Reading certain stories can rewire your personality in measurable ways.
Losing yourself in a story can be a powerful way to change your own behaviour.
People who read a fictional story about a character who overcame barriers to voting were twice as likely to vote in an actual election a few days later.
Dr Lisa Libby, study co-author, said:
“Experience-taking can be a powerful way to change our behavior and thoughts in meaningful and beneficial ways.”
The key to experiencing fiction more powerfully is to literally ‘lose’ your sense of self in it.
In one experiment, people were asked to try and read in a cubicle where they could see themselves in a mirror.
Most people found it very hard to immerse themselves in the presence of their own reflection.
Dr Kaufman said:
“The more you’re reminded of your own personal identity, the less likely you’ll be able to take on a character’s identity.
You have to be able to take yourself out of the picture, and really lose yourself in the book in order to have this authentic experience of taking on a character’s identity.”
In the voting study, for example, participants read different versions of the story.
Some read a version written in the first-person with similar attributes to the readers to encourage identification with the character.
Others read a third-person version describing someone who was dissimilar to the readers.
The results showed that 65 percent of those who read the story they could identify with voted a few days later.
This was in comparison to only 29 percent of people who read the story that was harder to identify with.
Dr Libby said:
“When you share a group membership with a character from a story told in first-person voice, you’re much more likely to feel like you’re experiencing his or her life events.
And when you undergo this experience-taking, it can affect your behavior for days afterwards.”
The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Kaufman & Libby, 2012).
