Turning Readers into Cheaters? The Impact of Immoral Behavior on Experience-taking
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Date
2012-03
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
Experience-taking is the process by which readers simulate the subjective experience of a fictional character, encountering story events alongside the character’s thoughts and emotions and adopting them as their own. This study sought to identify whether key independent variables – namely, the valence of a character’s behavior and the timing of its revelation - would affect readers’ likelihood of experience-taking. We hypothesized that delaying the revelation of a character’s immoral behavior would produce greater experience-taking and greater acceptance of the character’s behavior than an early revelation. In a laboratory session, 73 Ohio State undergraduates read one of three versions of a narrative about a college student’s day. Two of the narratives depicted a character who copied a roommate’s homework assignment without permission; this immoral behavior occurred either towards the beginning or the end of the story. In the third (no immoral behavior) narrative, the character completed the assignment unaided. Participants then completed an experience-taking measure and other measures. The session ended with a behavioral measure of cheating. Participants received extremely difficult remote associates on which better performance meant a greater chance to win $20. To measure participants’ inclinations to cheat, we gave them an opportunity to misreport the actual number they answered correctly. Results revealed that the timing of the immoral behavior did not have a significant impact on experience-taking levels. However, the participants in the no immoral behavior condition notably rated the character as more “good” than did the participants in both of the immoral behavior conditions. Participants’ inclinations to cheat did not differ between story conditions. Future studies are suggested with modifications to help understand the current study.
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Keywords
experience-taking, narrative, fictional characters, immoral behavior, mental stimulation