eight categories, which I will now briefly introduce in order of apparent importance to our present concerns. Appendix 1 contains tables summarizing the essentials of the studies: what the treatments consisted of; how many subjects were used and what age they were; the design the researchers used and the tests they administered; what the results were; and finally, any potential problems of the study. I

II

III

Norms and values Eight studies examined effects on norms and values (Berg-Cross & BergCross 1978; Brandhorst 1973; Burt 1972; Freimuth & Jamieson 1977; Keener 1977; Kigar 1978; Milgram 1967; Schram & Geljon 1988; see Table I in Appendix 1). Moral development Another eight experiments tried to establish whether reading narratives can boost the development of moral judgment (two studies by Biskin & Hoskisson 1977; Gallagher 1978; Garrod 1982; Johnson 1990; Justice 1989; Keefe 1975; Kinnard 1986; Table II in Appendix 1). Empathy In four studies researchers examined the effects of reading narratives on a group of variables related to empathy, namely: the ability to make inferential attributes about another person’s thinking, attitudes, emotions (a

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IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

33

result of cognitive perception); motivation for prosocial behavior; and actual altruistic conduct (Bilsky 1989; Healy 1980; Milner 1982; Wiley 1991; Table III ). Outgroup attitudes This category contains sixteen studies. They examined whether reading narratives portraying particular outgroups affects readers’ attitudes toward such outgroups (Alsbrook 1970; Beardsley 1979; Brisbin 1971; Fisher 1965; Frankel 1972; Geiger 1975; Gimmestad & De Chiara 1982; Hayes 1969; Heintz 1988; Jackson 1944; Kimoto 1974; Litcher & Johnson 1969; Schwartz 1972; Stone 1985; Tauran 1967; Zucaro 1972; Table IV ). Sex-role concepts Six studies assessed the effectiveness of treatments in changing subjects’ concept of sex-roles, for example, their beliefs about cognitive abilities of the sexes, or their norms about what tasks and jobs are more appropriate for men or women (Ashby & Wittmaier 1978; Barclay 1974; Berg-Cross & Berg-Cross 1978; two studies in Flerx et al. 1976; McArthur & Eisen 1976; Table V). Self-esteem The effects of reading narratives on self-appraisal were examined in seven studies (Doering 1985; Garrod 1982; Gross 1977; Koeller 1977; Roach 1975; Trimble 1984; Woodyard 1970; Table VI ). Critical thinking Three studies tried to establish effects of literature-based curricula on subjects’ cognitive and analytical abilities (Bird 1984; Dukess 1985; Schulhauser 1990; Table VII ). Anxiety reduction Five researchers studied therapeutic applications of reading narratives, more specifically the reduction of anxiety (Cutforth 1980; McClaskey 1970; Quale 1979; Scheff and Scheele 1980; Smith 1979; see Table VIII ).

2.2.1 Criteria for evaluation Before discussing the results of the experiments, we need a criterion to evaluate them. In particular, we need to distinguish studies that offer direct evidence to support researchers’ claims from those that do not. The criteria I

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used are derived from Cook & Campbell (1979: 37–94). They present a useful guideline for estimating the validity of experimental research. In my evaluation I took into account that not all these criteria are equally important. For example, in many studies treatment and testing were conducted by the same person. As a result, the outcome of these experiments may be open to threats of “hypothesis-guessing.” Subjects may have related one task (e.g., reading a story) with another (completing the posttest). Having guessed the aim of the experimenter, they may have responded accordingly, trying to help the researcher to find what he or she expected of them. Hypothesis-guessing need not be a serious threat to validity. As Cook & Campbell stress themselves, there is no widespread evidence that subjects tend to provide answers that will please researchers (66). Hence, the results of such experiments do not have to be dismissed immediately. A similarly mild problem is the lack of a randomization procedure. Not randomizing subjects over experimental and control conditions means a potentially relevant variable may intervene. On the other hand, when randomization is carried out other distorting effects may occur due to the unnatural situation of breaking up intact groups such as classrooms. Working with intact groups in field settings instead of individuals in laboratory settings may produce results which are more representative of reading in real life (7). Some experimenters randomly assigned intact groups to treatments, and conducted pretest and posttest in all conditions. This seems a fair solution for this dilemma. Some studies suffer from more serious ailments. For instance, in one experiment it could not be guaranteed that all subjects within one group were subjected to the same treatment (Koeller 1977). Another problem I consider critical enough to discard researchers’ claims, is the absence of a pretest combined with either a lack of a randomization procedure or a control group. Such procedures cast too much doubt on the claim that registered differences between groups were due to treatment. I also rejected experiments with more than two moderate threats to internal validity. A build-up of small uncertainties seems a justifiable reason to question researchers’ claims. Finally, none of the studies were given ‘the benefit of the doubt.’ For example, when the report did not mention that subjects were randomized, I assumed they weren’t. It should be stressed that occasionally such assumptions may have been unwarranted, since I sometimes had to rely on information from dissertation abstracts only. Several authors responded to my request for more details about their procedures and research design, but many others proved to be out of reach.

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This survey does not comprise a meta-analysis. Such an approach requires the availability of mean scores on pretest and posttest and weighted average standard deviations. Because this information was often incomplete or missing altogether, it was impossible to compute overall effect sizes. Furthermore, too many different tests were used, and most categories contained too few studies to make a meta-analysis worthwhile. This means, for instance, that we could not compute the size of the effects relative to subjects’ age or sex. Table 2.1 summarizes the results of my evaluation. The numbers in the first column indicate the total amount of studies found in each category. The second column represents the number of studies that were estimated to be unreliable. The next two columns contain the number of reliable studies that respectively rejected and confirmed the hypotheses. Table 2.1 Results of the evaluation Treatments aimed at affecting …. I II III IV V VI VII VIII

Norms and values Moral development Empathy Outgroup attitudes Sex-role perception Self-esteem Critical thinking Anxiety reduction

Total number of studies

Unreliable Studies1

8 8 4 16 6 7 3 5

5 2 1 8 1 5 2 2

Reliable studies2 No effects Effects 1 1 1 2 – – – –

2 5 2 6 5 2 1 3

1. Unreliable: studies with three or more potential threats to internal validity. 2. Reliable: fewer than three potential threats to internal validity. I.

II .

Norms and values research provides two reliable studies reporting significant effects of reading literature (Berg-Cross & Berg-Cross 1978; Burt 1972). On the other hand, one experimenter concluded that values expressed in narrative texts should not be assumed to have an effect on readers’ values (Kigar 1978).2 We must conclude that reading may affect norms and values, but that further research is needed to find out under what conditions such effects occur. Reviewing moral development research, I found five reliable studies with positive results (Biskin & Hoskisson 1977, study two; Johnson 1990; Justice 1989; Keefe 1975; Kinnard 1986).3 These results show that

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The Moral Laboratory literature-based programs may significantly enhance the natural development of moral judgment.

III .

Two methodologically sound experiments yielded positive effects of treatments aimed at empathic changes (Bilsky 1989; Milner 1982). One experiment did not result in significant effects (Wiley 1991).4 This is not an inconsistency, since the measures that were used were different. Whereas Wiley tried to establish effects on altruistic behavior, both Bilsky and Milner used a cognitive approach to empathy. Thus, I conclude that reading narratives may enhance awareness of others’ emotions and motives, but that it does not seem to stimulate self-denying behavior. IV . Outgroup studies provide a substantial amount of evidence revealing an effect of the treatments; six studies were conducted adequately enough to accept the claims (Brisbin 1971; Geiger 1975; Jackson 1944; Litcher & Johnson 1969; Tauran 1967; Zucaro 1972).5 Some results, however, are contradictory. In two well-designed experiments reading seemed to have had no effects at all (Beardsley 1979; Schwartz 1972). Further research should account for variables that may have caused these different outcomes. Meanwhile, it does seem relatively certain that reading stories with positive portrayals of outgroup members results in a positive change in attitude toward that group. Similarly, negative characterizations can be assumed to result in negative attitudes (Geiger 1975; Tauran 1967). V.

Results of sex-role research are unanimously positive. Five studies provide direct evidence for the assumption that reading may affect genderrelated behavioral norms, beliefs about natural differences between men and women (like cognitive ability), and actual behavior.6

VI .

Two experiments present direct evidence for the effect of narratives on readers’ self-esteem.7 Treatments resulted in higher scores on personal adjustment (Gross 1977). This suggests an increase of self-reliance, a sense of personal worth and freedom, a feeling of belonging, and the reduction of withdrawing tendencies and nervous symptoms. Furthermore, it was found that literature programs can be used to boost subjects’ perception of themselves as a student in relation to other students and their teachers (Roach 1975). This means a higher appraisal of their own scholastic abilities, and a more positive attitude toward teachers and school.

VII .

Table 2.1 shows that conclusions regarding the effects of reading on critical thinking should be taken with caution. Only one study, conducted

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by Bird (1984), demonstrated that literature programs can enhance critical thinking skills.8 VIII . Two

reliable studies support the claim that reading narratives reduces anxiety (Cutforth 1980; Scheff & Scheele 1980).9 One study showed significant improvement in emotionally disturbed patients (McClaskey 1970).

In general, the data show that literature-based treatments have effects on readers’ attitudes, norms, values, beliefs, self-concept, social abilities, and level of critical and moral thinking. Besides positive effects, researchers also assessed negative ones. Reading stories with unfavorable portrayals of some outgroup caused negative attitudes toward that group. One study reported unintended effects (Schram & Geljon 1988). An empathy-building approach to World War II literature about war criminals led to more radical denouncements of the characters. How much of the treatment effects can actually be attributed to reading literature will be discussed in the following sectIon. 2.2.2 Effects of literature per se Table 2.2 presents the number of reliable studies in which the conclusions concern the effects of exposure to texts only, excluding studies in which all treatments combined reading literature with other activities, such as taking part in post-reading discussions or role-playing.10 Such studies obviously do not allow conclusions about the effects of exposure itself, since their results may just as well be caused by the post-reading activities alone, or by the combination of reading and such activities. As can be seen from the table, a number of studies still survives, notably in outgroup studies and sex-role research. In outgroup research we find four studies (Geiger 1975; Zucaro 1972; Litcher & Johnson 1969; Jackson 1944), and in sex-role research five (Ashby & Wittmaier 1978; McArthur & Eisen 1976; Berg-Cross & Berg-Cross 1978; and the two studies in Flerx et al. 1976), that incontrovertibly show exposure to literary texts to have significant effects on readers’ attitudes. On the other hand, Schwartz (1972) and Beardsley (1979) were not able to establish any effects of ‘read-only treatments’ on outgroup attitudes. As to claims about the influence on norms, we have only one affirmative piece of evidence (Berg-Cross & Berg-Cross 1978), and as to the effect on self-esteem there remains also just one study (Gross

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1977). Scheff & Scheele (1980) is the only study to demonstrate that exposure to taped sketches without any discussion to follow produced anxiety reduction. In the remaining research categories (empathy, moral development, critical thinking) none of the data show that the mere exposure to narratives leads to significant changes. Table 2.2 Effects of exposure to literature per se Treatments aimed at affecting …. I Norms and values II Moral development III Empathy IV Outgroup attitudes V Sex-role perception VI Self-esteem VII Critical thinking VIII Anxiety reduction

Reliable Studies 3 6 3 8 5 2 1 3

Confounded Studies1 2 6 3 2 – 1 1 2

Unconfounded studies2 No effects Effects – 1 – – – – 2 4 – 5 – 1 – – – 1

1. Confounded: studies which do not allow conclusions about the effects of exposure to literature per se, because all treatments combine reading/listening with other treatment tasks. 2. Unconfounded: studies that include at least one treatment that consists only of reading, or listening to literature.

In the following discussion I will not exclude the confounded studies. Some of their findings seem relevant to our hypotheses about the effects of narratives in society, even though they combine exposure to narratives with other activities. Admittedly, some of the experimental situations bear little resemblance to situations in which people normally read literature. Some treatments, for instance, involved tasks that are unlikely to occur frequently (e.g., having to sing songs about the characters or participate in role-playing based on scenes from the stories). Other tasks, though, are similar to practices that are much more common, for instance in educational settings (e.g., having to write an essay about a novel) or among friends (e.g., taking part in a discussion).

2.3 Range of the claims: internalization To estimate the importance of the conclusions of this survey, and thus their relevance to the hypotheses of Chapter 1, we need to know to what extent the effects were internalized. Are subjects really any different after the treatments

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than before? Will they think and behave differently? Or are their responses merely indicative of their understanding of what responses the experimenters expected of them? These questions will be addressed in the next two sections. Furthermore, I will consider the generalizability of the findings. It may have been shown, for instance, that five-year-olds were influenced by listening to stories with strongly pronounced morals, but what does this mean for the effects of reading literature on adult readers’ norms and values? What is known about the circumstances under which the effects occur? These problems will be considered in Section 2.4. 2.3.1 Stability of the effects Most posttests were conducted immediately after subjects finished reading their texts, and it therefore could be argued that the results tell us something about short term effects only. To suppose the effects were internalized requires evidence that the changes were sustained over a longer period. In her evaluation of influence studies, Klemenz-Belgardt (1981) already noted that one of the nagging methodological problems is the relative shortness of duration allotted to the experiments. Little has changed since then. In the present survey none of the studies investigate longitudinal effects, and only five experimenters included a delayed posttest in their design. Time between the posttests ranged from one to six weeks. The evidence about the durability of the effects pertains to outgroup attitudes, sex-role concept, and moral development. As to the effects on outgroup attitude, two experimenters conducted a delayed posttest (Jackson 1944; Alsbrook 1970), and none of their results suggest that effects were still present. Investigating moral development, Justice (1989) was the only experimenter to include a delayed posttest in the procedure. The initial effects were not retained after six weeks. Perhaps Justice’s treatment was simply not long enough. It involved only eight sessions of reading and discussion. Biskin & Hoskisson (1977) found that their seven-session moral development intervention had no effect, while an eighteen-session intervention did. Moreover, Schlaefli, Rest and Thoma’s (1985) review of 55 moral development programs revealed that effectiveness of the intervention to produce stable changes largely depends on its duration. Two sex-role studies included a delayed posttest (Ashby and Wittmaier 1978; Flerx et al. 1976, study two). Both showed that some of the effects

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which were found on first testing were still significant after a period of seven days. However, they were not as strong, and they did not recur across all posttests. In this respect, it should be emphasized that in field experiments it is almost impossible to isolate subjects in the period between first and second posttest. Consider studies like the ones conducted by Flerx et al. (1976). Treatment consisted of reading stories about women in nontraditional roles. But in the week following the experiment subjects will have been exposed to numerous instances of more traditional sex-role models, presumably obliterating the effects of reading the nontraditional stories. Reason enough, therefore, to consider any effects on the second posttest a notable finding. In the discussion of their results, Flerx et al. proposed that a prolonged exposure to the fictional sex-roles may eventually cause an internalization of the norms of the texts. Some evidence informs us on the durability of the effect of reading stories as compared to that of watching a film. Flerx et al. (1976; study two) compared the effects of watching ‘egalitarian films’ with those of reading ‘egalitarian stories.’ Subjects in the control group read stereotypical stories.

Egalitarianism

5,4 5,2 5

film

4,8

book

4,6

control

4,4 4,2 4 pretest

posttest 1

posttest 2

Figure 2.1 Flerx et al (1976)

The effect in the film group was only marginally stronger than in the story group. As to the durability of the effects, between posttest and delayed posttest a clear drop was registered for both film and story treatment. Nevertheless, analysis of the data showed that in both groups the effect was still significant. As to the relative power of film versus stories to affect sex-role concept, we

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should conclude that reading is only marginally less influential than watching films.11 In sum, then, claims about the stability of the effects are limited. Merely five out of 54 studies included a delayed posttest. Results of one moral development study and two outgroup studies do not yield support to the claim that effects are of a permanent nature. On the other hand, two studies in the field of sex-role research did show that the initial effects were sustained. On the basis of the studies themselves it is not possible to explain the different outcomes. For now, we can conclude that the stability of the effects varies per research category. In addition, evidence of moral development research in general shows that duration of treatment is related to duration of effect. Presumably this holds for moral development programs based on reading narratives as well. Future research should address the problem of durability. 2.3.2 Emotional and behavioral changes Besides the stability of the effects, there are also other indications of internalization to consider, for example, emotional reorientation and changes in conduct So far, I have dealt with verbalized changes only. Obviously, evidence for effect on behavior would contribute to the weight of our hypotheses considerably. However, such evidence is circumstantial. Three studies (Wiley 1991; McArthur & Eisen 1976; McClaskey 1970) pertain to effects on behavior, of which the latter two showed a positive outcome. McClaskey (1970) examined the effectiveness of bibliotherapy as an adjunct to psychotherapy. He found that reading and discussing literature can cause significant behavioral changes in chronic emotionally disturbed patients. However, similar effects were found for a treatment based on didactic texts. McArthur & Eisen (1976) show that the changes in attitude found in sexrole studies may extend to behavioral changes. They suggestively quote a study by McClelland (1961) who found that the amount of achievement imagery in children’s books during one period was highly correlated with measures of economic growth in subsequent years when the children who had been exposed to these books reached maturity. In their own study, McArthur & Eisen established experimentally that stories can motivate achievementoriented behavior. Thirty-six five-year-olds were randomly assigned to three groups. One group heard a stereotypical story, depicting achievement behavior by a male character and helpless and passive behavior by a female

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character. In the second condition subjects read almost the same story, except that the characters’ roles were switched. In the new version the female character is perfectly capable of looking after her own interests. The male character, in this version, waits for the girl to help him out of trouble (an intimidating spider). Control-group subjects listened to a story depicting no pronounced achievement behavior by any of the characters. The procedure was as follows. One experimenter takes each subject individually to a room and reads one of the three stories. Then a second experimenter, who is unaware of the condition subjects are in, enters the room. The first experimenter goes to an adjacent room and observes the subject through a one-way mirror. Subjects are instructed in the rules of a game they are invited to play while waiting for the first experimenter to return. It is made clear to them that they can stop whenever they want. The game involves trying to stand up some flowers that are lying on their side in a terrarium, a fairly difficult task for five-year old children. The time they spend trying to stand up the flowers serves as the measure of subjects’ achievement-oriented behavior. 6

Minutes

5 4 girls

3

boys

2 1 0 stereotype

control

reversal

Figure 2.2 McArthur and Eisen (1976)

The results show that boys persisted longer than girls did after hearing a story depicting achievement behavior by a male character. They also persisted longer than the boys in the control group, and considerably longer than the boys in the reversed condition. In this condition, the pattern was inverted. Girls who had listened to the story with the aspiring girl persisted longer in their task than the boys in that condition. Although this last trend was not significant, the experiment shows that story characters can function as models for behavior.

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It remains to be seen whether reading narratives could also make readers behave differently toward others. Bilsky (1989) found that treatments resulted in higher scores on a standardized test for prosocial motivation. But this does not imply behavioral consequences. Wiley (1991) examined the effectiveness of two moral education programs in changing children’s conduct. One program was based on stories, the other on problem solving skills. Independent researchers observed the subjects as they played, and registered the number of altruistic actions. Wiley found no significant differences between a control group and the two experimental groups. So far, the conclusion that reading may lead to behavioral changes does not reach any further than genderspecific achievement behavior. Further indications of internalization may be found in physiological measures. Brisbin (1971) sheds some light on the extent to which changes in outgroup attitudes may be internalized. In this study subjects were randomly assigned to two groups. The experimental group read and discussed stories containing positive presentations of black people. Control group subjects read narratives with a subject matter neutral to the purpose of the study. Afterwards, participants were first tested with a paired-comparison task to measure their racial preferences, and secondly, with Galvanic Skin Response, a physiological instrument. Analysis of the ranking task suggested a significant effect: black people were liked better in the experimental group than in the control group. In contrast, no differences were found on the Galvanic Skin Response. This finding suggests that the effects of reading on outgroup attitudes may involve verbalized changes only. As Brisbin concludes, however, the treatments may have been too weak to generate an emotional reorientation. Again, the presented results suggest that effects of reading vary per target-variable. For the time being it may be concluded that effects on sexrole concept are internalized, while effects on prosocial motivation and outgroup attitudes apparently are not. 2.3.3 Social desirability Considering the conclusion of the previous section, it may be suggested that the effects, at least the ones on empathy and outgroup attitude, were due to socially desirable responses. Also, in 36 studies the same person conducted treatment and testing. This may enhance ‘hypothesis-guessing’ and decrease the chance that results reflect actual or permanent changes.

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Findings concerning the effect on moral development, however, are probably not due to socially desirable responses. Three moral development studies (Johnson 1990; Justice 1989; Kinnard 1986) use Rest’s Defining Issues Test (DIT). All three showed significant increases in scores. The DIT has important advantages over measures used in the other research categories discussed in this survey. Experimental studies show that the DIT is relatively invulnerable to social desirability. In these studies inducements to ‘fake upward’ do not elevate scores, whereas inducements to ‘fake downward’ significantly depress scores (see Schlaefli et al. 1985). In other words, subjects can pretend they reason on lower levels. Those are forms of thinking subjects once used and discarded because they are now seen as simplistic. Subjects cannot, however, pretend to reason on a higher level, because the concepts that the subjects are using represent their best notion of moral ideals. Some studies show that the effects on sex-role concept also occur when subjects are unaware of the purpose of the study, or do not even know they participate in one. The procedure used by McArthur & Eisen (1976), for instance, made it unlikely that subjects were aware they were being tested. Flerx et al. (1976) tried to rule out socially desirable responses by employing three experimenters who rotated among the three experimental treatments, while two other further assistants (who were blind with respect to the experimental condition of the children) performed testing. Such precautions are likely to considerably reduce the chances that results were confounded by social desirability. Still, further research is needed to establish whether other effects, like changes of outgroup attitude, also occur when subjects are definitely unaware of the purpose of the study. This section has discussed evidence of internalization. The next section deals with issues of generalizability. Before moving on let me stress the limitations of the research findings as they stand: – There is still some doubt about the durability of the changes, although effects on sex-role concepts can be assumed to be relatively stable: in two studies experimenters registered appreciable effects on delayed posttests. Changes in attitude toward outgroups (two studies) and gains in moral development (one study) do not seem to be lasting long. Further research should examine whether duration of treatment contributes to the stability of the effects over time. – Besides the circumstantial evidence for durability of the effects, few other indications of internalization were found. Insight into the effects of reading

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would increase considerably if future research were to show behavioral and emotional changes also. On the basis of the present data it may be suggested that internalization only occurs when treatments are aimed at nonsocial behavior (e.g., stimulating subjects to be achieving; McArthur & Eisen 1976) and not when treatments attempt to stimulate subjects to help others (Wiley 1991), or feel different about others (Brisbin 1971). This suggestion evidently requires further examination. – Finally, we cannot rule out that social desirability accounts for some of the effects that were observed. Results of experiments examining effects on moral development (using the DIT) and on sex-role concept (taking special precautions) are relatively free from this threat to validity. Future research should attempt to conceal researchers’ purposes more effectively.

2.4 Range of the claims: generalizability 2.4.1 Necessity of postprocessing A serious threat to the generalizability of conclusions is that effects assessed in experimental settings may not reflect what happens in ‘natural’ reading situations. Several experimenters included post-reading tasks that do not much resemble what readers normally do with texts. Table 2.2 showed that combining exposure to narratives with other treatment tasks (17 out of 31 reliable studies) confounded many of the studies. This does not necessarily mean that reading has to be accompanied by some form of ‘postprocessing’ to be effective. Some studies suggest that postprocessing adds to the effects: reading without discussion did induce significant effects, but not as strongly as reading followed by discussion (e.g., Zucaro 1972). Keefe (1975) even assumed that the effects he found on moral development were principally due to post-reading discussions, and less so to the texts the discussions had been based on. In his experiment he examined the effects of several moral development curricula. One of the independent variables he manipulated was the sort of texts that were read. Subjects either read stories or case-accounts of these stories. In eight sessions, eight texts were read, followed by all sorts of post-reading activities. Keefe registered a significant effect on moral reasoning for all of his conditions, but no significant differences between the groups. Hence, it did not seem to matter whether subjects read stories or summaries of these stories.

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Maybe this inference is premature. Post-reading activities were an important element in all his treatments. After reading the texts, an arsenal of techniques was put to work to enhance subjects’ moral reasoning. It seems likely that his emphasis on post-reading activities explains why Keefe found it hard to distinguish between the effects of story-treatments and case-account treatments. Moreover, whether effects are generated by the texts subjects read, or by postprocessing tasks can only be resolved by a design which includes at least one read-only condition. For the time being, however, one must conclude that the question whether it is postprocessing or the reading that causes the effects stands unanswered. 2.4.2 Effective texts Intuitively one would perhaps expect that effects of narratives are based on a unique combination of the right reader reading the right text at the right time in his or her life. The mere fact that exposing randomly chosen groups of readers to narratives led to perceptible, statistically significant effects, shows that some changes may be more common. Of course the choice of stimulus materials was never made ‘randomly.’ Do the results of this survey reveal what kind of texts may change people? In the studies surveyed here anything, from Julius Caesar to What Can She Be? A Veterinarian, elicited effects. It seems likely that the ‘level’ of the texts was tuned to the age group under examination. Julius Caesar was used for fifteen-year-olds, What Can She Be for nine-year-olds. Reversed combinations would probably have been less effective. For most of the experiments it is unclear what stimulus material was used (research reports refer to, for instance, ‘a literature curriculum’, or ‘a Junior Great Books program’). In addition, we know very little about what it is in these texts that caused the changes. Few studies examined hypotheses generated by a close analysis of the stimulus material. This should not surprise, since most studies served practical, educational purposes. Researchers were typically interested in testing the effectiveness of some curriculum — for instance in fighting racial prejudice — and not in the workings of specific text qualities per se. The selection of materials used is often based on intuitions that the texts contain positive portrayals of some target group. Sometimes the choice of texts is based on suggestions of advisory boards who compiled lists

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of, for instance, egalitarian children’s literature (e.g., Flerx et al. 1976), or lists of books relevant to certain self-concept dimensions (e.g., subjects’ relations with school, other students and teachers; Roach 1975). But criteria were seldom specified. Expectations about effects on moral development are sometimes based on text analyses using Kohlberg’s model for moral reasoning (cf. Kohlberg 1969). Confronting subjects with higher levels of moral reasoning than they use themselves is known to enhance moral development. Researchers therefore suppose similar effects of reading texts that “represent” higher stages. They analyzed their materials with help of Kohlberg’s model. Thus they estimated which level of reasoning the ‘moral of the stories’ were based on. Detailed results of such text analyses were not reported, nor were they integrated in the designs of the studies. Geiger (1975) presents an example of a more thorough approach. He found that reading popular World War II adventure booklets containing negative portrayals of Russian soldiers had a negative effect on readers’ attitude toward Soviets. His hypotheses were based on a content analysis of the genre. Nevertheless, Geiger’s approach still does not allow conclusions about what aspect of the stories caused the effects. Summing up the results of his content analyses, Geiger mentions several characteristics that may have contributed to the negative changes in attitude. For instance, the texts are always written from the perspective of the German Wehrmacht; there is always a potential subject for identification: a virtuous and courageous German commander; and images of Soviets are invariably negative. From the point of view of literary studies it is important to know which feature, or combination of features, is responsible for the effects Geiger found. A suitable instrument for controlling text variables is text manipulation (e.g., Litcher & Johnson 1969; McArthur & Eisen 1976). Litcher & Johnson only changed names of the story characters and the pictures, thus making a ‘multi-ethnic reader’ out of a regular textbook. McArthur & Eisen reversed the gender of the main story characters. These experimenters found that their manipulation did not work entirely as they had expected. The reversed condition did not result in a significant reversal of the gender behavioral pattern. McArthur & Eisen speculate that some actions of the boy and the girl in the new version may have seemed strange to the readers. Text manipulation may be a method to get at specific effects of text variables, but it is obviously an instrument one has to handle with care.

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2.4.3 Age and gender differences Another fact limiting generalizability is that the age group under investigation was relatively young in most studies: the median age is eight years. Unfortunately, the information gathered in this survey does not allow an analysis of age as an intervening variable. Moreover, there is no clear pattern in the effectiveness of the treatments relative to age (see Appendix 1, Table IX). Intuitively it seems that there must be a balance between complexity of texts and readers’ complexity of cognition for effects to occur. In other words, in order for treatments to be effective, the required complexity of the texts increases with subjects’ age and cognitive complexity. Gender differences are most apparent in treatments aimed at changing sexrole concepts. In Flerx et al., for example, female subjects’ beliefs about the cognitive abilities of boys and girls were more easily influenced than the beliefs of male subjects. The experimenters point out that the intended attitude change must have been more pleasant for the girls. Believing that boys and girls are equally intelligent may appear more agreeable to them than the social stereotype that boys are cleverer than girls. For the male subjects, however, it must have been harder to give up the comforting idea of male intellectual superiority. In some studies male subjects were more receptive to treatments than females (Cutforth 1980; Hayes 1969). Although there were several problems with Fisher’s study (see note 4), it may be interesting to note that he found that a ‘read & discussion’ treatment worked better for boys, while the ‘read-only treatment’ worked best for girls. Stone (1985) was not included in this survey (see note 4), but an interesting aspect of this study is that he claimed that positive stories about the elderly affected the attitude of his whole sample, while stories with negative portrayals of the elderly influenced boys only. As I said before, the data collected in this survey do not allow a metaanalysis of these differences. Considering that most experimenters did not report significant differences between the sexes, it may be suggested that the effects of reading are relatively independent of this variable. Effects on sexrole concept form a notable exception. 2.4.4 Summary Before discussing the possible implications of the data for the hypotheses of Chapter 1, I will briefly outline some of the limitations discussed so far:

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– Postprocessing (e.g., discussion of the stories) is not a necessary condition for effects on sex-role concept, outgroup attitudes, self-esteem, reduction of anxiety, or changes in norms and values (see Table 2.2). It remains to be seen whether empathic effects, moral development, and the enhancement of critical thinking can be achieved by reading, or whether these effects are due to a combination of reading and post-reading tasks. Postprocessing seems to increase the effects of reading, but further research is needed to sort out the relative weight of each activity. – It is unclear whether it is the literary nature of stimulus materials that caused the effects. The available evidence does not allow a comparison of kinds of literature. – In addition, theories about what aspect of subjects’ response to the texts is responsible for the effects were not put to the test in any of the studies. Some results suggest that the effects were due to identification with characters or to the role-model function of characters. A direct investigation of this hypothesis is therefore desirable. – Boys may be more liable to be influenced than girls, although not by treatments that would negatively affect their self-concept. Girls were particularly receptive to egalitarian treatments. Further research needs to investigate the question whether effects occur when they enhance subjects’ self-esteem (and not when they lower it). – The participants in these experiments were relatively young. Few studies with adult participants have been conducted, so that the data do not allow any conclusions about the effects of reading relative to age.

2.5 Fitting research findings to theorists’ constructs To decide to what extent the hypotheses of Chapter 1 can be confirmed or rejected by the evidence gathered in this survey, I will now take a closer look at the dependent variables researchers have examined. As will be clear soon, few research findings seem to speak to theorists’ claims directly. But, without stretching the results too much, there is some resemblance between the dependent variables examined in the experiments and the effects theorized by literary scholars and philosophers.

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2.5.1 Pre-ethical effects Some hypotheses mentioned in Chapter 1 relate to the enhancement of ‘insight into human character.’ Reading narratives is supposed to acquaint us with what certain experiences are like, and teach us what emotions and motives people in certain situations may have. This claim was formulated as hypothesis PE2. Furthermore, the stories we are exposed to are assumed to influence our beliefs about causality, that is, what actions lead to what consequences (PE1). These effects were assumed to facilitate ethical reflection, and thus change the course of our moral judgments. They were therefore called pre-ethical effects. Bilsky’s (1989) results come closest to supporting the assumption that reading stories enhances insight into human character. Subjects participating in his experiment were randomly assigned to a control group or to reading either a story by Maltz or one by Merimée. Both stories bear on a prosocial dilemma: a character has to decide whether to offer help to another character and bear the personal costs. After the subjects had listened to the stories they were separately interviewed. The experimenter stimulated subjects to consider the consequences of the alternative solutions of the dilemma they had read about. Then the Awareness of Consequences Scale was administered. This test consists of a short case-account of a person who is also confronted by a prosocial dilemma. Participants were asked to imagine the consequences of the alternative courses of action the person may reflect upon before choosing. Scores of both treatment groups were significantly higher than those of control group subjects; reading the stories clearly enhanced subjects’ sensitivity to what may be going on in the minds of others (PE2) and their awareness of the consequences of certain courses of action (PE1). Hypotheses PE1 and PE2 may find further support in the results of moral development research. The ability to make attributions about people’s motivation and the consequences of behavior strongly influences scores on moral development measures. In Keefe’s (1975) experiment, for instance, subjects’ average moral development score before treatment was between stage two and three. The treatments moved them closer to stage three. Subjects who reason according to stage two criteria decide what is right and what is wrong in relation to their personal desires and interests. Relations with others are estimated in terms of instrumental value. Stage three moral judgments are motivated by the intention to please or help others. At this stage, one does not

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want to do things that would hurt someone else’s feelings. To interpret the cases of the Moral Reasoning Test and make stage three judgments, subjects need to put themselves in the protagonists’ shoes. Results suggest that the treatments enabled them to do so; reading and discussing the stories enhanced subjects’ understanding of, or sensitivity to other people’s feelings. Outgroup studies may be indirectly related to the question whether reading leads to a better understanding of our fellow humans. Several researchers used tests that measure social distance, that is, the degree to which subjects reject the idea of outgroup members as neighbors, family, friends or partners. Litcher & Johnson (1969) made a new version of a regular textbook. Pictures of nonwhites replaced some of the original pictures that had only white characters in them. Also the names used to represent these characters of racial and ethnic groups were changed. For a period of four months this new textbook was read in class by a group of white second graders. The experimenters used a randomized pretest-posttest-control-group design. The control group read the original version of the textbook. One of the tests for social distance they used was the Show Me Test. It consists of twelve portraits: three white and three black boys, three white and three black girls. The subjects were asked, for example: “Please show me the one that you would like to sit next to at school.” Response to these and other questions showed that reading stories about colored people caused a significant decrease of social distance. Litcher & Johnson conclude that their findings support the counterconditioning hypothesis. The characters, they argued, were all middle class. Qualities of the middle class presumably elicit positive responses. Repeated pairing of the stimulus “colored person” with stimuli that elicit a positive reaction would eventually lead to a positive response to colored persons (the so-called Bill Cosby effect). I would like to propose an alternative interpretation of the results. Reduction of social distance could also suggest that subjects consider outgroup members as more similar to themselves than before treatment. A post-hoc explanation — without any empirical support — could be that the stories must have helped subjects to imagine what it would be like to be a member of some outgroup, and found out it cannot be much different from their own existence. Both the colored story characters and the white subjects where middle class. The decrease in social distance seems indicative of an increase in feelings of solidarity (cf. Rorty 1989; hypothesis PE2). It was earlier suggested that reading literature causes catharsis (PE5). Results of three studies suggest it does. Gross’ (1977) treatment led to higher

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personal adjustment. This measure includes a reduction of withdrawing tendencies and nervous symptoms, which may be indicative of a cathartic effect. Cutforth’s (1980) bibliotherapeutic program led to a reduction of anxiety, and Scheff & Scheele’s (1980) treatment caused a significant increase in relaxation. McClaskey (1970) found significant changes in the behavior of emotionally disturbed patients. There are several ways in which these changes seem to come about. Scheff & Scheele found evidence to suggest that the amount of laughter incited by the materials correlated with relaxation. In Chapter 1 it was proposed that catharsis is prompted by identification (e.g., Fuhriman et al. 1989). Gross suggested that the effects she registered on personal adjustment were induced because subjects must have recognized some of their personal problems in those of the story characters, which, in turn, was followed by an emotional relief. The data do not allow one to infer whether the effects were caused by an ‘imaginary role play’ followed by an ‘awareness of repressed emotions’ as suggested in our hypotheses. Anyway, reduction of anxiety and an increase in personal adjustment might enable more balanced ethical judgments, as M.C. Beardsley (1958) had suggested, and is therefore a pre-ethical effect. Finally, some evidence supports the view that reading enhances critical thinking. Bird (1984) found that participation in a Great Books Program enhanced subjects’ scores on the Worden Critical Thinking Test. This effect also occurred when treatments did not include post-reading activities. Scoring high on critical thinking indicates that subjects actively process written and spoken information. They are more likely to be involved in questioning, activation of background knowledge, divergent thinking, exploring the relations among ideas, and grappling with real-life issues. It may be that these mental activities train pre-ethical abilities, which could facilitate a better understanding of ethics and its conceptual studies, as J. Hillis Miller argued (hypothesis PE10). Additional support comes from research showing that understanding literary texts requires well developed problem solving strategies and ‘asking questions’ (see Beach & Hynds 1991: 461). The motivation to understand a text may stimulate readers to consider their own questions, to bring their problem solving skills into action, and thus to train their critical thinking. For several claims there does not seem to be any evidence. Hypothesis PE3 suggested that the complexity of literary characters would boost the effects on readers’ empathic ability (PE2). In hypothesis PE4 it was assumed that reading literature would enhance readers’ awareness of the complexity of

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ethical inquiries. Furthermore, it was supposed that the defamiliarization effect of reading literature generates an open-minded attitude toward ethical problems (PE6). And finally, it was suggested that literature acquaints readers with a wide range of moral perspectives (PE7). So far, none of these claims are supported by empirical research. As to hypotheses PE8 and 9, for which no evidence was found either, see the next sectIon. 2.5.2 Ethical effects Chapter 1 hypothesized that reading literary narratives can be like a thoughtexperiment, an experiment with roles, showing which roles we could play, which ones we would like to play, and which ones we would like to avoid (hypothesis E1). There is no direct evidence that such narratives may enhance ethical thought-experiments. However, some of the effects that were found may indicate that readers do experiment with roles while reading stories. In sex-role research, female subjects may have identified with characters of their own sex and may have come to wonder what it would be like to be, for instance, a female veterinarian, thus extending their possible job choices, as Ashby & Wittmaier (1978) argue. This is not an irrefutable conclusion. Future research should compare effects of a story about, for example, a happy female vet, with those of an unhappy one, to see whether such imaginary role-play takes place. Also, there is no evidence that the thought-experiments lead to moral self-knowledge. It was suggested that reading literary narratives enhances ethical reflections on problems in our daily lives and on contemporary developments in society (E2 and E3). Earlier in this chapter we saw that literature-based moral development programs raise subjects’ moral reasoning to a higher level. Such intervention changes the way participants reflect on ethical decisions. The process is supposed to be incited by reflection on moral dilemmas. Researchers claim that literature is a particularly suitable vehicle for such reflection. Keefe (1975), for example, found no difference in the effectiveness of caseaccount programs and literature programs, but informal observations led him to recommend the use of literature in moral education. The teachers, who conducted the treatments, noted that the case-accounts received fewer positive responses than the stories. Two hypotheses were advanced concerning the question which aspect of literary communication enhances ethical reflection: the ambiguity of the ethi-

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cal position in literary texts and the reflective distance toward fictional events (PE8 & PE9). It remains unclear whether the ambiguity of the ethical position in a literary text stimulates reflection (PE8). Also, it was supposed that the typical reflective distance toward fictional events would allow readers to make more careful moral judgments (PE9). Although none of the experiments directly address this issue, Schram & Geljon’s (1988) experiment may be of some interest here. Their results indicate that an involved, affective approach toward World War II literature resulted in less conscientious judgments than a curriculum emphasizing a cognitive approach. The texts present an image of the war from which subjects were expected to conclude that it cannot always be clear who was good and who was evil. In one classroom students were encouraged to focus on empathic responses to the texts. They were instructed, for example, to imagine what they would have done in the situation of the story characters. In another classroom students were led to focus on information about the life and times of the authors. The ‘affective’ approach led to more radical moral judgments about the characters (collaborators) than the ‘cognitive’ approach. The affective group considered cruel vendettas of the resistance as justifiable. Subjects in the cognitive group tended to regard such actions as useless, or too much vengeance-oriented without actually serving the aim of liberation. Further research is needed, however, to answer some important questions. The experimental design did not include a control group and therefore we do not know to which treatment we can attribute the differences between the groups: did the cognitive approach make subjects’ moral judgments more careful, did the affective approach group make them more harsh, or did both changes occur? In conclusion, although no direct evidence is available, it seems that narratives (whether literary of popular) are a suitable instrument to enhance ethical reflection. It has not been attempted yet to establish which aspect of the stories may be responsible for this effect. 2.5.3 Moral effects Finally, I will consider the evidence that reading narratives has moral effects. It was proposed that reading narrative fiction can persuade readers of some moral standpoint, and have consequences for their behavioral norms (hypothesis M1). What do we know about what happens when readers process a story that expresses a particular value? In Berg-Cross & Berg-Cross’ (1978) experi-

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ment subjects (ages four to six) were randomly assigned to a control group or one of four experimental groups. The treatments consisted of listening to a story with a clear moral message. The control group listened to a story that did not relate to the values under examination. The experimenters administered different phases of the procedure in pairs. The first experimenter conducted both the pretest and the posttest, and was unaware of the group subjects were in. A second experimenter read the stories to each child individually. Comparing value ratings of the treatment groups with those of the control group, and taking into account group differences assessed with the pretest, striking effects emerged. For example, after listening to a story dealing with the value of friendship, subjects considered friendship much more important than the control group. One question asked was “Do you think a friend should give you any toy that you ask for?” Control subjects tended to answer more in the negative than subjects who had heard the story about friendship. The results may be interpreted as evidence that reading stories triggers readers’ awareness of the importance of certain values. Moral, or socialization effects can also be detected in the results of sexrole studies. Flerx et al. (1976) used a doll choice test to measure sex-role stereotypes in young children. Subjects were shown a boy and a girl doll, a mother and a father doll. The experimenter asked, for example, which child doll would be afraid of a bug and which parent doll, would comfort a child who was hurt. Such questions tapped attitudes toward ‘children’s and parents’ affect-expressiveness:’ which emotions are appropriate for women and which ones are proper for men? Another dimension was ‘children’s and parents’ work activities.’ For instance, the children were asked to point out the child doll which would set the table, and which one would rake the leaves in the garden. As to the parent dolls, subjects were to point out the one that did the cooking and the one that worked in an office downtown. Choosing both dolls was also presented as a possibility. The researchers compared pretest and posttest responses for groups which either listened to traditional stories or ‘egalitarian’ stories during the children’s regular story time at kindergarten. As expected, the egalitarian programs caused significant changes in the extent to which subjects’ norms were egalitarian. This finding seems to support hypothesis M3: fictional narratives affect norms about appropriate behavior. Barclay (1974) was not included in this survey because of a serious problem in the study (see note 5). Nevertheless, the results of this study

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suggest that a narrative presentation is more powerful in influencing our beliefs than a non-narrative one (hypothesis M2). Barclay examined the effects of either reading and discussing stories about working mothers, or reading and discussing factual brochures containing career information. The story-treatment was the only one to affect vocational preferences. Further research is needed to attest this. Also, it was suggested that rhetorical devices in literary narratives can persuade readers to accept certain norms; the present survey did not yield any evidence for this claim. 2.5.4 Summary The results of this survey show that reading narratives affects a wide range of variables. Rated most strongly in this survey are studies showing an effect of reading on sex-role concept. Relatively speaking, these effects were often replicated (five studies), and no counter evidence was found. It may be assumed that story characters function as role models for the population that was investigated. Several variables match the hypotheses of Chapter 1; the evidence can be considered to support the idea that reading narrative fiction has moral effects (behavioral norms). Equally strong support was found for the claim that narratives can be used as a basis for moral development programs (five studies). This finding stands virtually unopposed. The fact that one study resulted in no effects seems to have been due to the relative shortness of the treatment; in a followup study researchers found that a similar, but longer treatment did have a significant effect. In all studies literature was incorporated in moral development programs. Thus, no conclusions could be drawn about the specific contribution of literature per se. It may be that the discussions about the moral dilemmas in the texts, or/and the higher level of moral reasoning the texts presented or some specific literary devices caused the effects. In any case, the moral development curricula show that literature is a suitable vehicle for ethical reflection. The changes were also interpreted as support for pre-ethical effects on insight into human character: an increase in sensitivity for feelings of others. A considerable amount of evidence was gathered in support of the assumption that reading stories affects attitudes toward outgroups (six studies). However, in two studies no such effects were registered. Both positive and negative changes occurred, depending on whether outgroup members

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were portrayed positively or negatively. The effects may be caused by the presentation of outgroup members in combination with stimuli that elicit positive (or negative) responses. After repetitive treatment subjects would be conditioned, that is, they would show the positive (or negative) responses even without the combination with the experimental stimuli. The reduction of social distance may be interpreted as an increase in subjects’ awareness of resemblance between themselves and the outgroup. This suggests an increase in knowledge of the human psyche. In that case the evidence means indirect support for the pre-ethical effects of reading narratives. Literature-based programs may affect self-esteem (two studies). Although it was not specified which aspect of the treatments caused the changes, it seems likely that story themes representative of certain self-concept dimensions enhanced subjects’ self-appraisal on these same dimensions (e.g., stories about school causing effects on subjects’ self-concept regarding their school relationships). The results seem indicative of cathartic effects, and were assumed to enhance more reasonable moral judgment. Three studies showed that reading narratives might reduce anxiety. The outcome of these experiments was interpreted as evidence of catharsis. The effects may be attributed to laughter elicited by the humor in the text or to readers’ identification with the story characters. The survey contains two reliable studies in which effects on norms and values were found. The moral of stories determined the direction of the effects. This evidence closely matches the assumptions about the moral effects of reading narratives. However, in one study no effects were registered. Reading narratives was found to affect empathy (two studies). These findings support the idea that reading narratives increases knowledge of human psyche. It was suggested that subjects’ identification with the characters enhanced their ability to comprehend thoughts, attitudes, and emotions of other persons. In both studies treatment involved special attention to this aspect of reading. The conclusion pertains to cognitive effects of literature. One study examined effects on altruistic conduct and found no changes. Finally, one reliable study supported the claim that literature programs may enhance readers’ critical thinking. Such effects may be indicative of an enhancement of subjects’ ability of interpretation, a pre-ethical effect. It seems likely that the post-reading part of the treatment is essential for this effect.

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Outlook In the following chapter I will propose a solution for two of the most outstanding deficiencies of the available research: first, the fact that it is unclear which text features are responsible for which effects; second, the fact that few experimenters have taken the trouble to pinpoint the psychological processes which caused the changes they observed. I will attempt to integrate some of the findings of the survey with theories and research of social psychology. The main focus will be on processes that stimulate identification with characters and the effects this may have on readers. One reason to concentrate on these processes is that a common denominator in the explanations for the effects is readers’ emotional or imaginary involvement in narrative events. In this sense, effects on sex-role concept were assumed to be caused by a model function of the story characters. Through identification with the character of their own sex, readers familiarized themselves with nontraditional types of behavior. Second, the decrease in social distance toward outgroups is associated with an increase in perceived resemblance between readers and target-group members. I suggest that this effect may be caused by identification too; readers may have imagined what it must be like to be an outgroup member and found out it cannot be much different from their own existence. Third, moral development partly depends on the ability to imagine oneself in the place of another person. Research findings suggest that reading and discussing narrative texts enhances this ability. Fourth, effects of reading on cognitive empathic ability belong to this family of effects as well. Fifth, anxiety reduction was associated by researchers with catharsis, a process which is supposedly enhanced by identification. Finally, the effects on critical thinking may be related to the appeal to identify with characters (and implied authors) and temporarily take their (moral) positions. Chapter 3 explores such possible effects of identification. This will lead to the development of a psychological model and a number of hypotheses that will be put to the test in Chapter 4.

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Notes 1.

Popper 1974: 104.

2.

The following studies are excluded because of three or more problems: Freimuth & Jamieson (1977); Milgram (1967); Keener (1977); and Schram & Geljon (1988).

3.

Garrod’s (1982) and Gallagher’s (1978) claims are impaired by more than two problems. Therefore, their results are not considered in my conclusions. See for a general discussion of the problems associated with the validity of Kohlberg’s model Shweder et al. (1990).

4.

Healy (1980) is left out, due to three possible problems.

5.

Alsbrook (1970), Frankel (1972), Gimmestad & De Chiara (1982), Hayes (1969), Heintz (1988), and Stone (1985) are not taken into consideration. For these studies the potential threats to internal validity exceed my criterion of two ‘only mild problems.’ In addition to having three such problems, Fisher’s (1965) study seems unreliable because, as he reports, the ‘placebo treatment’ (control condition) had a significant effect on subjects’ attitudes. Kimoto (1974) cannot garantee that treatments within one experimental condition were equal. Moreover, Kimoto registered an unexplainable change in attitudes between posttest and delayed posttest.

6.

Of the six studies only Barclay (1974) was disqualified, because, as she reports, the purpose of the study leaked out.

7.

Research procedures of Doering (1985), Trimble (1984), Garrod (1982), Koeller (1977), and Woodyard (1970) were inadequate.

8.

Due to more than two potential problems, studies by Dukess (1985) and Schulhauser (1990) are excluded.

9.

Quale’s (1979) study presented more than two problems. Smith (1979) was disqualified due to a lack of control; the design included neither a randomization nor were subjects pretested. Therefore, there is little certainty that differences between groups were caused by treatment.

10.

In Tables I to VIII (Appendix 1) these studies can be recognized by the symbol “(C)” under the column headed “Problem.”

11.

This would refute suggestions by for instance Metz (1974), who argues that the influence of literature is much smaller than that of film. Film would enhance a much stronger impression of reality and participation in the spectator, than a novel could in the reader.

Chapter 3

A Blueprint for Moral Laboratories

“Only connect…”

E.M. Forster.1

3.1 Introduction Reading a story involves several psychological processes. This chapter sets out to investigate the effects these processes may have other than on the understanding of the story. Like in Chapter 2, the argument will be based on empirical studies, but the approach will be different. Researchers quoted in the previous chapter were primarily interested in testing the effectiveness of some literature-based curriculum, for instance, in wiping out racial prejudice or boosting moral development. Here I will use the work of psychologists and literary scholars to explain how such changes may come about. Instead of assessing changes in the reader, these studies focus on one single aspect of processing stories (e.g., how readers make sense of a narrative, or what makes them respond to it emotionally). Connecting the pieces of this psychological puzzle will produce a model which may help us to better understand the effects reviewed in the previous chapter. The proposed model is, like any model, a simplification of reality. However, I believe it covers a wide range of the hypothetical effects (Chapter 1), as well as the empirically established effects (Chapter 2). For the sake of coherence I will focus on a family of these influences, namely those that are associated with ‘identification.’ The lion-share of the hypotheses about preethical, ethical, and moral effects concerns readers’ participation in narrative ‘experiments.’ Also, a common denominator in researchers’ explanations of these effects is readers’ emotional or imaginary involvement in the ‘roles’ of characters. Therefore, readers’ involvement in the fictional world will form the center of the model.

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The term identification is widely used in scholarly discourse on drama and literature. Unfortunately, it denotes different things. Because of its Freudian origin it could be thought to imply that, while reading, readers confuse their own ego with that of the character. This conception runs into some logical problems.2 To avoid these I will narrow down the present argument to empathic responses to characters, even more specifically, to role-taking (Zillmann 1991). What is understood by these terms will become clear later. Let us first look at what mental processes precede readers’ participation in the fictional events. These initial steps may determine which character’s role readers take, and what consequences this has.

3.2 Taking a character’s role Before readers can take a character’s role and thus take their part in the Moral Laboratory, they first need some understanding of what is going on in the story. Understanding operates at minimally two levels: readers need a mental representation of what is happening to the characters (1) in order to understand characters’ goals and emotions (2) and thus be able to ‘take their roles’. So, the first level of understanding concerns the situation characters are in (Section 3.2.1.); the second pertains to the emotions this situation is likely to generate (3.2.2). 3.2.1 Construction of causal coherence In the course of the present argument I will construct a model for a Moral Laboratory, brick by brick. Figure 3.1 describes the first processes readers are involved in before the Moral Laboratory can start working for them. The diagrams in following sections will specify subsequent processes. In making sense of narratives, readers construct a causal representation of the story, its events and characters (represented in Figure 3.1 by arrow of step 1; cf. Bourg et al. 1993). Causal search may be basic to all our perception (Weiner 1985). This holds for story comprehension too (Magliano et al. 1996). Researchers have shown, for instance, that readers recall prior story events to infer causality and generate inferences about the causal consequences of particular events. Their attention is focused on those events that fall on the main causal chain and that have relatively large numbers of causal connections (e.g., Trabasso & Van den Broek 1985).

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To form a causal chain, readers resort to their knowledge of the world, making inferences to bridge the informational ‘gaps’ a story may present them with (cf. Gerrig 1988). Consider the gaps in the following story:

Real world

Laurie went to a restaurant. She ordered the one vegetarian dish on the menu. She signaled for the waitress. She ate the food quickly and hurried back to her office.

Schematic memory structures for human emotions, goals, etc.

Fictional world

2

3*

Mental representation: a) causality; b) character emotions, goals, situation.

Ink on paper

1

Text

Figure 3.1

What is missing here is a description of Laurie sitting down at a table in the restaurant, looking at the menu, and paying the bill. Even so, after reading such an incomplete account readers will assert that they had read about these actions in the text (Bower et al. 1979). This suggests that confrontation with nonexplicit aspects of a text stimulates spontaneous retrieval of preexisting memory structures: step 2 in Figure 3.1. These structures are called schemata;

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they are stored in what is called our semantic memory; that is where we keep all our knowledge abstracted from personal experience.3 Earthman’s (1992) study nicely illustrates how schemata are involved in processing full-blown stories. Subjects read a story about a man called Gustav who comes home in a fur coat he borrowed from his friend. Gustav’s wife greets him in a darkened hallway in an uncharacteristically warm way, whispering, “Gustav isn’t home yet,” whereupon Gustav replies “Yes, he’s home.” The scene ends here. No further explanation is given. Almost all subjects paused at this point to comment on the story. They drew on their schema or scenario for ‘extramarital affairs’ to fill the apparent gap in the information. Such responses to stories may have two effects: a direct effect on perception and, in the long run, a developmental effect. Exposure to narratives makes readers’ schemata more readily accessible in their memory. This is what is known as a priming effect: a schema is more likely to be activated if it has recently been presented or used (e.g., Bargh et al. 1996a; Bargh et al. 1996b; Higgins et al. 1977). Schemata may be activated automatically, for instance, upon the mere exposure to particular words, and exert their influence on thought and behavior. Such effects occur without conscious intention or awareness (i.e., preconsciously). Unwittingly primed schemas may affect the dispositional attributions we make about other people’s behavior (Gilbert 1989; Gilbert et al. 1988). Thus, reading a story about adultery may prime certain aspects of readers’ real-world knowledge, such as about relationships that change from mere acquaintance or friendship to love. If we consider the possibility of a priming effect here, exposure to a story may make certain schemata more available than others and thus influence readers’ perception of people outside the text. A second possible effect of filling information gaps is that it offers readers an opportunity to develop or refine their ideas of, for example, what moves people to commit adultery. It may be argued that ‘filling gaps’ is especially important in processing literary stories (cf. Iser 1976; Andringa 1995). Understanding literary texts seems to involve more complex inferences than understanding popular genres. The behavior of literary characters and the sequence of events in a literary text are often more unpredictable and ambiguous. In contrast, characters and plots of popular fiction are often formulaic (Cawelti 1976). Exposure to complex literary texts supposedly develops readers’ knowledge of schemata, so that reading literature is likely to generate more sophisticated schemata than formulaic stories.

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Both priming effect and the developmental effect are represented as step 3* in Figure 3.1. The asterisk indicates an assumption that is not supported by empirical evidence. While there is no empirical evidence to suggest that making inferences while reading stories primes schemata that have a subsequent effect on the way readers perceive others, I believe that such processes deserve a (albeit hypothetical) place in the model. 3.2.2 Understanding a character’s emotions Readers first need some mental representation of the network of causal connections before they can recognize potentially emotional situations and understand characters’ emotions. Having identified characters’ goals, their attempts to attain those goals, and the successful or unsuccessful outcomes, readers make use of cues to activate schemata fitting characters’ emotions (step 2). Again it may be argued that this activation will increase the accessibility of their schematic knowledge structures, in this case, knowledge of human emotions (step 3*). There is some evidence suggesting that readers do form explicit, lifelike representations of characters’ emotions. A study by Gernsbacher et al. (1992) showed that these representations are constructed as a normal part of the comprehension process. Subjects read short, simple stories. This was one of them: Joe worked at the local 7–11, to get spending money while in school. One night, his best friend, Tom, came in to buy a soda. Joe needed to go back to the storage room for a second. While he was away, Tom noticed the cash register was open. From the open drawer Tom quickly took a ten-dollar bill. Later that week, Tom learned that Joe had been fired from the 7–11 because his cash had been low one night.

Notice that this narrative implies certain emotions without mentioning them. When manipulating an additional last sentence of the story, it was found that sentences containing emotion words that did not match the emotion implied by the story (e.g., “It would be weeks before Tom’s shyness would subside”) were read significantly slower than sentences with matching emotion words (“It would be weeks before Tom’s guilt would subside”). This indicates an online representation of the character’s emotions.4 These findings were replicated and extended by De Vega et al. (1997). They ran several experiments showing that when readers know more than characters, they still make emo-

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tional inferences corresponding to the characters’ (wrong) beliefs. They are able to strategically focus on the character’s mental perspective while disregarding their own point of view.5 Other evidence suggests that readers draw on their real-world knowledge to figure out, online, what motivates characters’ actions. While reading a story that only describes what characters do without explaining why, readers readily infer goals and plans (Seifert et al. 1985). In sum, readers’ online mental representation of the story includes inferred goals and emotions of characters. At this point we must complicate matters a bit: readers’ mental representations of characters’ emotions are known to vary with reader and text variables. Let us briefly consider both, because, as will become clear soon, what happens in this first phase of the model construction will be essential to what follows. Intervening reader variables Researchers have found that quality of interhuman perception can be predicted by two main factors: gender and age. The results of some studies suggest that women are more adequate perceivers of other people’s emotions and intentions than men, and that they develop more complex explanations for interpersonal conflicts (Fletcher et al. 1986). However, a meta-analysis by Maccoby & Jacklin (1974) reveals there are no systematic dissimilarities between the sexes as far as sensitivity to the emotions of others is concerned. Differences that were found may have been due to differences in ‘specialism,’ with men and women being more sensitive in one type of situation than in another. To solve the problem of male and female adequacy in the perception of fictional characters requires a meta-analysis as well, but such a study is not available at present. Until it is, it may be advisable to take the possibility of gender differences into account. Several studies of response to literature emphasize age as a key variable. For example, the psychological complexity of inferences made by readers about characters increases as they grow up (Andringa 1987; Beach & Wendler 1987; Gruenich & Trabasso 1981). Like in the study of gender differences, no one seems to have run a meta-analysis of the role of readers’ age in the quality of literary perception. However, the results concur: the ability of readers to make a complex representation of characters’ mental and emotional states increases with readers’ age, or presumably more accurately, their own psychological complexity (cf. Hynds 1989). Understanding a character’s emotions is

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probably facilitated by knowledge of human emotions. With readers’ development of schemata for situation-related emotions, for behavioral motivations, etc., they obviously become better equipped to understand characters in fiction. And, as we shall discuss later, better equipped readers are more likely to be involved in role-taking. Intervening text variables As to understanding characters’ emotions, certain text properties are probably as important as readers’ psychological complexity. Research shows that the text determines which character readers focus their attention on. Generally, it may be assumed that narrative perspective plays a crucial role here: readers seem more likely to represent the mental or emotional states of characters through whom they ‘perceive’ the fictional world. In an experiment by Andringa (1986), subjects read a story about a conflict between a thief and a judge. Reading a version with the thief as I-narrator caused subjects to have more understanding for that character than subjects who had read the version with the judge as I-narrator. Van Peer & Pander Maat (1996) found that inserting focalizations (e.g., thoughts) of one of the characters of a story enhanced subjects’ sympathy for, and favorable judgment of that character. Wegner & Giuliano (1983) found that readers’ attention is tacitly focused on characters when their actions are described in the initial paragraph of a story. Bower (1978: 223–227) and his associates found similar results. Their manipulation consisted of adding a lead-in to a story representing character A’s thoughts and actions instead of character B’s (or vice versa). This led readers to consider themselves as character A, getting inside his head, seeing and feeling things as he does, interpreting events as he might. We have seen how readers include characters’ emotions and goals in their mental representation of stories. The quality of this representation depends on readers’ knowledge of human emotions and motivation (step 2), which increases with age and may be gender specific. Which character’s emotions are represented is guided by the text through narrative perspective, focalization and appearance in the first paragraph of a story (step 1). Now the question is: how does an understanding of characters’ emotions alchemize into an imaginary participation in characters’ experiences?

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68 3.2.3 Empathic response: role-taking

Real world

The next step in the model (step 4) concerns the transformation of a mental representation of characters’ emotions into an engaged, empathic response (role-taking; see Figure 3.2). Readers’ empathy forms the centerpiece of the Moral Laboratory, because, as will be argued, it is essential to the effects of reading narratives.

Schematic memory structures for human emotions, goals, etc.

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4 Mental representation: a) causality; b) character emotions, goals, situation.

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Figure 3.2

Figure 3.2

To avoid conceptual confusion, let me first specify which form of empathy I am referring to. An empathic response, like any emotional response, may consist of a mixture of three (or less) of the following components (see Zillmann’s 1991 three-factor theory): (1) a dispositional component, or response-guiding mechanism; (2) an excitatory component, or response-energizing mechanism; (3) an experiential component. The first two are probably of little consequence to the workings of the Moral Laboratory. To explain why, I will briefly discuss what these components are

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comprised of. The response-guiding mechanism (1) causes short and immediate reactions to the text, which do not involve cognitive processing. Readers’ responses may be prompted by, for instance, an understanding of characters’ impending emotion, or characters’ expression of an emotion. These stimuli were established in the previous phase of the model (step 1 and 2). To provide an example of a response-guiding mechanism, let me quote the first sentences of Ambrose Bierce’s ‘How Leisure Came.’6 A Man to Whom Time Was Money, and who was bolting his breakfast in order to catch a train, had leaned his newspaper against the sugarbowl and was reading as he ate. In his haste and abstraction he stuck a pickle-fork into his right eye, and on removing the fork the eye came with it.

Reading about this mishap probably causes an empathic response in most readers, occurring almost instantaneously. Since there is no substantial latency in this reaction, it can be assumed that it occurs without complex cognitive mediation. Therefore it seems unlikely that it plays an important role in the development of readers’ schematic knowledge. Response-energizing responses (2) do not involve cognitive mediation either. Particular to this component of empathy is that it prepares for actions of appreciable duration, such as fight or flight. These are not phenomena which are normally associated with reading literature, and are therefore not accounted for in the model. Central to literary response is the experiential component (3), a conscious experience of empathic reaction to a story. It consists of three subcomponents, namely those processes that serve: (A) The experience proper: readers are cognizant of their reaction and appraise it as ‘feeling with’ or ‘feeling for’ the character; (B) The correction and redirection of affective reactions: readers assess their reaction in terms of social and moral judgment, and allow their reaction to unfold when deemed appropriate, or inhibit or redirect their emotional response when considered inappropriate; (C) The generation of affective reactions: readers respond emotionally to revived experiences that are related to those confronting a character; further called ‘role-taking,’ that is, sensing past pleasures or pains again, while it feels like responding intensely to the characters’ apparent pleasures or pains; this process may occur both deliberately and involuntary (Zillmann 1991).

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The components (B) and (C) are important because they connect the real world with the ‘experiments’ conducted inside the fictional world. They bring readers’ moral judgment into play (which will be looked at in Section 3.3) as well as readers’ self (as will be discussed in 3.4). It will be argued that readers’ engagement in the fictional events is like a double-edged sword. Readers’ response to the text is influenced by their self-concept and norms, and vice versa: their self-concept and norms are affected by their response to the text. Before elaborating on this, let me briefly highlight the evidence suggesting that these processes are part of story processing. In a study by Bourg et al. (1993) subjects received either of two reading instructions: an empathy-building strategy in which subjects were asked to put themselves in the characters’ positions, to imagine what it would be like and how they would feel in that position; and a ‘placebo’ instruction for which no particular strategy was expected. Readers who had read empathetically showed a better understanding of the causal relations in the story. Presumably, placing themselves in the position of the characters motivated readers to pay more attention to the consequences of being in that position, making them actors in the story rather than observers (cf. Bower 1978 for similar results with manipulation of narrative perspective). This finding illustrates that roletaking is a reading strategy distinct from others, and that it can be deliberately applied. Now let us look at what is known about the two factors that allegedly rule empathic response. First, it is assumed to be corrected and redirected by moral judgment. For example, a nasty person’s (or character’s) misfortune may produce an initial empathic response. But this response is likely to be replaced by counterempathy almost immediately, because one evaluates one’s emotional response in terms of appropriateness. One study which clearly illustrates this involvement of moral judgment in response to stories was conducted by Jose & Brewer (1984). They found that manipulation of characters’ moral valence strongly affected readers’ verbalized empathic response to that character. Of each story used in this experiment one version recounted ‘good,’ and one ‘bad’ character behavior. Subjects’ responses showed that they identified more readily with ‘good’ characters than with ‘bad’ ones. This indicates that readers do indeed check their empathic response for moral appropriateness (step 5).7 A second factor which was assumed to come into play in readers’ empathic response is readers’ self-concept (subcomponent C; step 6), more

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specifically, their retrieval of past emotional experiences. The label ‘selfconcept’ covers more than that; why this term is used here will be explained later (Section 3.4). To understand the involvement of readers’ self-concept in empathy for characters, let us look at such responses to other humans first. Generally, the intensity of empathic response depends on the availability of relevant personal experiences. Availability in memory is determined by recency and frequency (Higgins & Bargh 1987; Higgins & King 1981). The more recent one has had a relevant experience, or the more recent one thought about that experience, the stronger the empathic response. In addition, the more frequent one has had a relevant emotional experience, the stronger one’s empathic response. In a study by Stotland (1969) recency of an emotion was manipulated: one group of subjects was instructed to imagine how they themselves would feel, and what sensations they themselves would have in their hands if exposed to the same painful heat treatment being applied to another person. A second group was instructed to attend closely to the other person’s physical movements, while a third group was asked to imagine how the other person felt when he or she was undergoing the treatment. It was found that subjects in the first group, who had imagined themselves in the other’s place, experienced more empathic distress than the other subjects. This suggests that empathy reflects processes generated from within the observer (cf. Hoffman 1977: 180). We may assume that readers’ experience of empathy for characters is also caused by connecting the situation of characters with one’s own experiences. Analogous to what we know about empathic responses to other human beings, readers may respond emotionally to these personal memories and construe their reaction as ‘feeling for’ the characters. Indeed, there is some evidence that suggests this involvement of readers’ self in empathic responses. In a qualitative study of Poe (1986), responses of pregnant women and young mothers were examined. One novel the subjects read concerned a personally relevant theme (pregnancy). Another novel was about a problem subjects had no experience with (alcoholism). Both texts enhanced high levels of involvement, although quite different in nature. Readers sympathized with the alcoholist-character and accepted the description of her situation as realistic. The involvement with the pregnant character, however, was more intense. Moreover, readers made use of their personal experience to evaluate the story’s truth content and attended to the behavior of the character more closely.8 In a study conducted by Bower and his colleagues (1978: 228–229) subjects were

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hypnotized. One group was asked to experience an intensely happy, and another a very sad emotion by recreating and reliving some past situation in which they had felt that way. As a posthypnotic suggestion both groups were told they would reexperience this emotion when they later read a story, but they would forget the source of this suggestion and not attribute their emotions to the suggestion given under hypnosis. Then all subjects read a story about a very happy and a very sad character. Their response to a post-reading test showed that character identification was controlled entirely by sameness of mood. Moreover, subjects recalled more facts about the character they had identified with. These findings support the idea that character identification involves readers’ emotional experiences. It can be argued that Bower ‘s manipulation is comparable to that of Stotland’s (1969), that is, subjects’ responses actually pertained to their own emotional experiences.9 Another indication of the involvement of readers’ self is that not having emotional experiences similar to those of a character hinders the development of empathy. A study conducted by Larsen & László (1990) may illustrate this point. A Hungarian story was read by Danish (culturally distant) and Hungarian (culturally proximate) subjects. The story revealed nothing about time and place of the action. Still, researchers expected the themes — repression and abuse of power — to find resonance in Hungarian readers. Responses supported this. The Hungarian readers found the story to be much more relevant to their own lives than the Danes. They also reported more imagery while reading. The number of remindings did not differ, but vividness of remindings did, with the Hungarians having more clear recollections than the Danish readers. Also, the events of the story made the Hungarian readers think of personal experiences, while the Danish readers more often remembered reported events. We passed in review evidence that suggests that both the involvement of moral judgment and of readers’ self-concept (more specifically, emotional experiences) are indeed likely components of an empathic response to characters. Readers may empathize with morally good characters and inhibit their empathy for morally bad characters. Having emotional experiences similar to those of the characters will stimulate empathy, while not having such experiences will curb empathy. Empathy as a personality variable Does this mean that any reader who shares experiences with noble and virtuous characters will be inevitably involved in role-taking? Yes and no.

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First, the tendency to put oneself in another’s place is also a personality variable: some people are inclined to empathize more than others (see Smith & Snell 1996). In an experiment by Mathews & Stotland (1973) subjects saying that they often empathize with others (for instance with movie characters) were more likely to show physiological signs of empathic stress in response to pain and fear of others. Similarly, literary response research shows that reported roletaking behavior may vary per reader, while strongly correlating with certain global personality traits (Miall & Kuiken 1995). This means that potential effects of literature may be realized by some, but less so by other readers. Some texts provide readers the chance to play out different, sometimes even opposing roles; but not every reader may take that opportunity. One factor that may explain such differences is the degree of literary socialization. Earthman (1992) compared responses of experienced readers (graduate students in literature) and inexperienced readers (college freshmen). She found that the experienced readers were more likely to put themselves in the shoes of several characters, and thus look at the events from different perspectives.10 Empathy has also been found to be partly an involuntary response (Stotland, Sherman & Shaver 1971): sometimes people cannot help but empathize. Evidence that this may hold for exposure to narratives as well has been presented by Wünsch (1981). She assessed readers’ verbal and Galvanic Skin responses to a sentimental story. Although subjects considered certain passages rather ‘kitschy,’ their physiological response betrayed a high involvement in the events (a secret rendezvous). Thus, the tendency to empathize with characters is to some degree determined by personality characteristics, and maybe by reading experience, but it may also occur without readers’ voluntary decision. Empathy and text variables Besides reader variables there are also text variables to be considered. Some aspects of a text may facilitate role-taking, others may hinder them. As we saw before, narrative perspective usually determines which character readers focus on. Consequently, it may rule empathic responses as well. A story written from the perspective of a particular character may stimulate readers to understand and elaborate on that character’s emotions and goals, and thus enable them to take his or her role. We should also consider the possibility that some aspects of literary texts obstruct role-taking. Readers may be filled with admiration for the aesthetic quality of an author’s style. These so called ‘Artefact’-emotions are assumed

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to diminish readers’ experience of being in a fictional world (cf. Kneepkens & Zwaan 1994).11 Does this mean that role-taking is less likely to occur in responses to literature? Perhaps yes. On the other hand, there are also indications that typically literary qualities may enhance empathic responses. One important reason to suppose this is that empathy needs its time to develop. For more complete responses which include the experiential component (roletaking), observers need to connect the experiences of the observed to memories of their personal experiences. As said before, the emotional response, then, pertains to those relived experiences. Stotland (1969) showed that such responses are more intense, but also take longer to develop than a direct reaction to a person’s physical movements or imagining how the other person feels. Zillmann (1991) argues that affective response to literature may be allowed to develop more fully than the more fast paced presentations in modern media. Considering Stotland’s finding that an empathic response (i.e., the observer’s emotional responding to relived personal experiences) takes a full thirty seconds, it may be expected that stories presented in the mass media (e.g., in news bulletins) move on before empathic reactions can take effect (see Zillmann 1991 for a discussion of the empirical evidence). In contrast to rapid mass media stories, processing literary texts seems particularly suitable for the development of empathic responses. Reading literary texts requires a special reading strategy, a strategy that is more time consuming than others. Readers who are made believe they are dealing with a literary text rather than a newspaper article or popular romance novel, will read significantly slower (Zwaan 1993; Andringa 1995: 9). Reading speed may also be influenced by text features. Miall & Kuiken (1994) found that the degree of foregrounding in stories correlates with reading time. The more phonetic, semantic and grammatical foregrounding a passage contained, the slower readers read and, interestingly, the more emotions they reported (cf. also Van Peer 1986a). Besides the foregrounding factor, research shows that stories that focus on characters’ experiences are read slower than ‘action stories’ that are full of suspense enhancing elements (Cupchik & László 1994). This suggests that readers of ‘experience stories’ are involved in deeper, more reflexive processing of the stimulus events. The findings of these studies together suggest that retardation of reading speed in literary processing allows readers some time for reflection, in which they can retrieve relevant emotional experiences from memory. This helps them to construe the possible implications of unfolding events more profoundly (cf. Cupchik 1994). Popular texts may give a feeling of

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being involved in the story too, but because of the speed with which they are read, they can hardly stimulate personal reflection. An example Let us now consider how my account of role-taking would work in an example. I will use Chekhov’s ‘The Butterfly’ [1892] to illustrate how readers’ empathic response may be regulated by the three main factors discussed until now: readers’ causal representation of the story, their moral judgment about the characters (character valence), and readers’ emotional experiences. In the following sections the story will serve as an example of the possible consequences of role-taking. To show the importance of a causal representation of a story let me quote a passage from the end of the story (which in Chapter 5 will be used as stimulus material in an experiment). She rushed wailing out of the bedroom, darted past some stranger in the dining-room and ran to her husband’s study. He lay quite still on the sofa, covered to the waist with a quilt. His face was terribly thin and sunken, with a greyish-yellow hue never seen on living man. Only the forehead, black brows and familiar smile showed that this was Dymov. Olga quickly felt his chest, forehead, hands. His chest was still warm, but his forehead and hands were disagreeably cold. And his half open eyes gazed at the quilt, not at Olga.

Not knowing what preceded or caused the situation may lead to a mere rudimentary idea of Olga’s emotion. Readers of this passage may presuppose some melodrama, and infer the emotion ‘anguish’. Although there is undoubtedly a dramatic touch to the end of the story, readers who know more about the causal antecedents will obviously have a more developed and complex mental representation of Olga’s emotions. Let me briefly summarize what these causal antecedents are. The marriage of Olga and Osip Dymov is an odd match. She has artistic ambitions and is portrayed by the narrator as someone who is always on the lookout for the exceptional, the talented, and the celebrated. Her husband is a hardworking physician. It soon becomes clear to the reader that he does not really fit into the circle of exquisite acquaintances Olga gathers around her. She is away from home frequently, taking her artists to her cottage in the country to work on paintings. During one of her excursions Olga is courted by the painter Ryabovsky. She falls for his charms and flattery. However, soon their relation deteriorates, and in a row she decides to go home. She wants to confess to her husband, but can’t. In the following months she starts seeing her lover again. Dymov finds out about her infidelity

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but pretends he knows nothing, even as she and Ryabovsky behave themselves most suspiciously in his presence. Their marriage is becoming increasingly chilly. Dymov loses his lust for life, and fully concentrates on his work. Olga is preoccupied with her declining affair. At one point she discovers that she herself is being betrayed by Ryabovsky. She feels terribly humiliated. That same day Dymov is taken ill. He has been careless in treating a diphtheria patient. Olga is tormented by remorse, and she decides to be faithful ever after. She suddenly becomes aware that her husband is a very special person. However, her repentance comes too late. He dies. Readers who now find Olga at the side of Dymov’s death bed know the causal antecedents of the situation: Olga’s failure to appreciate her husband, her infidelity, but also Dymov’s incapability to deal with this, and the unfortunate combination of these two strongly contrasting personalities in one marriage. This allows readers to include Olga’s emotions in their mental representation of the story. Knowing the causal antecedents, they infer that she feels guilt and despair. Despite the narrator’s ironic attitude toward Olga, and although many of the events are not ‘seen’ through Olga’s eyes, readers are likely to empathize with her at this point in the story. On top of just understanding Olga’s emotions, they may feel remnants of experiences of regret or loss, feelings caused by neglect of their loved ones in favor of glamorously tempting but ultimately insignificant things in life. Their response to these relived emotions is construed as an emotional response to the emotions of Olga. This is what is called roletaking.

3.3 Effects on norms and values 3.3.1 Introduction So far we have examined and exemplified how readers’ mental representation of a story, their moral judgment, and their self are involved in forming an empathic response. In doing so, we have laid the foundation and raised the supporting walls of the Moral Laboratory. What follows is a two-phased construction of what may be its furnishing. In the present section we will discuss the effects on readers’ real-world moral judgment. Still down in the fictional world readers may estimate characters’ moral worth and perhaps also uncover what moral lessons these characters have to offer them (cf. Vipond & Hunt 1984). As a result they will be more aware of their own norms and

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values, and they may adjust and refine their moral opinions. In Section 3.4 we will probe into the effects on readers’ self-concept, since readers’ imaginary participation in the fictional events may have consequences for the way they see themselves. Before studying effects of ‘fictional’ moral judgments on real-world moral judgment, let us briefly consider what ingredients readers use to form their verdicts. To determine character valence readers may rely on their mental representation of the story, or more specifically on the inferences they make about characters’ intentions. Swap (1991) made two versions of a simple narrative: Steve is driving back to his fraternity when he sees someone fall on the ice and hears her cry out. When he goes to investigate, the [heavy-set] [beautiful] young woman is obviously in pain. Steve helps her into his car and drives her to the hospital.

Real world

With the beautiful woman we may infer a possible ulterior motive for Steve’s helping behavior. Swap found that readers rated Steve as more altruistic in the version of the heavy-set woman. This illustrates that inferred intentions play a significant role in determining character valence (see Figure 3.3; step 7).

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Mental representation: a) causality; b) character emotions, goals, situation.

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Figure 3.3

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Moral judgment: a) character valence; b) moral of the story

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To find the moral of a story, readers are required to estimate character valence, but also to have a causal representation of the story. Results of Dorfman & Brewer (1994) suggest that three components are necessary to understand the moral of a story: the positive or negative valence of the central action (1); the positive or negative valence of the story outcome (2); the consistency in valence between action and outcome (3). Dorfman & Brewer used fables in their experiments. Presumably similar mechanisms are at work in literary reception generally. Information from the text is not all that readers use to make up their minds about character valence and story moral. Readers will also draw on their real-word norms and values (step 8). Although they know fiction is not for real, the standards by which they measure fictional characters and real-life human beings are not all that different (Schram 1985: 133–178; Beach & De Beaugrande 1987). 3.3.2 Three mechanisms At this point the line of argumentation will turn around. No longer will we look at how components of our model, like readers’ norms, form readers’ response. Instead we will examine how this response may affect readers themselves. We assume that the involvement of real-world norms in reading narratives enhances ethical awareness: readers become aware of what norms and values they endorse, or which ones they should endorse (step 9*). They may suddenly realize that they have neglected a particular value, and that they should change their priorities in life. Chapter 2 quoted only two studies that provided direct evidence for changes in norms and values, and one in which no effects were found. Obviously, further research examining such processes is in order, especially because there are several reasons not to expect that reading different kinds of narratives equally affects readers’ norms and values. First, studies which did show an effect used narratives with an overt moral. However, literary texts typically do not express clear-cut norms. Second, some evidence suggests that elements in literary texts that are assumed to challenge readers’ norms and values are ignored or ‘neutralized’ (Heuermann 1980). Berginz-Plank (1981), for instance, showed that a potentially innovating narrative strategy in one particular story was not even noticed by her subjects. Moreover, their ideas about how the story would end revealed their desire to make the story fit their own norms. This is in accordance with the cognitive dissonance theory, which

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suggests that people ignore or neutralize information that challenges already present beliefs. Still, there remains sufficient ground to assume that reading literary narratives, too, affects norms and values. First, because norms are involved in the response process they may be expected to become more prominent in the memories of readers (priming effect). Second, from the perspective of social comparison theory (Festinger 1954), uncertainty about personal issues may be expected to motivate readers to relate to a character or (implied) author and deduce his or her view of the world. Finally, the mix of character behavior, circumstances and consequences may put social learning mechanisms into motion (Bandura 1977), thus affecting norms, real-world beliefs, as well as behavior. These three grounds show some overlap, and differ in terminology and emphasis. Together, though, they present a more complete picture of the possible origins of effects found in some studies. I will discuss each of these in turn. Priming effect Understanding a story includes abstraction from details to a theme or moral of the story (Magliano et al. 1996). Readers may also infer the author’s intentions. I conjecture that story theme and moral may prime readers’ personal point of view. There does not seem to be any research available to support this. However, in a field experiment Reno et al. (1993) found that exposure to a breach of a norm (e.g., one piece of waste in an otherwise clean environment) enhances awareness of that norm (“thou shalt not litter here”) and may even affect behavior (inhibition of littering). How would this translate to the effects of reading, in particular reading literary narratives? It may be that, for instance, the immoral behavior of some character is interpreted as a breach of norms and thus cues the awareness of appropriate norms. In Chekhov’s ‘The Butterfly’ we observe a vain and adulterous woman. Her conduct, as well as the narrator’s characterization of her, may trigger knowledge of norms regarding marital fidelity. Similarly, in reaction to the perceived moral of the story readers are likely to become aware of their own moral position, which does not necessarily have to be the same (step 9*). Social comparison The second reason to assume an effect on norms through reading concerns a motivational factor. Readers may find that the ethical issues at stake in some

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stories are especially relevant to their own concerns. This may motivate them to pay close attention to the opinions of the characters or to the implied attitudes, values and beliefs of the narrator or author. Given the subjective nature of many of life’s essential issues, social comparison is often the only way to evaluate our beliefs. And narratives seem a suitable vehicle for this purpose. Readers of ‘The Butterfly’ may have had experiences with oppressive, failing relationships. The course and causes of Dymov’s marriage going on the rocks therefore produce a personal resonance. Readers may become interested in what ‘ Chekhov’ has to say on the matter, and thus they may be inviting, or risking, a persuasive appeal to change their attitudes (cf. Zimbardo & Leippe 1991: 130). Readers who think that a relation does not require a good match of wedded couples’ interests and lifestyles, may reevaluate their opinion after the scenario Chekhov confronts them with (step 9*). But of course, whether readers are really interested in evaluating or merely validating their opinion varies with their commitment to that opinion (Kruglanski & Mayseless 1987). Moreover, social comparison is a process we selectively apply (e.g. Sweeney & Gruber 1984). We are inclined to compare our opinions with people who are like us in some respect. When given the opportunity to compare our opinions with others, we tend to choose those who share our values, or who are in a similar position as we are. Thus, readers who are familiar with Chekhov’s work may know with which questions they can turn to him. Social learning A third mechanism which may be at work in this part of the Moral Laboratory is social learning. It has been shown in many experiments that observing others (‘models’) enables us to acquaint ourselves with new modes of conduct as well as the matching consequences (e.g., Bandura 1965; Bandura et al. 1961 and 1963). We may imitate or inhibit model behavior, depending, among other factors, on our expectations of either reward or punishment. Thus, we learn behavioral norms. Social learning does not require models to be physically present. It also occurs when the experiences of others are represented (e.g., on video), in which case we speak of symbolic modeling. Identification is supposed to be conditional for, or even synonymous with social learning (Bandura 1971). In other words, the more we put ourselves in the shoes of models while they experience benefits or drawbacks from their behavior, the more we learn about the consequences of these actions.

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Several social learning studies are concerned with the modeling of aggressive behavior. A typical example is Bandura (1965). Several groups of kindergarten pupils saw a video featuring an aggressive adult ‘model.’ The ‘behavioral repertoire’ of the model contained acts which were probably new to the subjects. In one condition the model was rewarded for his behavior. In the second condition subjects saw the model being punished for his conduct. The third condition consisted of viewing the same video, except that the model’s behavior was neither punished nor rewarded. Observation of the subjects showed that rewarding of the model’s aggressive behavior led to imitation. Social learning may also stimulate altruistic conduct (e.g., Bryan & Test 1967; Rushton & Campbell 1977). As with aggressive modeling, imitative altruism also occurs when the model is not physically present but represented on video (Rushton & Owen 1975). It is possible that social learning is at work in readers’ responses to narratives too (cf. Mischel 1966; Flerx et al. 1976). Narratives consist of linguistically represented sequences of actions. Readers find causal relations between the events. From this they learn, for instance, which actions could lead to which consequences. In ‘The Butterfly’ they see how Olga’s exuberant attitude toward the famous and glamorous, her romantic whims, and her misjudgment of Dymov causes the loss of what is (or should be) most precious to her, namely her husband. Thus, Olga’s downfall makes readers see what values are insignificant, and which norms may be wrong, or remind them of what really counts in life (step 9*). Presumably, if role-taking is involved, these processes become more relevant to readers personally. Of primary importance is, then, what they consider they would have done in certain situations themselves, whether they would fall into these particular traps in life (see Figure 3.4; step 10*). If changes in norms and values occur in the reader, whether mediated by changes in self-concept or not, these are likely to affect readers’ behavior (step 11).12 What if Chekhov’s ‘experiment’ had had a different ending? Olga might have found a lover to whom she could relate and who was reliable as a friend at the same time. A Chekhov thought-experiment with such an outcome would be unthinkable. But what would readers learn from the experiences presented in a modern story like Ann Beattie’s ‘Learning to Fall’? The story describes how the female protagonist doubts whether she should leave her husband for her lover, Ray. At the end of the story she does go out with him and seems to

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have made up her mind about divorcing her spouse. Readers are likely to evaluate this as a happy ending. Throughout the story we get to know the female character as someone who is trying to keep control over her life. But what she really needs is to ‘learn to fall’, that is, she has to learn to give in to her deepest felt emotions, come what may. Readers know her husband to be a colorless and unfeeling business man she has become estranged from. They get to know Ray as a friendly, easygoing person whom she becomes attached to. Their walking off together on the last page of the story obviously makes a happy ending. According to social learning theory, we would expect that this story results in a social learning experience that is different from the one resulting from reading ‘The Butterfly’. Significantly, the author of ‘Learning to Fall’ does not ‘punish’ the adulteress, nor does she let her return cap-inhand to her husband. Instead it is made clear that she has better chances of

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being happy with Ray, because she can relate to him. Thus, the story may reshuffle readers’ personal values, and order them differently than ‘The Butterfly’ does. In most literary narratives, however, it is not the case that mischievous characters end badly, and that the virtuous live happily ever after. Often it is even quite hard to tell these groups of characters apart. Conditioning (reinforcement) of the reader through character behavior, as described in literary narratives may therefore be unlikely. One could therefore expect that the relevance of the social learning hypothesis is restricted to didactic poetry, fables, and classical Hollywood movies, rather than to literature. However, apart from effects based on reinforcement, observing others may have another interesting effect, one not represented by step 9*. Concluding Bandura’s (1965) experiment, all subjects were offered a reward by the experimenter for each physical or verbal imitation of the model. This eliminated differences between the groups altogether. In all three groups a similar amount of imitative learning was observed. So, the reinforcement (punishment or reward) of the model influenced subjects’ imitation but not the acquisition of matching responses. When the situation demanded imitation (an explicit request of the experimenter) subjects revealed they had learned from what they had seen. Observational learning results in knowledge about which action leads to which outcome under particular conditions. Consequently, the ‘lesson’ represented by the experiences of characters need not be a moralistic one. Literary texts offer a wide gamut of behavioral situations, which few readers are familiar with. Having read widely may therefore be associated with a broader knowledge of human behavior. Readers may become familiar with the conduct of people confronted with all sorts of events in life. Readers observe what characters do when confronted with temptation, suffering, depression, moral dilemmas, their own incapacities, and so forth. Furthermore, readers learn what the possible consequences are of certain actions in certain circumstances. This acquisition of insight into the human psyche through ‘observation’ (step 3*) is a pre-ethical effect. In other words, it facilitates adequate ethical inquiries. In sum, reading literary narratives makes one’s norms more readily accessible in memory. Second, it may encompass value clarification. And third, reading these narratives may mould beliefs about which actions have desirable or undesirable implications.

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3.4 Effects on self-concepts 3.4.1 Introduction The Moral Laboratory can only work properly if readers connect the fictional ‘experiments’ with the world outside. In the previous section I proposed that moral judgments pertaining to characters and their behavior are likely to affect real-world norms and values. Another connection is that the Moral Lab experiments may partly pertain to readers’ self-concept. Stories give readers the opportunity to participate in an imaginary role-play where they can try out new roles, the outcome of which becomes an intense, personalized confrontation. It may be that the involvement of readers’ self-concept causes stronger, more internalized effects than some of the effects discussed before, such as the effects on real-world knowledge and norms. In this section I will discuss how reading may change the way readers perceive themselves (3.4.2) and what pre-ethical and moral consequences this may have (3.4.3). 3.4.2 Definition of self-concept An engaged, empathic response to characters may cause changes in a selfconcept. This bold claim needs immediate modification, however, because there does not seem to be any direct evidence in its favor. Moreover, effects of stories are probably marginal compared to other social influences. A person’s self-concept is to a large extent derived from social interaction, for instance with parents (Stryker 1980). Furthermore, some real-life experiences may have far more impact than reading a text. Finally, we should consider the possibility that readers see their reading experiences as a retreat from their real-life concerns, rather than as having implications for those affairs. In several studies quoted in Chapter 2 subjects were specifically instructed to connect the problems characters have with their own situation; perhaps readers need a special incentive to link the fictional world to their personal lives. Still, there are strong arguments to suppose that reading narratives can enhance changes in the way readers’ perceive themselves. To explain this, let me first specify the term ‘self-concept.’ Self-concept need not be restricted to what we are, or think we are (cf. Markus & Nurius 1986; Markus & Wurf 1987; Porter, Markus & Nurius 1984). Assessment of personality is often confined to asking subjects whether certain items describe them. A more complete picture of a person’s self-concept emerges from research that in-

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cludes not only ‘present selves,’ but also ‘past selves’ (asking subjects “does the item describe you in the past?”) and ‘possible selves’ (“could the item describe you in the future?”). Past selves add an important dimension to the description of someone’s personality. At one point certain self-concept items may not apply anymore, but can still be important. ‘Being the best in your class’ may not apply to you right now, but you may remember a time when it did. These past selves may be significant to how you see yourself today, for example, as someone who is capable of being the best among your peers. Selves like ‘Being rich,’ ‘Being an intellectual’ and ‘Being a philanthropist’ may not describe you at the present, but they still may represent some of your most important goals and values in life, and thus affect behavioral choices. These ‘possible selves’ may include ideal selves, but also the selves you are afraid of becoming. Finally, we may distinguish ‘not-me’ selves, those selves you are definitely not. Some selves are more important to us than others. Through time they may move between center and periphery of our self-

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concept. Also, which selves are ‘active’ is determined by the situation we are in. Being among your colleagues brings out other selves in you than being among your family. Thus our self-concept is not a static unity but a dynamic conglomerate of selves undergoing temporal and situational changes. Reading stories, my model proposes, may be responsible for changes in readers’ self-concept (see Figure 3.5; step 12*). We already saw that while readers are involved in role-taking they retrieve past emotional experiences (step 6). This may enhance the accessibility of certain past selves, depending on the story they read. Besides activation or priming in memory, readers’ selves may also undergo actual changes. Retrieving experiences in the context of a story may shed new light on them. This process of self-concept clarification or transformation may take place on a preconscious level, as some theorists have suggested (cf. Alcorn & Bracher 1985; Bleich 1980; Holland 1985; Oatley 1994; Scheff 1979). Reading narratives may produce a new understanding of oneself, a genuinely new conception of one’s values and prejudices. Rather than merely reliving old emotions from the past, readers bring them forward in the present and apply them to new contexts. This may create new, refined self-schemata. Having specified self-concept and self-concept change, let me now review some reasons to believe that reading stories may cause a change in selfconcept. First, readers sometimes report having experienced changes in the way they perceive themselves (Miall & Kuiken 1995). Second, research on empathy suggests that, generally, empathic responses to the emotional experiences of another person require the observer to integrate memories of related personal experiences (Zillmann 1991). If the observer simply does not have experiences directly resembling those of the observed, more remotely related experiences are called on. Thus, if readers’ empathic response to characters is anything like such responses to real humans, it may involve the integration to past emotional experiences too. This integration opens the way to changes in past selves. Third, there is some evidence that narratives may affect possible selves. Gregory et al. (1982) showed that to imagine experiencing certain scenarios may lead us to believe more strongly that the events could actually happen to us. In several experiments subjects were asked to imagine experiencing certain events described to them in the second person, on tape or in a script. For example, in one study subjects read a script about being arrested for either petty theft or shop lifting. The control condition consisted of reading a script about shopping or interviewing for a job. To keep the subjects unaware

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of the purpose of the experiment, they were asked to rate the comprehensibility of the text. The same day subjects were called at home and asked by an alleged associate of an institute for public inquiry to participate in a survey on judicial reform. A list of nineteen crimes, among which shop lifting and petty theft, was read to the subjects. Subsequently, they were asked what penalties they considered appropriate, whether they knew anyone who had been arrested for that particular crime, and to rate the probability that they could someday be arrested for that crime themselves (not how likely it was that they could actually commit the crime). Each interview was closed with a suspicion probe to test whether any link with the laboratory study was suspected. Subjects in the experimental condition gave higher probability ratings for a possible self being arrested for petty theft or shop lifting. No significant difference was found in the sentences recommended for the various crimes. So, imagining possible scenarios for the self may affect our estimate of their likelihood. The studies by Gregory et al. show how this may occur for both positive (e.g., ‘winning a contest’) and negative possible selves (e.g., ‘being arrested for a crime’). Does this suggest that readers’ role-taking while reading narrative fiction may also make them believe more strongly in certain possible selves? It can be argued that Gregory et al.’s findings cannot be generalized to reading fiction. The scenarios subjects read were written in the second person, a form we find in few literary texts. Moreover, the experimenters instructed subjects either to judge the plausibility of the scenario, or to imagine it happen to them. It remains unclear to what extent this instruction contributed to the effects, and whether it would resemble ‘normal’ reading strategies. However, an indication that the effects on possible selves may occur in reading other types of stories as well, and without any unusual reading instructions, can be found in the results of Ashby & Wittmaier (1978; see also Chapter 2). In this experiment one group of subjects read stories about girls in traditional, a second about girls in nontraditional roles. Female subjects in the nontraditional group expressed their preference for nontraditional roles more often than their traditional counterparts in the other group. For instance, their expectation as to what sort of jobs they could have in the future proved to be less restrained by conventional norms. Perhaps it is not too far-fetched to conclude that subjects acquired some new possible selves due to their reading.

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3.4.3 Implications of self-concept change Why should effects on the way readers perceive themselves be of any interest to our present purposes? Some changes in self-concept have implications for morality and ethics. In the next sections I will discuss the consequences for readers’ norms, their behavior, and their social perception, that is, their perception other people’s emotions, motives, and thoughts. The psychological processes mapped out in this chapter will be connected with some of the moral, ethical, and pre-ethical effects discussed in Chapter 1 and 2. Self-concept and effects on norms Chapter 2 found very little evidence for effects of reading narratives on norms and values. Perhaps the present argument for a mediating function of role-taking (and thus of self-concept: steps 4, 12*, and 10* as an alternative for steps 7 and 9*) in the effects of reading on norms and values can help research to center on such effects more precisely and more successfully. For the time being, I maintain that readers’ role-taking affects their norms and values (step 10*). Central to the model is that the involvement of role-taking makes reading fiction especially powerful. If reading includes something like an ethical thought experiment, readers may wonder what they might have done in the given circumstances. This causes a more personal awareness of norms than the priming effect described before; the awareness does not pertain to the mere appropriateness of certain norms (e.g., “I think it is not seemly to commit adultery”), but rather to what readers, for themselves, feel to be an important norm (“I will never commit adultery, because that would be so not-me.”) To explain this, let us explore an analogy between role-taking and roleplaying. Readers’ role-taking is not the same as role-playing, but there are some striking similarities. Mentally (and physically) playing another person’s position causes lasting changes in attitudes and behavior. McGuire (1985), for instance, showed that actively constructing and improvising a role can be more effective in changing attitudes than passive exposure to persuasive communication. Having enacted someone else’s role generates arguments for a certain position we may come to attribute as being really our own (selfattribution). While improvising, role-players may come up with convincing arguments themselves; creating ideas and feelings for oneself makes them more salient, more personally relevant, and more memorable (self-persuasion). This causes a greater impact on role-players’ opinions. For instance,

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playing the role of someone who is informed that (s)he will die of lung cancer has a stronger and lasting impact on attitudes and behavior than simply being aware of the health risks of smoking (Mann & Janis 1968). Readers’ role-taking also involves mentally placing oneself in someone else’s position. We have seen that readers who identify with characters perceive things through their eyes. They actively infer goals and thoughts of the characters and evaluate events from their perspective, as actors rather than observers. This is what happens when we play a role too. Therefore, analogous to the effects of role-playing, taking the role of a character may have strong effects on how we see ourselves (step 12*), and thus on our norms and values (10*).

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Also, knowing how we ourselves would feel and think in a certain position affects what we believe others think and feel (step 13*), and thus changes our social perception and behavior (see Figure 3.6; step 14). These effects involving role-taking and self-concept, I propose, are stronger than effects following the mere comprehension of a story (step 3* plus 14), stronger also than the effects of mere persuasion (9* plus 11). What we think, feel, or believe about ourselves (that is, our self-concept) is among the most powerful regulators of our behavior (Markus & Wurf 1987: 308). There is quite convincing evidence that, as the model suggests, changes in self-concept lead to changes in norms and values. An example of this relation between self-concept and norms is presented by studies of prosocial behavior (see Bierhoff 1996 for the pertinent research). For instance, in an experiment by Sarason et al. (1993) subjects were asked to complete a questionnaire about themselves related to altruism. As a result of this manipulation subjects showed more willingness to donate blood. This suggests that a changes in the accessibility of selves may affect behavior. Another example can be found in what is known as terror management research. A substantial body of studies has demonstrated that the priming of one’s own mortality (a future self) has a broad influence on norms and social behavior (see Greenberg et al. 1997). It is assumed that these effects are sparked off by “the desire to perceive oneself as a valuable member of a meaningful universe in the service of ameliorating the potential terror associated with the awareness of death” (80). Baldwin & Wesley (1996), for example, showed that reading a text describing a person’s thoughts regarding death polarized moral judgments about others: a more positive view of a social hero and a more negative verdict of a moral transgressor. For the present argument it is important to notice that changes in readers’ self-concept may indeed strongly affect norms (step 10*), and thus affect social perception (step 11). There are also investigations showing how changes in self-concept do not affect norms, however. Gregory et al. (1982) found that the impact of scenarios on self-relevant imagination does not necessarily change moral judgments. After exposure to a shop lifting scenario subjects did believe they could be arrested for shop lifting, but they did not change their opinion about the appropriate penalty. Analogously, reading ‘The Butterfly’ may help readers understand how an adulteress may view the world. It may also help them understand how they might act similarly under comparable circumstances. But it does not necessarily change their aversion to adultery. Clearly, the

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available evidence leads to some contradictory predictions (I will come back to this in Chapter 5). Self-concept and effects on behavior Changes in self-concept have consequences for behavior (step 13* plus 14; or 10* plus 11). This forms the second connection between the psychological processes described by the model and the claims of Chapter 1 and the findings of Chapter 2. The review of Chapter 2 mentions only few studies showing that reading narratives can affect readers’ conduct. However, following the argument of the Moral Laboratory theory, such effects do seem plausible. Moreover, some experimental evidence suggests that change in self-concept enhanced by reading narratives leads to behavioral consequences. In a field experiment conducted by Gregory et al. (1982) the experimenters compared the effects of businesslike information about cable television to a scenario describing subscription to cable TV and the enjoyment of all its benefits. Imagining themselves in the scenario subjects thought it more likely they would one day be a cable television subscriber. After six weeks, standard door-to-door marketing resulted in significantly more subscriptions to cable television in the scenario group as compared to the information group. When we realize that readers frequently imagine that fictional events are actually happening to them (e.g., Miall & Kuiken 1995) and consider the results of Gregory et al. it may be assumed that reading stories has behavioral effects. However, there is little empirical evidence, let alone any meta-analytic review to support this. Two studies examined effects of reading on readers’ conduct. Wiley (1991) found no significant changes in helping behavior. McArthur & Eisen (1976) did find effects on subjects’ behavior; subjects persisted longer on a difficult task after reading a story with a same-sex, achieving character. It may be that an achieving ‘model’ primed certain ‘achieving selves’ in subjects’ working self-concept (cf. Markus & Kunda 1986; Markus & Wurf 1987: 309). Being subsequently put in a context in which subjects’ persistence was put to the test, the shifts in their self-concept revealed themselves in a determination to finish their task with success. However, it should be noticed that a change in self-concept may not always be enough to change behavior. We can say one thing about ourselves, and do another. Such discrepancies can easily be ignored. Only if we are confronted with them may we start to modify our behavior (e.g., Dickerson et al. 1992; Stone et al. 1994).

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Self-concept and effect on social perception Now we come to the third and final connection between the information provided in the previous chapters and the psychological processes described in the present one. The proposed model may explain why reading narratives was found to change attitudes toward outgroups and enhance moral development and empathy (see Chapter 2). It was suggested that the enhanced scores for moral development on Kohlberg’s model can be attributed, in part, to an enhanced ability to put oneself into another person’s position. Scores on empathy measures depend on that ability too, and decreases in social distance toward outgroups are indicative of an increase in perceived similarity between readers and outgroup members. There are three lines of reasoning supporting the proposal that reading narratives enhances social perception. First, there are strong indications that our self-concept is related to social perception (Markus & Sentis 1982): our self-concept defines our interpretation of the world, e.g., which stimuli we select for attention, which are remembered best, and what type of inferences we draw. The complexity of our self-concept is a prerequisite for the complexity of attributions we make (cf. Beach & Wendler 1987): we cannot make more complex inferences about others than we can make about ourselves. Thus, if it is true that reading narratives may develop our self-knowledge, that is, make it more complex, this must also have a bearing on the complexity of our social perception. Individual differences in content of self-concept also cause differences in attribution ability (see Markus, Smith & Moreland 1985 for a review). People tend to attribute their own feelings, thoughts, and behavioral motives to others (projection). They often use the same categories for describing other people that they use in describing themselves. Furthermore, people holding a strong attitude about themselves tend to focus on contrasts between their attitude and those of others (self-clarification). Thus, changes in readers’ self-concept may lead to ‘perceptional expertise’ in a great number of areas. For instance, “individuals who have well-differentiated self-schemas for introversion […] become sensitive to introversion, acquire a large store of knowledge about it, and by that develop a type of expertise for introversion. Nearly everyone will have some general knowledge of the prototypical attributes of introversion, but this knowledge will be particularly dense and richly textured for those who have defined themselves in this domain” (Markus et al. 1985: 1496). Similarly, reading a book about an introvert, like Kosinski’s Being There, may

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easily enhance such a self-definition, either negatively (“this is not like me”) or positively (“this is just like me”). In both cases, self-schemata become more well-differentiated. This knowledge may become abstracted or extended to people in general (step 13*). A sensitivity for introversion ‘symptoms’ and knowledge of its causes and consequences is necessary (though not sufficient) to appreciate others’ susceptibilities (step 14). If we lack such perceptiveness, we cannot even help being tactless. A second reason to believe that reading narratives enhances a certain sensibility for others’ emotions and goals, is that readers are repetitively involved in role-taking. Feshbach (1978) showed that frequent engagement in perspective taking may cause us to apply such considerations effortlessly and habitually (compare Chapter 2: results of empathy and moral development research). Third, it seems that social perception largely depends on the scenarios people have at their disposal. Empathy is mainly an emotional response to simple perceptual cues. Interaction with other people refines our perception of such cues in facial expressions, tone of voice, and body posture. To explain why, for example, someone’s face shows signs of distress, we need to make causal attributions. To make such attributions we need access to knowledge of scenarios (Hoffman 1987; step 14). For example, adequately responding to a victim’s distress signals requires that we understand who or what causes the victim’s plight; we need to consider how the victim-culprit relation came about, something that may put things in a perspective different from the one perceived in the immediate situation (e.g., a victim may actually be the culprit). To do this we construct scenarios, imagine little stories that constitute a fundamental aspect of moral reasoning (cf. Vitz 1990). It can be argued that literature is a rich source of possible scenarios with which we can imagine causes of an ethical situation. There are stories in which adulterous women are portrayed as vain and selfish creatures. Other stories make clear they can have legitimate reasons to search for another partner. Readers who read broadly get a varied ‘imaginary diet’ (cf. Booth 1988). They not only become broadminded as to their self-concept, but also as to what moves others, how they may try to attain their goals, and what may come of it. If reading narratives has effects on social perception, this has important consequences. Empathic arousal, at least in adults, consistently leads to prosocial action (Batson et al. 1981; Eisenberg & Miller 1987; Hoffman 1977). Although there is no evidence that reading stories may enhance altruis-

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tic behavior (Wiley 1991), reading stories containing prosocial dilemmas was found to enhance motivation for prosocial behavior (Bilsky 1989).

3.5 Five assumptions left The model I have outlined accounts for many of the effects proposed in Chapter 1 and for the experimental results discussed in Chapter 2. However, it should be stressed that not all the evidence used in building the model pertains to reading processes. Also, the model has some ‘missing links,’ parts that are not supported by evidence. Most of these missing links, which at present can be phrased only as assumptions, are located in the upper part of the diagram, at the junction of the fictional world and the real world: 1. Priming of knowledge of human emotions, motivation, and thoughts Forming a mental representation of a story involves inferences. Many of these inferences are related to knowledge of the human psyche, like the goals people may have, and what emotions they may have in a given situation. Making these online inferences develops readers’ knowledge and makes certain parts of it readily available in memory (step 3*). These effects were defined in Chapter 1 as pre-ethical and may have played a role in some of the experiments reviewed in Chapter 2 (see discussion of research on moral judgment and empathy). 2. Priming of norms and values Readers’ moral judgment about characters (step 9*) has an effect on readers’ norms and values: readers may be reminded of a particular norm they have (priming effect); they may compare their norms and values with that of a character or implied author (social comparison); they may learn new types of behavior, about what consequences these have and thus discover behavioral rules (social learning). Pertinent experimental research establishing this is scarce. However, outside empirical studies of literature there is a considerable amount of evidence on the basis of which I would like to postulate that these effects do occur (see Chapter 2: research on norms and values). 3. Self-concept: clarification or change Reading narratives produces changes in readers’ working self-concept (step 12*). Norms and knowledge of human emotions and thoughts may

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be primed by essays and narratives in general. But central to the Moral Laboratory theory is that readers’ participation in the fictional events (roletaking) has effects which have a more profound impact on both their norms and their knowledge of human emotions and thoughts, and that these are mediated by changes in self-concept (see Chapter 2: research on sex-role perception and self-esteem). 4. Moral self-knowledge Through the involvement of readers’ self in the narrative events, they will come to realize their own norms and values (step 10*). For instance, readers may wonder what they would do under the given circumstances. The more readers participate in the fictional experiences of characters, the stronger the priming of their norms and values, and the stronger the social learning effects (see Chapter 2: research on norms and values). 5. Social perception Changes in readers’ self-concept or self-concept clarification may cause readers to generalize what they know about themselves to other people (step 13*). These changes in their semantic knowledge, or schemata for human emotions and motivation, will affect social perception and thus social behavior (Chapter 2: research on attitudes toward outgroups, moral judgment, and empathy). The following two chapters describe experiments in which these missing links are scrutinized. Chapter 4 looks at the effects of stories on social perception (steps 3*,12*, and 13*), while Chapter 5 focuses on the effect on moral selfconcept (steps 9*, 10*, and 12*). In both cases it will examined whether participation in fictional events contributes to the effects of reading.

Notes 1.

Motto to E.M. Forster’s novel Howards End [1910].

2.

Zillmann (1994) provides reasons why we should use ‘identification’ sparingly, arguing that the Freudian ‘ego-confusion’ associated with identification cannot be an accurate description of readers’ responses to stories. This becomes apparent in cases of a discrepancy between readers’ and characters’ knowledge. A character may, for instance, be unaware of the danger (s)he is in; still, readers may respond empathetically to the impending danger. This response seems more like that of an observer than the result of ‘entering the totality of the character’s existence.’ So, readers do not confuse their self with that of the character. However, it still may be the case that identification is a

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transient, off-and-on phenomenon, with readers feeling like being the character, and then withdrawing again. The matter will be dealt with later on in this chapter. 3.

Tulving (1983: 9) proposed, on the basis of extensive experimental evidence, two different kinds of human memory. Semantic memory contains our knowledge of the world and is independent of our identity and past, while episodic memory involves all our knowledge that is associated with personal happenings and doings.

4.

‘Online’ inferences are made during the processing of the text. ‘Offline’ inferences are made when the reader has stopped reading.

5.

Compare Zillmann’s (1994) objection against implications of the Freudian concept of ‘identification’ (see note 1).

6.

Also quoted in Magliano et al. (1996).

7.

See Zillmann & Cantor (1977) and Zillmann & Bryant (1975) for similar patterns in responses to filmed characters.

8.

A similar interplay between readers’ background and response can be found in response to film (Sapolsky & Zillmann 1978). Their subjects were shown a medical film about childbirth. Subjects with personal experience in this field showed more intense physiological responses and empathic involvement than the group who lacked the experience of giving birth. All this leads up to the conclusion that availability (in memory) of relevant emotional experiences facilitates responses readers (or observers) may construe as an empathic response, that is ‘feeling for’ or ‘feeling with’ the character or other.

9.

One possible problem for the model is that generally perceived resemblance is sufficient for empathy. Obviously this downgrades the importance of actually shared emotional experiences. Krebs (1975) showed that subjects who were made to believe that another person had similar results on a psychological test, had more physiological empathic responses to that person than subjects who thought that this person had test results different from their own. Similarly, Jose & Brewer (1984) found that perceived similarity (sex, age, moral valence) contributed to readers’ experience of ‘becoming the character.’

10.

Notice, however, that it is difficult to nail down the responsible variable here: is it literary socialization, age, or both? Earthman’s (experiment does not allow a definite answer.

11.

See Tan (1995) for the distinction between artefact-emotions and fiction-emotions in classical Hollywood movies.

12.

It is important to note that the correlation between norms, values and behavior may be depending on certain conditions; see Stahlberg and Frey (1996: 224–237) for a discussion.

Chapter 4

Understanding Others

An advantage of more prolonged encounters with Proust or Homer is that worlds that had seemed threateningly alien revealed themselves to be essentially much like our own, expanding the range of places we feel at home. It means we can open the zoo gates and release a set of trapped creatures (…) who we had previously considered with unwarranted provincial suspicion, because they had names like Eurycleia and Telemachus or had never sent a fax. Alain de Botton1

4.1 Introduction Sometimes, when reading a novel or short story, we find that the author makes some profound observations about human character. Over the following days we may notice that our reading has somehow tuned our attention to certain psychological features of the people around us. In Chapter 1 I pointed out that this may be one of the functions of narratives. Reading offers a unique opportunity to study people’s motivations and emotions ‘from within,’ thus enhancing an understanding of our fellow human beings. Presumably, this understanding has some beneficial effects. Several philosophers and literary scholars have argued that identification with characters enriches our moral awareness. While reading we find ourselves in the shoes of a wide diversity of people. Thus, we get better and better at understanding moral situations from different points of view. In addition, we may come to see that people belonging to some outgroup are actually not much different from us. This may be the psychological basis for social solidarity. These statements generate some interesting questions, especially when one considers the importance and the extent of the alleged effects. First, does reading narrative texts really affect the way we perceive others? Second, if reading affects our social perception, what is the role of identification in this?

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As to the first question, Chapter 2 reviewed a variety of research findings showing that reading narratives does affect social perception. For instance, there is good evidence that reading stories with positive portrayals of outgroups leads to a reduction of social distance. In other words, readers of such stories perceive outgroup members as more similar to themselves. It may be assumed that this has moral implications. Batson et al. (1981) found that subjects who were led to believe that someone shared many of their attitudes, were more likely to help this person by taking her place and undergo a painful treatment. Chapter 2 also discussed several experiments demonstrating effects on sex-role perception. Reading stories about women in nontraditional roles has an effect on readers’ beliefs about what roles are appropriate for men and women. Interestingly, this had consequences for beliefs about other people’s feelings, too. Subjects were, for instance shown pictures of women in traditional or nontraditional roles. When asked whether the women in nontraditional roles were likely to be happy, readers of nontraditional stories inclined to answer in the positive. Readers of traditional stories expected them to be unhappy. Finally, several studies show that literature-based curricula enhance subjects’ scores on moral development tests. Generally, these test scores are indicative of subjects’ ability to put themselves in the position of others and to figure out what goals and emotions they may have. In sum, there is reliable evidence to accept that reading narratives affects the way we perceive others. As to how these effects occur, we know very little. Chapter 3 argued that there are two ways in which changes in readers’ beliefs about other people’s emotions may come about. First, online story comprehension requires retrieval of schematic knowledge structures for emotions and goals people have. This may cause a priming effect: an increased accessibility or awareness of knowledge already present in memory. It may also cause a learning effect, in which case the story provides new information about how people may feel in certain situations. The model proposed in Chapter 3 stresses the importance of yet another mode of influence. Changes in beliefs about others, it was argued, are primarily caused by an imaginary participation in the experiences of a character. This role-taking process relates story events to personal emotional experiences (see Figure 3.6; step 12*). Thus, readers come to elaborate on how they would feel in situations similar to that of the characters. Supposedly, this has stronger effects on readers’ beliefs about others (step 13* and then 14) than the mere priming of schemata in the service of basic text comprehension (step 3* followed by 14).

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How do we find out? The first mode (priming and acquisition of information about how others may feel and think) should work for stories, but also for essays, that is, texts without characters. If an essay addresses human concerns, readers may form a mental representation of the emotions people may have. This requires them to activate their knowledge, just like reading narratives would. Thus, essays and stories may have the same effect on readers’ social perception, but reading stories also allows for role-taking. To examine the influence of role-taking in changing beliefs about other people, three experiments were conducted. The first one compares the effects of a story and an essay on social perception. Both texts concern the same issue, so that the same schemata will be activated in readers’ memory. The crucial difference is that one text has characters (the story), and the other does not (the essay). It is predicted that the one with characters in it will cause stronger effects on readers’ beliefs about what it must be like to be someone else.

4.2 What do we need stories for? 4.2.1 Study one The texts used in the experiments concern the position of women in fundamentalist Islamic countries. The story is the first chapter of Malika Mokkeddem’s novel De ontheemde (The Displaced).2 It describes the distressing experiences of an Algerian woman, Sultana. She has lived in France for years, but has returned to her hometown to attend the funeral of a good friend. But as soon as she sets foot in Algeria, she is pestered by hostile men. Religious leaders of the town do not allow her to go to the funeral. She does so anyway, which causes a very tense situation with much anger and grief. Sultana is the first-person narrator of the story, so readers have access to her thoughts and emotions while she is being harassed by a taxi driver and abusive street boys, and as she gets enraged when the mayor of the town wants her out of the funeral procession. The essay is Chapter 2 of Jan Goodwin’s De tol van de eer (The Price of Honor),3 taking, by necessity, a much more general view of the matter. The argument does not concern one woman and the particular vicissitudes of her life, but discusses the results of studies that show how women have fewer rights than men in fundamentalist Islamic countries. It sets out to state that

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Islamic law dictates equal rights and behavioral norms for both sexes. Nonislamic practices, however, turn women into second-rate citizens. The author stresses that there is a growing awareness of this injustice and that the underlying norms are far from unanimously accepted. She mentions public debates, attempts at innovations, and describes the rise of feminism and its accomplishments, for instance, in the rising number of women in higher education. The subject of the two texts is (roughly) the same, the attitude of the authors is the same, and also some of the indicated disparities between the sexes are the same. However, while the essay makes general statements, the story illustrates these in terms of Sultana’s own experiences. Therefore, one would expect readers of both texts to adopt similar beliefs concerning women’s position in fundamentalist cultures. But additionally, the story offers readers an opportunity to enter a fictional world and experience for themselves what that position would be like. The essay does not offer that opportunity, but directly provides the information required. The essay was shortened, first, to eliminate passages that did deal with experiences of individual women (short ‘narratives’ or case-studies), and second, to make it approximately as long as the story (5500 words). Furthermore, the name of the author was changed into that of an Arabic woman (‘Soraya Faisal’), so as to make both texts appear to be utterances made by women from Islamic countries. Subjects In the first experiment 56 college freshmen participated. They were enrolled in a course at the Faculty of Arts at Utrecht University. They took part in the experiment as an introduction to the empirical study of literature. To keep the sample as homogeneous as possible, subjects over 26 years old were excluded.4 This brought the sample down to 55 subjects, with an average age of 20. The group consisted of 47 female and 8 male students.5 Measures Beliefs about others It was expected that reading the texts would change subjects’ beliefs about the emotions, thoughts and goals of women in Islamic countries. To examine this, subjects were given a role-taking task. They were asked to consider for a moment what it would be like to be a woman brought up in Algeria. They then rated the possibility that, if they had been brought up

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in Algeria, they would: (1) (2) (3) (4)

fully accept the man-woman relations as normal; be able to follow an education of their own choice; resist the underprivileged position of women; would consider emigrating to a country where men and women have more equal rights.

All these ‘possible selves’ are reflected in the character of the story and in what the essay says about women in Islamic countries. The model predicts that subjects of the story group would give ratings that reflect Sultana’s emotions, thoughts and circumstances. For instance, it is clear from the story that she does not reconcile herself to the norms of her culture. The essay describes rising feminist resistance, but because it does not provide an opportunity for role-taking, it is less likely to color readers’ notions about women in Algeria. Therefore it may be expected that the story readers will agree less with the first statement than the essay readers will. To test whether any such difference between the groups of readers are actually due to coincidence instead of treatment, analyses of variance were run on subjects’ responses (Norušis 1993: 281–290). Although the items are all inspired by the main character in the story, each presents a distinct belief about women in Islamic countries. For example, believing that these women are not likely to accept cultural norms for man-woman relations is quite something else than believing they are likely to want to emigrate. In the analysis, therefore, the four items are treated as separate variables. Solidarity If readers become more aware of the emotions and goals of women in Islamic countries, this may increase feelings of solidarity for these women. To test this, subjects were asked whether they favored giving such women asylum, and whether developmental aid should be increased and aimed at emancipation. Again, I think these two items present very different aspects of solidarity and therefore they are treated separately in the analysis. Beliefs about Islam Two questions were included to see whether the treatments affected real-world beliefs: the position of women in an Islamic country (Algeria) as compared to nonislamic countries (e.g., Nepal and Italy); and the degree of Islamic diffusion in a number of nations around the world. Egalitarism The involvement of readers’ moral judgment may cause a priming of their norms. Since both texts concern the underprivileged position of women, it may be expected that treatments result in a higher awareness of

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norms relating to equality of men and women. For this and the following two measures, responses to the items will be used to construct scales. For each scale a coefficient alpha will be computed in order to estimate its reliability. Social distance Although the story may enhance understanding of women in Islamic countries, the negative representations of men in those countries could have a negative impact on subjects’ attitudes toward Muslims. It seems likely that the compassion readers may feel for women, co-occurs with an increase of dislike for Muslim men. Therefore, four questions were included to assess social distance (e.g., “Would you object to having a Muslim family living next door?”). The questions were comparable to the ones often used in outgroup studies.6 Cultural intolerance In addition, six questions were included to assess cultural intolerance. Considering the negative image of Islamic societies in the materials, it may be expected that the treatments lead to a decrease in acceptance of Islamic customs (e.g., girls to wear headscarves in class, or the circumcision of boys and girls). Procedure The experiment was run in one group session. Participants were randomly assigned to either the essay, the story or the control group. Each subject received an envelope containing one of the two texts and a questionnaire.7 The control group first completed the questions, and then read one of the texts. The two experimental groups first read their text and then answered the questions. As a cover-up of the purpose of the experiment a written instruction informed subjects that the study concerned the relation between their personal opinions and their appreciation of style. Therefore, the questionnaire also included some filler questions about the stylistic quality of the text. Results Beliefs about others It was predicted that reading a story will have a stronger effect on readers’ beliefs about being in someone else’s shoes than reading the essay. Two-sample t-tests were performed to examine this hypothesis.8 Responses to only one item revealed a significant effect of the story on subjects’ beliefs about Algerian women. Imagining what it must be like to be an Algerian woman, they considered it less likely that they themselves would accept the culturally given norms for men-women relations (t(36)=2.24, p