How Audiences Engage With Drama: Identification, Attribution and Moral Approval

Fictional storytelling has played an important role in human cultural life since earliest times, and we are willing to invest significant quantities of time, mental effort and money in it. Nonetheless, the psychological mechanisms that make this possible, and how they relate to the mechanisms that u...

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Autores principales:	Ben Teasdale, Laurie Maguire, Felix Budelmann, R. I. M. Dunbar
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:	drama fictional transportation identification moral approval attribution Psychology BF1-990
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/162093497d2746a6a95b1f3c02a00c86
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:162093497d2746a6a95b1f3c02a00c862021-11-05T16:34:40ZHow Audiences Engage With Drama: Identification, Attribution and Moral Approval1664-107810.3389/fpsyg.2021.762011https://doaj.org/article/162093497d2746a6a95b1f3c02a00c862021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.762011/fullhttps://doaj.org/toc/1664-1078Fictional storytelling has played an important role in human cultural life since earliest times, and we are willing to invest significant quantities of time, mental effort and money in it. Nonetheless, the psychological mechanisms that make this possible, and how they relate to the mechanisms that underpin real-world social relationships, remain understudied. We explore three factors: identification (the capacity to identify with a character), moral approval and causal attribution with respect to a character’s behaviour in live performances of two plays from the European literary canon. There were significant correlations between the extent to which subjects identified with a character and their moral approval of that character’s behaviour that was independent of the way the play was directed. However, the subjects’ psychological explanations for a character’s behaviour (attribution) were independent of whether or not they identified with, or morally approved of, the character. These data extend previous findings by showing that moral approval plays an important role in facilitating identification even in live drama. Despite being transported by an unfolding drama, audiences do not necessarily become biased in their psychological understanding of why characters behaved as they did. The psychology of drama offers significant insights into the psychological processes that underpin our everyday social world.Ben TeasdaleLaurie MaguireFelix BudelmannR. I. M. DunbarR. I. M. DunbarFrontiers Media S.A.articledramafictional transportationidentificationmoral approvalattributionPsychologyBF1-990ENFrontiers in Psychology, Vol 12 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	drama fictional transportation identification moral approval attribution Psychology BF1-990
spellingShingle	drama fictional transportation identification moral approval attribution Psychology BF1-990 Ben Teasdale Laurie Maguire Felix Budelmann R. I. M. Dunbar R. I. M. Dunbar How Audiences Engage With Drama: Identification, Attribution and Moral Approval
description	Fictional storytelling has played an important role in human cultural life since earliest times, and we are willing to invest significant quantities of time, mental effort and money in it. Nonetheless, the psychological mechanisms that make this possible, and how they relate to the mechanisms that underpin real-world social relationships, remain understudied. We explore three factors: identification (the capacity to identify with a character), moral approval and causal attribution with respect to a character’s behaviour in live performances of two plays from the European literary canon. There were significant correlations between the extent to which subjects identified with a character and their moral approval of that character’s behaviour that was independent of the way the play was directed. However, the subjects’ psychological explanations for a character’s behaviour (attribution) were independent of whether or not they identified with, or morally approved of, the character. These data extend previous findings by showing that moral approval plays an important role in facilitating identification even in live drama. Despite being transported by an unfolding drama, audiences do not necessarily become biased in their psychological understanding of why characters behaved as they did. The psychology of drama offers significant insights into the psychological processes that underpin our everyday social world.
format	article
author	Ben Teasdale Laurie Maguire Felix Budelmann R. I. M. Dunbar R. I. M. Dunbar
author_facet	Ben Teasdale Laurie Maguire Felix Budelmann R. I. M. Dunbar R. I. M. Dunbar
author_sort	Ben Teasdale
title	How Audiences Engage With Drama: Identification, Attribution and Moral Approval
title_short	How Audiences Engage With Drama: Identification, Attribution and Moral Approval
title_full	How Audiences Engage With Drama: Identification, Attribution and Moral Approval
title_fullStr	How Audiences Engage With Drama: Identification, Attribution and Moral Approval
title_full_unstemmed	How Audiences Engage With Drama: Identification, Attribution and Moral Approval
title_sort	how audiences engage with drama: identification, attribution and moral approval
publisher	Frontiers Media S.A.
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/162093497d2746a6a95b1f3c02a00c86
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How Audiences Engage With Drama: Identification, Attribution and Moral Approval

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