3.2 Assimilation: Batman to the rescue!
When we say that in order to feel like we belong to a group comprised of fictional characters that we might take on their attitudes and behaviour, do we mean that we would simply adopt these in our imagination or do we mean that people really adopt them to the point where their actual personality, opinions or even behaviour might change? In other words, when Zoë is reading Bridget Jones’ Diary, does she actually adopt some of Bridget’s personality traits?
As mentioned earlier, this is a process called assimilation, which has often been researched by asking participants in a study to read a passage from a story and then to rate themselves against a series of statements that describe various personality traits associated with the character they had read about.
Research exploring para-social relationships and assimilation has found that rather than comparing themselves to a fictional character and feeling bad if they do not measure up in some way, that readers rather tend to assimilate those characteristics and that this can make them feel better about themselves (Derrick et al., 2008). Young, Gabriel and Hollar (2013) demonstrated this (in a paper titled ‘Batman to the rescue!’) by studying the impact that para-social relationships with superheroes had on men’s body image. They found that being shown an image of a muscular superhero made men feel bad about their own bodies, unless they had a para-social relationship with that superhero, in which case there was no negative impact on their body satisfaction and instead actually led to an increase in their strength measured using a dynamometer (which measures hand-grip strength)! In other words, they had assimilated the superheroes characteristics of muscularity and strength.
Activity 2 Becoming Count Dracula
In Week 4 you will learn more about a study Zoë conducted (Walkington, Wigman and Bowles, 2020) to explore ‘The impact of narratives and transportation on empathic responding’. This included looking at whether reading either a narrative or non-narrative account about a young woman experiencing difficulties related to drug-use might lead the reader to assimilate any of the characteristics of an individual involved in drug-use. In other words, can a narrative make us respond more emphatically towards someone we previously might have felt negatively towards. This was tested by asking participants to rate their own personalities against a series of ‘assimilation items’, such as:
- Compared to the average person, I engage in more risky behaviour
- I have a more addictive personality than the average person
You are now going to create some assimilation items for yourself. Read the following passages taken from Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, which feature The Count talking about his upcoming move to England:
Well, I know that, did I move and speak in your London, none there are who would not know me for a stranger. That is not enough for me. Here I am noble. I am a Boyar. The common people know me, and I am master. But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one. Men know him not, and to know not is to care not for. I am content if I am like the rest, so that no man stops if he sees me, or pauses in his speaking if he hears my words, ‘Ha, ha! A stranger!’ I have been so long master that I would be master still, or at least that none other should be master of me. You come to me not alone as agent of my friend Peter Hawkins, of Exeter, to tell me all about my new estate in London. You shall, I trust, rest here with me a while, so that by our talking I may learn the English intonation. And I would that you tell me when I make error, even of the smallest, in my speaking. I am sorry that I had to be away so long today, but you will, I know forgive one who has so many important affairs in hand.
I am glad that it is old and big. I myself am of an old family, and to live in a new house would kill me. A house cannot be made habitable in a day, and after all, how few days go to make up a century. I rejoice also that there is a chapel of old times. We Transylvanian nobles love not to think that our bones may lie amongst the common dead. I seek not gaiety nor mirth, not the bright voluptuousness of much sunshine and sparkling waters which please the young and gay. I am no longer young, and my heart, through weary years of mourning over the dead, is attuned to mirth. Moreover, the walls of my castle are broken. The shadows are many, and the wind breathes cold through the broken battlements and casements. I love the shade and the shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I may.
If you were conducting research on assimilation, what assimilation items might you construct to test whether your participants who read the above passages had taken on any of the characteristics of Dracula? It might help to think of the personality traits that are being revealed in the text; and remember to phrase your items in the first person like the ones used above, which means using the first person and a structure something like ‘I have/am/feel/desire … more than is normal/the average person’.
Discussion
Here are the assimilation items that you might have come up with:
- I have an above average desire to travel and have new experiences
- I strive for perfection more than the average person
- I feel the weight of responsibility more than is average
- I desire to be alone more than is normal
- I like to go unnoticed in crowds more than the average person
- I try to hide my feelings by using pleasantries more than the average person
- I think about death more than is normal
- In some ways I operate at a higher level than the average person
- I have more sensibilities than the average person