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Psychological Processes Underlying Literary Impact

Psychology, State University of New York, Stony Brook

David N. Rapp

Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota

ABSTRACT

Most psychological researchers now accept the premise that literary narratives have an effect on people's everyday lives. Contemporary research examines the types of psychological processes that give rise to literary impact. The article describes experiments in two broad areas. First, it supports a position called the willing construction of disbelief and relates that to readers' feelings of having been transported to narrative worlds. The data suggest that readers must expend strategic effort to reject the information they acquire from literary narratives. Second, the article discusses the ways in which the unfolding of causes and consequences in literary narratives affect readers' judgments and understanding of characters and outcomes. These experiments support the claim that readers may derive bodies of evidence from their literary experiences that they apply to their own life experiences.

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