People Subconsciously Take On Attributes of Their Favourite Fictional Characters
Did you ever notice that after you finish reading a book you start to act like your favorite character? Its nothing crazy, you just start talking like them, or adopting their mannerisms, and eventually you begin to take on their experiences as their own; i.e. (WARNING: Maze Runner spoilers) embarrassingly crying in front of a group of friends because you thought about that time you were forced to kill Newt because he was infected with the Flare. Well contrary to your belief that you might be a little bit crazy, this is actually a normal occurrence and tends to happen to everyone.
Research done at Ohio State University suggest that when people read about a fictional story a phenomenon known now as “experience-taking”. For the purpose of this study, researchers observed and cataloged how people acted before, during, and after having read some sort of fiction. They cataloged mannerism, speech, and thought processes and found that people literally began acting like their character.
Researchers suggest that this is because of the phenomenon stated about; experience –taking. Experience-taking is when you find yourself so immersed in the fiction you are reading that find yourself in the mind of the character; you place yourself in the story as your favorite character. As such you begin to feel and experience the emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and mannerisms attributed to that character. They also found that this experience-taking can lead to changes in real life, however in most cases this is only temporary.
But what if this also occurred in other facets of entertainment? For instance could the same effect take place with a favorite character you have on a TV show? Would the effect be stronger because the stimulus is stronger? Or what about video games where you are quite literally the character? Would this have more of an impact on your everyday life? Could this be a factor is violent outbursts? Food for thought.
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-Cassey
SOURCES
http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=486743
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/exptaking.htm
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