Personality and the Varieties of Fictional Experience
Abstract
In 1929, I. A. Richards observed in Practical Criticism that "every response is ’subjective’ in the sense that it is a psychological event determined by the needs and resources of a mind," and he concluded, "we have a real problem about the relative values of different states of mind, about varying forms, and degrees, of order in the personality." Indeed, more than eighty years later, we still do. One main reason we still do is that, despite considerable efforts by reader-response, psychoanalytic, and postmodern theorists to understand identity, literary scholars have so far found no good way of conceptualizing reader variation–a way that offers real explanatory insight. They accept that readers differ–how could they not?–but no one has yet examined this variation in light of what is known in the modern psychological sciences about personality, reading preferences, and the function that reading fiction fulfills for different people.
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There is a mixed literature on the relationship between the Big 5 and cultural preferences.
“There is a mixed literature on the relationship between the Big 5 and cultural preferences.”
From Five studies evaluating the impact on mental health and mood of recalling, reading, and discussing fiction (2022) · cites this paper as [56]
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- Authors
- Michelson, D.
- Corresponding author
- Michelson, David
- Venue
- Journal of Aesthetic Education
- Publisher
- University of Illinois Press
- Published
- 2014-05-01
- Volume
- 48
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 64-85
- ISSN
- 0021-8510 (ISSN-L)
- 1543-7809
- OpenAlex
- W1719123547
- Cited by
- 8
- References
- 66
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2022: 1 · 2019: 1 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 6.02
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Aesthetic Education (publishedVersion)
- Project Muse (Johns Hopkins University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Literary Theory and Cultural Hermeneutics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Narrative Theory and Analysis
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Keywords
- personality, reader response, fiction reading, I. A. Richards, practical criticism, literary identity, reading preferences
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