3.1 Belonging
Psychologists have considered the possibility that simply engaging with characters in a story, regardless of how they are written about, might have an impact on us.
One of the greatest influences that relationships with characters in books might have on readers is giving them a sense of ‘belonging’ or ‘fitting in’, of forming (para)social connections with groups of people. Fitting in with a social group is a fundamental element of the human condition and one we have evolved internal mechanisms that drive us to join, and indeed create, social groups (Stevens and Fiske, 1995). In addition, being part of social groups will tend to make us experience increased satisfaction with life, pleasure and other positive emotions (Baumeister and Leary, 1995).
One thing that seems to help us become part of a social group is to make ourselves more like the other people in the group. For example, we might adopt attitudes and behaviours that help us to fit in (DeMarree, Wheeler and Petty, 2005). You may well have had this experience yourself, even if it might have been to avoid expressing opinions or behaving in a way that you knew would not fit in with the wider group. Psychologists refer to this process of taking on the characteristics of a group as ‘assimilation’, a process you will return to later.
The course has already explored the idea that relationships with fictional characters might be a substitute for real social relationships or that they might be an extension of our real social relationship that use the same mental processes. Can such relationships, therefore, fulfil our fundamental desire to belong?
Certainly, there do appear to be some clear benefits of forming relationships by engaging in fiction. Although their research looked at TV programmes rather than novels, Derrick, Gabriel and Hugenberg (2009) found that when people feel lonely, they have a tendency to turn to their favoured programmes and that simply thinking about these TV programmes can mitigate reductions in self-esteem, mood and feelings of rejection.
There is also evidence that engagement with a narrative can help people to learn social rules, such as how to interact with others (Mar and Oatley, 2008), and also how to empathise (Oatley, 1999). Additionally, research has found that our own self-concept can change, albeit temporarily, as a result of exposure to a narrative; in other words, we can actually take on the traits of the character we are reading about (Sestir and Green, 2010).
Interestingly, neuroscientific research using an MRI scanner (that can determine which parts of the brain are activated) revealed that people tend to use the same part of the brain when reading a narrative as they would when processing that type of information in real life (Speer et al., 2009). Thus, the parts of the brain used to process visual, motor or conceptual features of an activity were also activated if those same features were present in the narrative. For example, if the narrative involved a character interacting with an object, the parts of the reader’s brain associated with grasping hand movements would show an increase in activation.
It seems clear then that reading a narrative and forming a relationship with its characters can have an impact on us as the reader. It is also clear we have a strong drive to fit in and that engaging with fictional characters can not only stave off loneliness but that the reader might even adapt their self-concept in a similar fashion to someone altering their attitudes and behaviour in order to ‘belong’.