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The Illusion of Independent Agency: Do Adult Fiction Writers Experience Their Characters as Having Minds of Their Own?
Abstract
The illusion of independent agency (IIA) occurs when a fictional character is experienced by the person who created it as having independent thoughts, words, and/or actions. Children often report this sort of independence in their descriptions of imaginary companions. This study investigated the extent that adult writers experience IIA with the characters they create for their works of fiction. Fifty fiction writers were interviewed about the development of their characters and their memories for childhood imaginary companions. Ninety-two percent of the writers reported at least some experience of IIA. The writers who had published their work had more frequent and detailed reports of IIA, suggesting that the illusion could be related to expertise. As a group, the writers scored higher than population norms in empathy, dissociation, and memories for childhood imaginary companions.
... For more complex content, teachers may want to move to "recognize" (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010;Lin, Lake, & Rice, 2008), which will be easier for students to master. Yet, with simpler content, teachers may wish to start at "advocacy" (Djikic et al., 2013;Kaufman & Libby 2012;Taylor et al., 2003;Kuh et al., 2016). We conceptualize the READ framework below in multiple ways and believe these supports will enhance the education goals toward more anti-bias, antiracist, and inclusive environments. ...
... Additionally, ECEs themselves may not feel comfortable facilitating these conversations. Based on research by Djikic et al. (2013), Kaufman and Libby (2012), and Taylor et al. (2003), the authors suggest using children's literature as the entry point (Kuh et al., 2016). Literature is a story, whether fictional or based on true events, that children relate to and can use to launch their understanding of advocating for and embracing diversity (Djikic et al., 2013;Kaufman & Libby, 2012;Taylor et al., 2003). ...
... Based on research by Djikic et al. (2013), Kaufman and Libby (2012), and Taylor et al. (2003), the authors suggest using children's literature as the entry point (Kuh et al., 2016). Literature is a story, whether fictional or based on true events, that children relate to and can use to launch their understanding of advocating for and embracing diversity (Djikic et al., 2013;Kaufman & Libby, 2012;Taylor et al., 2003). Through books, teachers can focus on social-emotional learning and assist children in connecting their feelings to the character's feelings and experiences. ...
In this chapter, the authors discuss how early childhood educators (ECE) can use the Recognizing, Embracing, and Advocating for Diversity (READ) framework to teach young children about diversity. Designing inclusive classrooms provides ECEs with opportunities to create an engaging and positive learning environment. This multi-layered framework, positioned by literacy practices and informed by anti-bias education and the UDL lens, promotes perspective-taking and focuses on ensuring all children have an equitable learning experience and opportunities to fully participate in all aspects of their education. By establishing the READ guidelines, the authors hope to encourage understanding of how ECEs can create classroom environments and activities that teach young children about diversity while providing them with opportunities to practice recognizing, embracing, and advocating for diversity as they grow and learn.
... A phenomenological questionnaire was devised for the study, informed by Taylor et al.'s (2003) survey of writers and Woods, Jones, Alderson-Day, Callard, and Fernyhough's (2015) survey of voice-hearers. All questions apart from 2, 3, and 4 required free-text responses (no word limit); questions 2, 3, and 4 were followed by free-text-response sub-questions if they were answered positively. ...
... Those responses which indicated the alterity of characters would appear to support the analogy drawn between characters and imaginary companions (Watkins, 1986;Taylor et al., 2003), since these writers appeared to experience their characters as entities to be interacted with, or at least as manifesting a kind of alterity that would allow for such an interaction. In other words, for these writers, characters are experienced as sufficiently separate from the self to justify the comparison of a character to an imaginary 'companion', as opposed to being simply an imagining without this kind of external-to-self dimension. ...
... In effect, since the representation of an agent is not necessarily inferred from perceptual or quasi-perceptual phenomena which we know to be usual properties of agents (e.g., a voice, a body, a human face, etc.), the sense of the other's agency is not necessarily dependent on an experience of the agent per se. 3 Indeed, the potential incorrigibility of our experiences of agents -the fact that we can still experience something as an agent even when we do not believe that it is an agent (Johnson, 2003) -not only suggests that agent detection and representation is intuitive rather than inferential (Wilkinson & Bell, 2016), but also appears particularly relevant to the 'illusion' of characters' agency. According to this model, it is conceivable that the writer's lack of conscious awareness of their own agency -such as might result from the automatic (Taylor et al., 2003) or emergent (Bernini, 2014) choices made during the writing process -could generate the illusion of characters' agency even without being accompanied by any additional phenomenological features pertaining to those characters. ...
Writers often report vivid experiences of hearing characters talking to them, talking back to them, and exhibiting independence and autonomy. However, systematic empirical studies of this phenomenon are almost non-existent, and as a result little is known about its cause, extent, or phenomenology. Here we present the results of a survey of professional writers (n = 181) run in collaboration with the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Participants provided detailed descriptions of their experiences of their characters in response to a phenomenological questionnaire, and also reported on imaginary companions, inner speech and hallucination-proneness. Qualitative analysis indicated that the phenomenology of the experience of agentive characters varied in terms of the characters’ separateness from the writer’s self and the kinds of interaction this did or did not allow for. We argue that these variations can be understood in relation to accounts of mindreading and agency tracking which adopt intuitive as opposed to inferential models.
... Most studies have focused on childhood ICs; however, some have suggested that adults also create and interact with imaginary agents similar to ICs (Taylor & Mannering, 2006). For example, novelists have reported that their characters move freely beyond control (Taylor et al., 2003). Moreover, some studies included adults who currently have ICs (e.g., Tahiroglu & Taylor, 2019). ...
... As suggested by previous reports (Taylor et al., 2003;Taylor & Mannering, 2006), we found that 13 % of university students (the pilot study) and 14 % of adults (the main study) currently have ICs, with an estimated prevalence rate of approximately 10 to 15 %. When focusing on IFs only, the prevalence rate was 3 to 5 %, which is slightly less than that of the UK and US participants reported by Fernyhough et al. (2019). ...
... Although their scripts are self-generated, they don't always feel they are. A similar experience of reduced sense of agency for one's creation has been reported by novelists, many of whom feel like passive reporters of narratives that appear "independently", without conscious editing (Bowers, 1979;Taylor, Hodges, & Kohányi, 2003). Not coincidentally, writers appear to be especially high on DA (Taylor et al., 2003). ...
... A similar experience of reduced sense of agency for one's creation has been reported by novelists, many of whom feel like passive reporters of narratives that appear "independently", without conscious editing (Bowers, 1979;Taylor, Hodges, & Kohányi, 2003). Not coincidentally, writers appear to be especially high on DA (Taylor et al., 2003). This creative source of inspiration is a milder, more adaptive version of the ability to mentally create alternative identities experienced as distinct from one's self, as observed in DID. ...
Maladaptive daydreaming (MD) is a distinct clinical condition entailing an extensive addictive-compulsive immersion in vivid fantasy featuring complex scenarios, which causes distress or interference with daily functioning. It is often activated while listening to evocative music and accompanied by stereotypical movements. MD is strongly related to dissociation and seems to rely on an innate tendency for absorptive and imaginative fantasy. Through its rewarding properties, this form of immersive daydreaming becomes abnormal. MD may thus be viewed as a disordered form of dissociative absorption. We discuss and exemplify with clinical vignettes the shared phenomenological characteristics between MD and dissociative phenomena, such as double consciousness, vivid visual imagery, and the creation of internally narrated characters. MD characters can be experienced as somewhat independently-agentic, although unlike dissociative identity disorder (DID), they typically do not take control over the daydreamer’s behavior. We maintain that high absorption is a risk factor for developing dissociative disorders, specifically, Depersonalization-Derealization disorder, DID, and MD. In an etiological model, we delineate these relationships and the potential trajectories to MD. Although trauma may be one causal factor, we indicate several other etiological pathways to the development of MD. We discuss associations with related concepts and suggest directions for future research.
... Imaginative ability is thought to be linked to the various aspects of empathy, for instance, fiction writers score above the norm on all four components of Davis' (1980) measure of empathy (Taylor, Hodges, & Kohanyi, 2003). As such, due to the imagination involved in daydreaming, and because individuals with MD typically report their daydreaming content to be highly social and emotional , we would expect that those who engage in highly immersive forms of daydreaming may have a heightened capacity for empathy. ...
... However, our findings show no associations between daydreaming and empathic concern for others or perspective taking ability. Although our findings are, generally, in line with research suggesting that greater absorption in fantasy is related to a heightened ability to imagine the experiences of others and empathize more strongly with them (Taylor et al., 2003(Taylor et al., , 2004Wickramasekera & Szlyk, 2003), it seems that enhanced empathic ability is associated with immersive daydreaming only if it pertains to a fictional context. It is possible that the understanding of another's mind and emotions in real life requires distinct skills from such understanding in fantasy. ...
Daydreaming is important for creativity and the understanding of our minds and those of others. However, some adults daydream to such an extreme degree that the behavior becomes disruptive; a condition known as maladaptive daydreaming (MD). We propose that highly immersive daydreaming is not always maladaptive, and immersive characteristics of daydreaming may benefit emotional regulation, empathy, and creativity. This study consisted of 542 participants from 56 countries recruited online from MD and other communities. Our results revealed that the maladaptive components of MD predicted higher affective empathy, poorer emotional regulation abilities, and reduced creative output. The immersive components of daydreaming predicted higher empathy for fantasy characters and poorer emotional regulation. These results suggest that the immersive and maladaptive components of MD have distinct behavioral correlates, but that any form of immersive daydreaming is not an effective emotional regulation strategy. Implications for the planning of effective treatment for MD are discussed.
... The process is also easy for both students and educators to implement, as it requires only one instruction: "Listen to/read the excerpt from the narrative and create an ending for it." Interactive reading fosters discussions that concentrate on sharing feelings and perspectives induced by accounts of the situations and conditions of others (Taylor et al., 2003). According to Ivey and Johnston (2017), these more spontaneous and experience-oriented discussions increase student engagement with books and make them more meaningful. ...
The Individual Story Ending (ISE) is an effective and appealing activity for students of every age. The method requires students—as a group or individually—to devise an ending to an excerpt at a turning point in a fictional narrative. Students can read the excerpt themselves, or the teacher can read it aloud to everyone. The ISE method can be applied to any creative activity and can be developed in various ways. While most teachers already use ISEs, this article suggests ways of building an entire learning process around the method and how ISEs can be used to initiate reading engagement and discussion of different themes.
... However, DasGupta and Charon's research (2004), which centred on medical students, showed that writing a first-person narrative about personal illnesses or illnesses that affect their loved ones helped the students better understand themselves and be more empathetic with their patients. Moreover, Suzanne Keen (2006), based on the research by Taylor et al. (2003), which suggests that writers have a higher level of empathy compared to the general population, suggests that the act of writing fiction may enhance the role-taking abilities of novelists and foster a more ingrained sense of empathy (p. 221). ...
The aim of this thesis was to develop an evidence-based intervention to support Estonian school teachers in implementing new teaching strategies that address information disorders in their classrooms. Education design research was chosen for the study due to its practical focus. The study identified the characteristics of effective interventions by analysing the challenges related to information disorder in school education. Based on the characteristics, screenlife filmmaking was chosen as an innovative approach to be implemented in media lessons. The research findings show the potential effectiveness of the approach for making school media lessons more engaging and student-oriented.
... This leaves little room for the kinetic and material dimensions of the "doing" of writing (Freiman, 2015; see also, Booker Prize nominee Alan Garner, 2022, describing his preference for the "mysterious" kinetic and intuitive experience of writing rather than typing), for writing as thinking (Menary, 2007;Oatley and Djikic, 2008) or as "thought in action" (Menary, 2007, p. 630); rather, penned or typed language simply functions as external storage for internal ideas. If story-production involves a one-way route from brain to page, one could not say "the book wrote itself", or "the characters took on lives of their own" (see Taylor et al., 2003), or even "it didn't make sense until I read it back". There can be no dialogue between the characters and their writer who feels compelled to create particular outcomes for them and empathises with them when reading back, acting simultaneously as author and reader, nor can the experience of developing ideas through brainstorming or redrafting be readily accounted for (e.g., Bernini, 2014;Clark and Chalmers, 1998;Freiman, 2015). ...
Fiction may function to support human social interaction by cultivating empathic abilities. The past decade has yielded promising evidence in support of this theory, though the multidimensionality of both fiction-engagement and empathy have presented methodological challenges and led to mixed findings. Studies have tended to focus on reading and have generally treated cognition as a solely internal process. I position empathy and engagement with fiction as ontologically extended processes. I argue that further systematic exploration of fiction technologies would promote a comprehensive and culturally relevant account of the relationship between fiction-engagement and empathy and enhance understanding of its cognitive architecture.
... 35 See, for example, Andringa et al. (2001), for an analysis of perspective-taking in films, and the insightful and long-lasting research of Suzanne Keen (2006Keen ( , 2007Keen ( , 2011aKeen ( , 2011b on narrative empathy and on the importance of narratives in general for empathy. See also Taylor et al. (2003) for an interesting study about mentalising in narrative contexts. scene. ...
A Taxonomy of Empathy’ presents a new systematisation for the phenomenon of empathy, based on the difference between what the author calls low-level empathy and high-level empathy . The first one is a form of direct, unmediated, conceptually poor, and intuitive kind of empathy which does not require the use of imagination and is akin to the concept of empathy supported by many phenomenologists, the second one is instead based on the use of imagination, mental simulations, and narratives. Narrative empathy is here represented as a subcategory of high-level empathy. The idea of the author is to overcome the rigid separation between advocates of empathy as perspective-taking and proponents of empathy as an unreflective phenomenon.
... These researchers referred to this as the "illusion of independent agency", whereas Fernyhough and colleagues used the term "IC autonomy" for behaviours that appear inconsistent with the experiencer's own intentions. Other authorities have likewise discussed ideas concerning IC autonomy (e.g., Davis et al., 2019;Taylor et al., 2003;Taylor & Mannering, 2007;Taylor & Mottweiler, 2008). ...
... Marjorie Taylor's studies of fiction writers have shown that successful fiction writers, those who can make a living by their work, score very high on empathy scales. They experience the illusion that their fictional creations possess independent agency, so when they "feel with" their characters, it is as if they were feeling with beings separate from themselves (Taylor et al. 2003). This consequence of high empathy and an imaginative disposition may help in the creation of characters that evoke empathy in readers. ...
... Considering this paradox, Keith Oatley (2011) described how a story can seem to have a life of its own and emerge as it is being written. For this, he presented a study of Marjorie Taylor, Sara Hodges and Adele Kohányi (Taylor, Hodges, & Kohányi, 2003), based on 50 interviews of fiction writers, which explored the phenomenon of seemingly autonomous characters in narratives, i.e., the characters do things that the authors do not seem to control. The study showed that "all but four reported some experience of characters exhibiting autonomous agency" (Oatley, 2011). ...
This report describes the first iteration of methods and theories for interpretation that supports the overall objective of WP2 to develop citizen curation methods. The methods for interpretation that are explored in this report are artefact analysis, interactive storytelling and narrative methods, collection, and visualization
techniques. A review has been conducted for each method along with practical examples of implementation for each method and a set of recommendations for SPICE activities. It must be highlighted that the processes of interpretation work in conjunction with reflection and are conceived in SPICE as an “Interpretation‐Reflection loop”. The methods presented in this report, is therefore complimentary to the
methods of reflection presented in D2.2, as the output retrieved by applying these methods for citizen curation, provides value to SPICE by its processing through the methods for reflection presented in D2.2.
... Other researchers have discussed autonomous identities during alienated agency or creative dissociation. This could include instances of 'psychic mediumship' (Cunningham, 2012;Maraldi & Krippner, 2013;Pasi, 2016) or fiction writers who experience their characters as having 'minds of their own' (Foxwell et al., 2020;Taylor et al., 2003;Watkins, 1990). Researchers have likewise noted 'independent agency' in some accounts of childhood imaginary companions Little et al., 2021;Taylor, 1999). ...
‘Brushy Bill’ Roberts gained notoriety in 1950 for identifying himself as the presumably deceased outlaw ‘Billy the Kid.’ We hypothesized that his case reflected extreme celebrity worship, which involves psychological absorption with a target celebrity and potential fantasy-reality breakdowns. A blinded expert panel mapped Roberts’ claims, activities, and circumstances against the three phases of celebrity worship and their known correlates. Outcomes from this exercise suggested that: (a) his reported attitudes and behaviors equated to an above-average score on the Celebrity Worship Scale (McCutcheon, Lange, & Houran, 2002), (b) his identity as the Kid unfolded somewhat similarly to the behavioral progression of celebrity worship, and (c) he ostensibly had the most psychosocial risk factors for the ‘Entertainment-Social’ level of celebrity worship, though many were also noted for the more extreme ‘Intense-Personal’ and ‘Borderline Pathological’ phases. These results imply that Roberts might have consciously adopted Billy the Kid as an alter ego primarily for leisure and escapism, although this construction perhaps evolved to include more compulsory or addictive aspects.
Keywords: absorption, alter ego, celebrity worship, grandiose delusions, narrative reality
... Although the body of evidence concerning the relation between fantasy proneness and creativity discussed so far is correlational, other studies provide evidence to suggest that higher levels of fantasy proneness may support creative thinking, rather than the other way around. Retrospective accounts of authors of creative fiction often describe childhoods characterized by more fantastical ways of acting and thinking, such as inventing imaginary companions, compared to a sample of high school students (Taylor et al., 2002). Although it is arguable that creative fiction writers may be liable to memory distortions that result in recalling more fantastical childhoods, research does not support this possibility (Horselenberg et al., 2004). ...
Fantasy proneness has recently been related to creative thinking. To try and explain this link, we examined whether the relation was mediated by Openness to Experience (openness) because fantasy proneness and openness involve an imaginative thinking style. Study 1 assessed fantasy proneness (Creative Experiences Questionnaire), openness, and creative (divergent) thinking in 87 undergraduates (77% women, mean age 21 years). Study 2 replicated the method with museum visitors of similar age (58% women, mean age 23 years). Our hypotheses received partial support: although fantasy proneness did not directly predict creativity in either study, bivariate correlations in both studies revealed that fantasy proneness positively predicted openness, and openness positively predicted creativity. In addition, openness mediated the relation between fantasy proneness and creativity, but only in Study 2. These findings reveal potentially useful relations between fantasy proneness, openness, and creativity, and show that findings from student populations are not necessarily generalizable.
... In a longitudinal study, one-year-old toddlers showing tendency toward fantasy-based toys were more likely to engage in IC play at the age of four than those preferring reality-based toys (Acredolo et al., 1995). Furthermore, adult fiction writers tend to report more memories of childhood ICs than population norms (Taylor et al., 2003). ...
Objective: This study evaluated the association of Childhood Imaginary Companion (CIC) status and schizotypy levels of adolescents and adults within the framework of the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP). Method: The sample included 255 Iranian adolescents and adults, grouped according to their CIC status, who responded mostly via e-questionnaires on a website. Schizotypy dimensions were compared between these two groups. Two measures compatible with the HiTOP model were also evaluated both in relation to the short scale of the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences (sO-LIFE) schizotypy dimensions and the CIC status of participants; one scale used exclusively with adolescents (i.e., the Achenbach System of Empirically-Based Assessment-Youth Self-Report [ASEBA-YSR]), and another with adults (i.e., the NEO-Five Factor Inventory [NEO-FFI]). Results: Scores on the unusual experiences (UnEx) the impulsive nonconformity (ImpNon) dimensions, and the total score of the sO-LIFE were higher for the CIC group. For adolescents, the UnEx dimension and the Thought Problems subscale of the ASEBA-YSR correlated. Scores on three subscales of the ASEBA-YSR (i.e., Thought Problems, Obsessive-Compulsive Problems, and PTSD Problems) were significantly higher for the CIC group. For adults, the neuroticism domain of the NEO-FFI correlated strongly with total score of the sO-LIFE and the cognitive disorganization (CogDis) dimension. This domain of the NEO-FFI was the only one in which CIC adults scored higher than the NIC group. Conclusion: CIC in adolescents and adults is associated with a set of schizotypy dimensions in line with the concept of the “happy schizotype.”
... Future research will be needed to determine whether there is a connection to childhood pretense and fantasy play or whether these are entirely distinct activities. Taylor et al. (2003) describe the phenomenon called the illusion of the independent agency (IIA) among fiction writers. IIA is the experience of perceiving that the characters the author creates have their own minds and agency and are not controlled by the author. ...
Engaging in pretend, imaginative, and fantastical thinking and behavior is a characteristic, but not an essential, component of typical psychological development. Indeed, there is wide variability in both how much individuals use these abilities and how interested they are in engaging them. The capacity to pretend and imagine emerges early in development and becomes more sophisticated with age. This chapter highlights aspects of childhood pretense, imagination, and fantasy, including (but not limited to) object substitution, role play, sociodramatic play, and the creation of imaginary companions and paracosms, as well as a number of correlated skills. The question of whether post-childhood activities like generating fiction and fan art, cosplay, playing role play games or acting rely on the same cognitive and social mechanisms as childhood imaginary and fantastical play is considered. Pretense, imagination, and fantastical thought and behavior can promote positive well-being, but the degree to which it does may be dependent on individual temperament and interest.
... This similarity has a psychological effect on the reader or the author, putting them under the illusion that fictional characters are real. Taylor et al. (2003) reported that almost all authors (92%, n= 50) were under the illusion of independent agency. The authors believed that fictional characters determined the creation process and, after a certain point, got out of hand and leaked into the real world. ...
p style="text-align: justify;">Fictional characters give literary works a sense of reality. The actions of fictional characters play a crucial role in children's personality development. Young readers who lack critical reading skills are more likely to incorporate fictional characters into their lives because they have a hard time telling reality from fiction. Therefore, we should determine how children perceive fictional characters and teach them that they are imaginary figures. In this way, we can help them approach those characters' actions from an external and critical perspective. This study adopted a qualitative research design (case study) to investigate secondary school students' perceptions of fictional characters. The sample consisted of 45 secondary school students (28 female and 17 male). Data were collected through interviews and document review techniques. Data were analyzed using content analysis. Results showed that participants were more likely to be interested in and identify with characters with appealing personality traits. They had four types of approaches to fictional characters: (1) Wanting to change the storyline depending on what the fictional character goes through, (2) being influenced by them, (3) seeing them as role models, or (4) ignoring them. They wanted to change the storyline, especially when the villain got what he wanted or when the hero or the victim was unhappy, suggesting that they mostly took the protagonist's side (the good guy). While most participants attributed an ontological meaning to anthropomorphic characters, the symbolic meaning became of secondary importance. They were more interested in and identified more with characters with good living conditions and no death experiences.</p
... Researchers have theorized about the possibility of automatic (or at least more automatic) conceptual perspective taking occurring (Hodges/Wegner 1997; see also Baldwin/Holmes 1987;Taylor et al. 2003). Just as other complex but frequently executed behaviors (such as driving a car or playing a musical piece) can become automatic (Logan 1988;Shiffrin/Schneider 1984), it seems theoretically possible that people who often consider a particular person's perspective over time (e.g., a family member or close friend) may find themselves automatically incorporating that other person's perspective (e.g., sizing up a menu based on a romantic partner's food preferences; turning down a social invitation without being consciously aware of summoning one's child's perspective on the event). ...
... En algunos casos los informantes son solo los padres, en otros, son tanto padres como niños (Hoff, 2005). Si bien, la prevalencia de casos es más elevada en niños menores de 6 años, existen algunos indicios de AI en adolescentes (Taylor, Hodges y Kohanyi, 2003). ...
El objetivo de este artículo es analizar la influencia del lenguaje y la imaginación en el desarrollo de la teoría de la mente (Theory of Mind o ToM) en los niños. Inicia con la definición del concepto de ToM y la exposición de las diferentes teorías que han intentado explicar dicho desarrollo en los niños. De igual forma, el artículo aborda estudios que relacionan la ToM con la imaginación y con el lenguaje pragmático. Con respecto a la imaginación, se hace un recorrido especial por los estudios que involucran a los niños con amigos imaginarios y su relación con el mundo social. En relación con el lenguaje pragmático se destaca la influencia de las conversaciones familiares con contenido mental para el desarrollo de la ToM. Por último, el artículo muestra la importancia de los procesos simbólicos en el desarrollo de la ToM en los niños y aporta desde su conclusión elementos para fomentar su desarrollo.
... However, there are certainly non-disturbed adults with imaginary companions; in one study of 264 college students, nine reported having such a companion (Tahiroglu, 2012: 37-8). At the lower end of the range of intensity, many adult writers of fiction report that they experience their characters having some independent agency (Taylor, Hodges and Kohanyi, 2002). Adolescents with imaginary companions tend to envisage an idealized person resembling themselves -except that both boys and girls are more likely to imagine a girl as a companion. ...
In early modern Scotland, several visionaries experienced vivid relationships with spirits. This paper analyses their experiences historically, with the aid of modern scholarship in medicine, psychology and social science. Most of the visionaries were women. Most of their spirit-guides were fairies or ghosts. There could be traumas in forming or maintaining the relationship, and visionaries often experienced spirit-guides as powerful, capricious and demanding. It is argued that some visionaries experienced psychotic conditions, including psychosomatic injuries, sleepwalking, mutism and catatonia. Further conditions related to visionary experience were not necessarily pathological, notably fantasy-proneness and hallucinations. Imaginary companions and parasocial relationships are discussed, as are normality, abnormality and coping strategies. There are concluding reflections on links between culture and biology.
... It is possible that such practices could "unlock" ICs for adults who did not otherwise have a childhood proneness or tendency to have IC experiences. The experience of shaping and engaging with ICs has also been linked to the creative imaginative act of molding fictional characters into existence, where literary writers displace agency into externalized imaginary beings (Taylor et al., 2003;Bernini, 2014). The creation of fictional characters and the generation of imaginary friends arguably share a feeling of distributed agency paired with knowledge of the subjective source of these creative acts. ...
Interacting with imaginary companions (ICs) is now considered a natural part of childhood for many children, and has been associated with a range of positive developmental outcomes. Recent research has explored how the phenomenon of ICs in childhood and adulthood relates to the more unusual experience of hearing voices (or auditory verbal hallucinations, AVH). Specifically, parallels have been drawn between the varied phenomenology of the two kinds of experience, including the issues of quasi-perceptual vividness and autonomy/control. One line of research has explored how ICs might arise through the internalization of linguistically mediated social exchanges to form dialogic inner speech. We present data from two studies on the relation between ICs in childhood and adulthood and the experience of inner speech. In the first, a large community sample of adults (N = 1,472) completed online the new Varieties of Inner Speech – Revised (VISQ-R) questionnaire (Alderson-Day et al., 2018) on the phenomenology of inner speech, in addition to providing data on ICs and AVH. The results showed differences in inner speech phenomenology in individuals with a history of ICs, with higher scores on the Dialogic, Evaluative, and Other Voices subscales of the VISQ-R. In the second study, a smaller community sample of adults (N = 48) completed an auditory signal detection task as well as providing data on ICs and AVH. In addition to scoring higher on AVH proneness, individuals with a history of ICs showed reduced sensitivity to detecting speech in white noise as well as a bias toward detecting it. The latter finding mirrored a pattern previously found in both clinical and nonclinical individuals with AVH. These findings are consistent with the view that ICs represent a hallucination-like experience in childhood and adulthood which shows meaningful developmental relations with the experience of inner speech.
... In the domain of literature, there is much less research on creation (i.e., writing) compared to consumption (i.e., reading), and the results are mixed (see Supplemental Material D). For example, when comparing writers with a general population, two studies find that writers have higher emotional sensitivity/empathy (Drevdahl & Cattell, 1958;Taylor, Hodges, & Kohányi, 2003), yet one study finds no differences between the two groups (Bischoff & Peskin, 2014). Another study finds that people who wrote more complex fictional descriptions of characters score higher on empathy (Maslej, Oatley, & Mar, 2017). ...
The arts have long been promoted as helping people learn and care about situations and people other than themselves. However, large-scale research on this question is sparse. The current paper uses four national datasets to examine how arts engagement is associated with prosocial traits and behaviors. We ask the following: Are people who create or consume art more prosocial (e.g., more likely to volunteer and make charitable donations)? Does this depend upon art genre (visual arts, performing arts, or literature)? Does engaging in the arts at one time predict prosocial behavior 7 years later? And vice versa? We include sociodemographic and health controls to rule out confounds. To date, this is the most comprehensive investigation of how arts engagement is associated with prosocial behavior, and has implications for theory and practice.
... Indeed, multiple studies have shown that creativity in young children is related to the amount of time they spend engaged in play: Positive correlations have been shown between creativity and functional play (Lloyd & Howe, 2003), construction play (Pellegrini & Gustafson, 2005), pretend play (Moran, Sawyers, Fu, & Milgram, 1984), and fantastical play (Wyver & Spence, 1999). Other retrospective studies have shown that highly creative adults were more likely to have engaged in fantasy play as children: MacArthur Fellows were twice as likely than a control group to have created their own imaginary worlds to play in as children (Root-Bernstein & Root-Bernstein, 2006), and fiction writers were about twice as likely to report having had an imaginary friend as a child (Taylor, Hodges, & Kohányi, 2002). ...
In a boundary-crossing and globalizing world, the personal and social positions in self and identity become increasingly dense, heterogeneous and even conflicting. In this handbook scholars of different disciplines, nations and cultures (East and West) bring together their views and applications of dialogical self theory in such a way that deeper commonalities are brought to the surface. As a 'bridging theory', dialogical self theory reveals unexpected links between a broad variety of phenomena, such as self and identity problems in education and psychotherapy, multicultural identities, child-rearing practices, adult development, consumer behaviour, the use of the internet and the value of silence. Researchers and practitioners present different methods of investigation, both qualitative and quantitative, and also highlight applications of dialogical self theory.
In a boundary-crossing and globalizing world, the personal and social positions in self and identity become increasingly dense, heterogeneous and even conflicting. In this handbook scholars of different disciplines, nations and cultures (East and West) bring together their views and applications of dialogical self theory in such a way that deeper commonalities are brought to the surface. As a 'bridging theory', dialogical self theory reveals unexpected links between a broad variety of phenomena, such as self and identity problems in education and psychotherapy, multicultural identities, child-rearing practices, adult development, consumer behaviour, the use of the internet and the value of silence. Researchers and practitioners present different methods of investigation, both qualitative and quantitative, and also highlight applications of dialogical self theory.
This paper offers a technique for assessing the strength of belief in the traditions involving supernatural entities (angels, demons, ghosts, and monsters) present in the Babylonian Talmud. The method is based on the appreciation of the formal features of the text (genre, language, attribution, etc.) in the theoretical and technical framework of the Elyonim veTachtonim project and allows to grade relatively the perceived reality of particular accounts. The analysis of the quantitative data shows that these are the traditions about the demons, which are usually provided in the form of pragmatic recommendations transmitted in Aramaic and featuring the Babylonian sages. This allows us to infer that the demons appeared to the final redactors (i.e., the Stammaim) as the most real among the supernatural entities: they were presented as posing real danger and as demanding adequate means of action.
Childhood fantasy play and creation of imaginary companions are thought to confer socio‐emotional benefits in children, but little is known about how they relate to socio‐emotional competence in adulthood. A total of 341 adults (81 males) aged 18 and above ( M = 31.47, SD = 12.62) completed an online survey examining their fantasy play as a child, their childhood imaginary companion status, and their adult socio‐emotional competence. Adults who reported higher levels of childhood fantasy play were found to be significantly more prosocial, empathetic, and emotionally intelligent than their counterparts after controlling for demographic factors. Recall of a childhood imaginary companion, however, was significantly related only to higher scores for perspective‐taking and did not explain unique variance in any adult competence measure. Findings suggest that engagement in fantasy play during childhood may be a precursor to later socio‐emotional competence, while benefits previously associated with imaginary companions specifically may not extend into adulthood.
In a boundary-crossing and globalizing world, the personal and social positions in self and identity become increasingly dense, heterogeneous and even conflicting. In this handbook scholars of different disciplines, nations and cultures (East and West) bring together their views and applications of dialogical self theory in such a way that deeper commonalities are brought to the surface. As a 'bridging theory', dialogical self theory reveals unexpected links between a broad variety of phenomena, such as self and identity problems in education and psychotherapy, multicultural identities, child-rearing practices, adult development, consumer behaviour, the use of the internet and the value of silence. Researchers and practitioners present different methods of investigation, both qualitative and quantitative, and also highlight applications of dialogical self theory.
In a boundary-crossing and globalizing world, the personal and social positions in self and identity become increasingly dense, heterogeneous and even conflicting. In this handbook scholars of different disciplines, nations and cultures (East and West) bring together their views and applications of dialogical self theory in such a way that deeper commonalities are brought to the surface. As a 'bridging theory', dialogical self theory reveals unexpected links between a broad variety of phenomena, such as self and identity problems in education and psychotherapy, multicultural identities, child-rearing practices, adult development, consumer behaviour, the use of the internet and the value of silence. Researchers and practitioners present different methods of investigation, both qualitative and quantitative, and also highlight applications of dialogical self theory.
Forms and Mechanisms of Empathy in Two Contemporary Dramatic Variations Based on Diderot's "Jacques the Fatalist and His Master" This article examines two dramatic variations on Denis Diderot's novel Jacques the Fatalist and his Master from the point of view of the forms of the writer's empathy. After an overview of contemporary research on the types and definitions of the concept of empathy and a synthesis of Suzanne Keen's theory of narrative empathy, the plays of Milan Kundera and Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt are studied under the prism of the forms, mechanisms and textual representations of empathy. The concepts of variator, metatextual empathy and intertextual empathy are formulated to define the postures of Kundera and Schmitt in homage to their writing model.
● Статията разглежда две драматургични вариации по романа на Дени Дидро „Жак Фаталиста и неговият господар“ през призмата на механизмите на писателска емпатия. След преглед на научни трудове, посветени на видовете и дефинирането на понятието емпатия, и синтез на теорията за наративната емпатия на Сюзан Кийн, се анализират пиесите на Милан Кундера и Ерик-Еманюел Шмит от гледна точка на разновидностите, механизмите и текстовите репрезентации на емпатични състояния. Извеждат се понятията вариатор, метатекстуална и интертекстуална емпатия, чиито дефиниции отразяват отношението на Кундера и Шмит към творческия им модел. Ключови думи : Дени Дидро; Милан Кундера; Ерик-Еманюел Шмит; емпатия; интертекстуалност
Clark and Fischer's three levels of depiction of social robots can be conceptualized as cognitive schemas. When interacting with social robots, humans shift between schemas similarly to how they shift between identity category schemas when interacting with other humans. Perception of mind, context cues, and individual differences underlie perceptions of which level of depiction is most situationally relevant.
In recent years, cognitive narratology has drawn on insights from cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind in order to revise the debate around authorial intention. These theoretical approaches often necessarily take into account the phenomenology of narrative creation, yet for the most part, this phenomenology is either derived from a selective sample of anecdotal accounts or else is essentially taken for granted. This article attempts to redress this balance somewhat by attempting an integration of the theoretical and the empirical, and evaluating the theoretical claims made by narratologists in the light of recent phenomenological data on writers’ experiences of their characters (Foxwell et al. 2020). This article suggests that incorporating empirical data in this fashion potentially allows for challenging and refining some previous theories, while also highlighting areas that have been somewhat neglected: most significantly, the role of inner speech in narrative production. Moreover, this article argues that recognizing how inner speech affects both agency and social cognition allows for the reincorporation of valuable insights from “strong” anti-intentionalism while still allowing for the more moderate position advanced within cognitive narratology.
In this chapter, the authors discuss how early childhood educators (ECE) can use the Recognizing, Embracing, and Advocating for Diversity (READ) framework to teach young children about diversity. Designing inclusive classrooms provides ECEs with opportunities to create an engaging and positive learning environment. This multi-layered framework, positioned by literacy practices and informed by anti-bias education and the UDL lens, promotes perspective-taking and focuses on ensuring all children have an equitable learning experience and opportunities to fully participate in all aspects of their education. By establishing the READ guidelines, the authors hope to encourage understanding of how ECEs can create classroom environments and activities that teach young children about diversity while providing them with opportunities to practice recognizing, embracing, and advocating for diversity as they grow and learn.
Bob Dylan and John Lennon are two of the most iconic names in popular music. Dylan is arguably the twentieth century's most important singer-songwriter. Lennon was founder and leader of the Beatles who remain, by some margin, the most covered songwriters in history. While Dylan erased the boundaries between pop and poetry, Lennon and his band transformed the genre's creative potential. The parallels between the two men are striking but underexplored. This book addresses that lack. Jon Stewart discusses Dylan's and Lennon's relationship; their politics; their understanding of history; and their deeply held spiritual beliefs. In revealing how each artist challenged the restrictive social norms of their day, the author shows how his subjects asked profound moral questions about what it means to be human and how we should live. His book is a potent meditation and exploration of two emblematic figures whose brilliance changed Western music for a generation.
Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge consists of thirteen interrelated chapters, each one involving to some degree the novel’s eponymous character. Readers are presented to Olive both mediated through other characters’ viewpoints, and with more seemingly direct access into Olive’s mind and motivations. The novel’s chapters move across different time frames and thus present its characters in various stages of change. Strout’s narrative style means that the reader, as Guaccero (““Standing in the Spaces” with Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.” Psychoanalytic Perspectives 7, no. 2 (2010): 411–415, 412) suggests, is required to keep track of “the sense of multiple self-states that unite to form her [Olive’s] continuity and coherence over time”. In this paper, we explore the process of tracking Olive by integrating several cognitive stylistic frameworks to examine how multiple representations of Olive and her life are processed in reading the novel. Drawing explicitly on the concept of mind-modelling, we provide, to our knowledge, the first stylistic analysis of character across a short story collection. We further argue that tracking Olive is a process that places particular demands on readers: Strout shifts our attention across numerous iterations of events and characters in a way that invites constant readjustment of our understanding of Olive and the significance of her actions and relationships with others.
Many mental phenomena involve thinking about people who do not exist. Imagined characters appear in planning, dreams, fantasizing, imaginary companions, bereavement hallucinations, auditory verbal hallucinations, and as characters created in fictional narratives by authors. Sometimes these imagined persons are felt to be completely under our control, as when one fantasizes about having a great time at a party. Other times, characters feel as though they are outside of our conscious control. Dream characters, for example, are experienced by dreamers as autonomous entities, and often do things that frighten and surprise dreamers. Some imagined persons, such as characters in fiction, start off under conscious control of the author, but over time, can appear to gain an illusion of independent agency. I propose an explanation for different autonomy attributions: characters are by default non-autonomous, unless their personalities are well-practiced. Characters become autonomous because modeling their thinking has become automatized, like many other well-practiced activities.
Anthropomorphism is the tendency to treat non-human items as if they were human. Children 3–5 years (N = 139) were tested on their anthropomorphism of two favorite toys from home, with both explicit judgments (e.g., think, feel happy) and behavioral interactions (e.g., resource distributions). Parents reported on their child’s object attachments and anthropomorphizing behaviors at home. Children anthropomorphized objects with faces more than those without. Parents also reported that children attached to a toy with a face engaged in more anthropomorphism in their behaviors at home than those without. On the lab-based task battery, attachment status did not predict overall levels of anthropomorphism, although differences did emerge in the predicted direction on a small number of tasks, for both face and no-face attachment objects. The results of this exploratory study are discussed with regard to the diverse nature of anthropomorphism in childhood, and the role of context in eliciting this perspective.
Prior research suggests that reading and viewing fiction (compared with expository nonfiction) may enhance social cognition. The purpose of this research was threefold: we tested whether this effect (here operationalized as persons vs, objects) extended to writing, we contrasted the effect of fictionality (real vs. imaginary) versus social content, and we delved into mechanism by examining the degree to which any effects found were mediated by the linguistic content of the writings that participants produced. Results confirmed that writing about persons versus objects has a similar effect as reading or viewing. At the same time, we found no effect of fictionality. Importantly, the person/object manipulation had a direct effect on both social and nonsocial language in the writings produced, with person-focused texts relying more on emotional language and object-focused texts containing more analytical and causal language. Writing about persons had an indirect effect on social cognition via emotional content, which did not depend on fictionality.
A curious childhood phenomenon that has received relatively little attention in developmental literature is the imaginary companion (IC). Increased recognition of the importance of imaginative play and a desire to stimulate children’s early cognitive development makes ICs a particularly relevant topic. The significant prevalence of ICs in the population has permitted a modest yet diverse range of research investigating the functions, correlates, and implications of ICs for the children that create them. This literature review summarizes some of this research in order to describe the functions and forms that ICs may take, as well as social and personality characteristics of children with ICs. It also examines the role that ICs may serve in cognitive and social development, particularly with respect to children’s acquisition of Theory of Mind. Finally, this article addresses ways to integrate ICs into other aspects of children’s lives, gaps in the existing literature, and potential directions for future research in the field.
It is well known that people who read fiction have many reasons for doing so. But perhaps one of the most understudied reasons people have for reading fiction is their belief that reading will result in their acquisition of certain forms of knowledge or skill. Such expectations have long been fostered by literary theorists, critics, authors, and readers who have asserted that reading may indeed be among the best ways to learn particular forms of knowledge. Modern psychological research has borne out many of these claims. For example, readers of fiction learn cognitive skills such as mentalizing or theory of mind. Reading fiction is also associated with greater empathic skills, especially among avid or lifelong readers. For readers who are emotionally transported into the fictional world they are reading about, powerful emotional truths are often discovered that may subsequently help readers build, or change, their identities. Fiction readers acquire factual information about places or people they may not have any other access to. But reading fiction also presents opportunities to acquire inaccurate factual information that may diminish access to previously learned accurate information. If readers are provided with inaccurate information that is encoded, they have opportunities to make faulty inferences, whose invalidity the reader is often incapable of detecting. Readers of fiction use schematic world knowledge to navigate fictional texts. But if the border between fiction and reality becomes blurred, as might be the case of avid readers of fiction, there is a risk that they may export schematic knowledge from the world of fiction to the everyday world, where it may not be applicable. These and other findings suggest that the varieties of learning from fiction form a complex, nuanced pattern deserving of greater attention by researchers.
This article considers digital storytelling as an emerging media practice for public education and action about environmental justice. Digital storytelling presents examples of how media texts can go viral and have a substantial impact on public discourse, while also providing multimodal communication to study and experience for social action. Using frameworks of both narrative empathy and the rhetoric of empathy, while drawing on a viral Greenpeace media text produced in 2014 by the Don’t Panic agency entitled LEGO: Everything is NOT Awesome, this article considers how the empathetic effects of digital storytelling mobilises environmental action across multimodal networks of digital media.
This chapter explores the relation between imagination and creativity, with an emphasis on its origins and development. We discuss different models of creativity, debates about its nature, and different ways of measuring both imagination and creativity. The bulk of the chapter reviews empirical studies with children, both correlational and experimental, and we conclude from these studies that, although the evidence is promising with regard to uncovering a causal relation between imagination and creativity, there is still much work to be done. We report our own research exploring how the content of children's imagination may play an important role in relation to creativity and also discuss our findings on the effects of various personality variables on adult creativity. We conclude with directions for future research.
The human imagination manifests in countless different forms. We imagine the possible and the impossible. How do we do this so effortlessly? Why did the capacity for imagination evolve and manifest with undeniably manifold complexity uniquely in human beings? This handbook reflects on such questions by collecting perspectives on imagination from leading experts. It showcases a rich and detailed analysis on how the imagination is understood across several disciplines of study, including anthropology, archaeology, medicine, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and the arts. An integrated theoretical-empirical-applied picture of the field is presented, which stands to inform researchers, students, and practitioners about the issues of relevance across the board when considering the imagination. With each chapter, the nature of human imagination is examined – what it entails, how it evolved, and why it singularly defines us as a species.
Dissociative absorption (DA) is a tendency to become completely immersed in a stimulus while neglecting to attend to one’s surroundings. Theoretically, DA implies automatic functioning in areas that are outside the focus of attention. This study examined whether high absorbers indeed act more automatically, i.e., with decreased meta-consciousness for, and therefore poor memory of, their own actions, along with reduced sense of agency (SoA). High and low absorbers (N=63) performed three DA-promoting tasks: choice-reaction time (CRT), Tetris, and free writing. Participants were tested on memory of task details and self-reported their state SoA. As hypothesized, trait DA was correlated with impaired autobiographical memory for self-generated writing. However, DA was not related to episodic memory disruptions in externally-generated content tasks (Tetris, CRT). In most tasks, DA was associated with decreased SoA. Absorbers’ specific difficulty in identifying self-generated content suggests that their memory failures stem from reduced accessibility to self-actions and intentions.
Cognitive ecocriticism draws on research in neuroscience and cognitive narratology to explore how literary reading can lead us to care about natural environments. Ann Pancake’s novel Strange as This Weather Has Been (2007) serves as an example of a novel that cues both direct and empathetic emotions for an actual environment—the Appalachian Mountains—that is wounded and scarred. I argue that the novel’s protagonists allow readers to imaginatively experience what it is like to love an environment and then witness its destruction by mountaintop removal mining. Pancake’s decision to relate large parts of the story through the consciousness of teenagers allows for highly emotional perspectives that have the potential to engage readers in the social and moral issues around resource extraction.
The purpose of this chapter is to contribute to the theoretical frame of transmedia journalism by proposing a question-based model that focuses on transmedia design when an immersive journalism piece is integrated into a transmedia space. Immersive journalism is a new medium that could be effectively used to foster social empathy by means of virtual reality stories in journalism. The chapter is guided by the following ideas: (1) narrative strategies that may be useful in the design of immersive journalism experiences; (2) aesthetic principles of immersive experiences; and (3) inclusion of an immersive experience in a transmedia space. Thus, this chapter reviews the narrative techniques and aesthetics of immersive experiences that might contribute to the design of both the immersive piece and the transmedia space.
The experience of willing an act arises from interpreting one's thought as the cause of the act. Conscious will is thus experienced as a function of the priority, consistency, and exclusivity of the thought about the action. The thought must occur before the action, be consistent with the action, and not be accompanied by other causes. An experiment illustrating the role of priority found that people can arrive at the mistaken belief that they have intentionally caused an action that in fact they were forced to perform when they are simply led to think about the action just before its occurrence.
This article examined evidence for dimensional and typological models of dissociation. The authors reviewed previous research with the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES; E. B. Bernstein-Carlson & F. W. Putnam; see record
1987-14407-001) and note that this scale, like other dissociation questionnaires, was developed to measure that so called dissociative continuum. Next, recently developed taxometric methods for distinguishing typological from dimensional constructs are described and applied to DES item-response data from 228 adults with diagnosed multiple personality disorder and 228 normal controls. The taxometric findings empirically justify the distinction between two types of dissociative experiences. Nonpathological dissociative experiences are manifestations of a dissociative trait, whereas pathological dissociative experiences are manifestations of a latent class variable. The taxometric findings also indicate that there are two types of dissociators. Individuals in the pathological dissociative class (taxon) can be identified with a brief, 8-item questionnaire called the DES-T. Scores on the DES-T and DES are compared in 11 clinical and nonclinical samples. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Although imaginal dialogue—dialogues with imaginary others—suffuse fantasy, dreams, the play of children, and the private speech and thought of adults, there has until now been no attempt to group together the various instances of such dialogues and to examine their phenomenology and treatment significance.
After critically reviewing the reductive strategies that developmental psychologists and psychoanalysts have traditionally employed in dealing with these phenomena, Watkins outlines a novel theory of imaginal dialogues as growth-promoting and creative. She is not content merely to document the enduring presence of imaginary others throughout the life cycle; instead, she assigns imaginal dialogues a "conceptual space" where, in her words, "their development is not reduced to a change from the presence in childhood to their absence in adulthood." In demarcating this space, she enriches her depth-psychological argument with insights culled from anthropology, religion, mythology, and literature.
In the final section of "Invisible Guests," Watkins turns to the treatment implications of her developmental approach. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The hypothesized relationship between childhood imaginary companions and adolescent creativity received partial support in a sample of 800 high school students, subdivided according to creativity, sex, and specialty. Creative adolescents in the literary field reported this childhood phenomenon significantly more often than their matched controls. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This paper proposes that make-believe play expresses the young child's emerging capacity to engage in counterfactual or would-be thinking. Three important developments enable preschoolers to create joint make-believe worlds with others: the ability to (1) manage multiple roles as playwrights and actors, (2) invent novel plots, and (3) deliberately blur the boundary between reality and pretense. Given that joint make-believe play turns out to be such a complex representational activity, the question about its function raises itself more insistently than ever. Of the many social and cognitive functions that have been proposed, emotional mastery is the only one that could not equally be exercised in nonpretend contexts. There is evidence, however, that in nonclinical settings the well-adjusted, secure children are most able to benefit from the opportunity for emotional mastery offered by sociodramatic play, whereas less-well-adjusted, insecure children are not. This has important implications for the design of play interventions.
Describes the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and its relationships with measures of social functioning, self-esteem, emotionality, and sensitivity to others. 677 male and 667 female undergraduates served as Ss. Each of the 4 IRI subscales displayed a distinctive and predictable pattern of relationships with these measures, as well as with previous unidimensional empathy measures. Findings provide evidence for a multidimensional approach to empathy. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).
Thesis--University of Texas at Austin. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 209-219).
Dissociation is a lack of the normal integration of thoughts, feelings, and experiences into the stream of consciousness and memory. Dissociation occurs to some degree in normal individuals and is thought to be more prevalent in persons with major mental illnesses. The Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) has been developed to offer a means of reliably measuring dissociation in normal and clinical populations. Scale items were developed using clinical data and interviews, scales involving memory loss, and consultations with experts in dissociation. Pilot testing was performed to refine the wording and format of the scale. The scale is a 28-item self-report questionnaire. Subjects were asked to make slashes on 100-mm lines to indicate where they fall on a continuum for each question. In addition, demographic information (age, sex, occupation, and level of education) was collected so that the connection between these variables and scale scores could be examined. The mean of all item scores ranges from 0 to 100 and is called the DES score. The scale was administered to between 10 and 39 subjects in each of the following populations: normal adults, late adolescent college students, and persons suffering from alcoholism, agoraphobia, phobic-anxious disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, and multiple personality disorder. Reliability testing of the scale showed that the scale had good test-retest and good split-half reliability. Item-scale score correlations were all significant, indicating good internal consistency and construct validity. A Kruskal-Wallis test and post hoc comparisons of the scores of the eight populations provided evidence of the scale's criterion-referenced validity.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
The experience of willing an act arises from interpreting one's thought as the cause of the act. Conscious will is thus experienced as a function of the priority, consistency, and exclusivity of the thought about the action. The thought must occur before the action, be consistent with the action, and not be accompanied by other causes. An experiment illustrating the role of priority found that people can arrive at the mistaken belief that they have intentionally caused an action that in fact they were forced to perform when they are simply led to think about the action just before its occurrence.
It is well known that children's activities are full of pretending and imagination, but it is less appreciated that animals can also show similar activities. Originally published in 2002, this book focuses on comparing and contrasting children's and animals' pretenses and imaginative activities. In the text, overviews of research present conflicting interpretations of children's understanding of the psychology of pretense, and describe sociocultural factors which influence children's pretenses. Studies of nonhuman primates provide examples of their pretenses and other simulative activities, explore their representational and imaginative capacities and compare their skills with children. Although the psychological requirements for pretending are controversial, evidence presented in this volume suggests that great apes and even monkeys may share capacities for imagination with children, and that children's early pretenses may be less psychological than they appear.
To facilitate a multidimensional approach to empathy the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) includes 4 subscales: Perspective-Taking (PT) Fantasy (FS) Empathic Concern (EC) and Personal Distress (PD). The aim of the present study was to establish the convergent and discriminant validity of these 4 subscales. Hypothesized relationships among the IRI subscales between the subscales and measures of other psychological constructs (social functioning self-esteem emotionality and sensitivity to others) and between the subscales and extant empathy measures were examined. Study subjects included 677 male and 667 female students enrolled in undergraduate psychology classes at the University of Texas. The IRI scales not only exhibited the predicted relationships among themselves but also were related in the expected manner to other measures. Higher PT scores were consistently associated with better social functioning and higher self-esteem; in contrast Fantasy scores were unrelated to these 2 characteristics. High EC scores were positively associated with shyness and anxiety but negatively linked to egotism. The most substantial relationships in the study involved the PD scale. PD scores were strongly linked with low self-esteem and poor interpersonal functioning as well as a constellation of vulnerability uncertainty and fearfulness. These findings support a multidimensional approach to empathy by providing evidence that the 4 qualities tapped by the IRI are indeed separate constructs each related in specific ways to other psychological measures.
Pretend play is a pervasive behavior that has attracted considerable attention over the past decade. In the article, the research is reviewed in the context of the diverse theoretical orientations that have stimulated these efforts. The most productive theoretical positions tend to deal with selected aspects of the behavior (e. g., solitary or social pretense, developmental change, individual differences, environmental factors) rather than its entirety. Recent contributions have offered a refined account of developmental changes in pretense and an examination of the behavioral processes involved. Studies of individual differences suggest that pretense may reflect a stable personality trait, although evidence concerning antecedent factors is inconclusive. Training studies have demonstrated procedures for increasing spontaneous pretense, and some of these suggest a relation between enhanced play and improved performance on measures of social and cognitive functioning. Other procedures have been used to demonstrate a relation between pretense and creativity. Although outcome studies have become increasingly sophisticated, they pose numerous interpretive problems. Areas in need of further inquiry are discussed with respect to issues that require theoretical or empirical clarification.
Reviews the book, Play, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood by Jean Piaget (1951). The current work by Piaget is another stimulating and provocative contribution to the literature on the development of children's thinking. In this well-translated volume, Piaget has as his basic goal an explanation of the evolution of "representative activity," which is "characterized by the fact that it goes beyond the present, extending the field of adaptation both in space and in time." Such an activity is essential in reflective thought as well as in operational thought. Two theses are presented by Piaget in the book: (a) the transition from rudimentary, primitive, and situational assimilation of experience to the operational and reflective adaptation of experience can be studied by the analysis of imitative behavior and play activity of the child from very early months of the life; and (b) various forms of mental activity--imitation, symbolic activity, and cognitive representation--are interacting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Young children are often viewed as being unable to differentiate fantasy from reality. This article reviews research on both children's and adults beliefs about' fantasy as well as their tendency to engage in what is thought of as “magical thinking.” It is suggested that children are not fundamentally different from adults in their ability to distinguish fantasy from reality: Both children and adults entertain fantastical beliefs and also engage in magical thinking. Suggestions are offered as to how children and adults may differ in this domain, and an agenda for future research is offered.
The Dissociative Experiences Scale was administered to a random sample of 1,055 adults in the city of Winnipeg. Results showed that scale scores did not differ between men and women and were not influenced by income, employment status, education, place of birth, religious affiliation, or number of persons in the respondent's household. Dissociative experiences are common in the general population and decline with age. The findings suggest that dissociative disorders may also be common in the general population.
Young children are often viewed as being unable to differentiate fantasy from reality. This article reviews research on both children's and adults' beliefs about fantasy as well as their tendency to engage in what is thought of as "magical thinking." It is suggested that children are not fundamentally different from adults in their ability to distinguish fantasy from reality: Both children and adults entertain fantastical beliefs and also engage in magical thinking. Suggestions are offered as to how children and adults may differ in this domain, and an agenda for future research is offered.
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