Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel

By Lisa Zunshine. 2006

726 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7bd90e12ece2db2707b3d78a6920c307b33d203a

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In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Citations in the corpus

The pleasure of unadulterated sadness: Experiencing sorrow in fiction, nonfiction, and "in person." (2009, background): “Fiction also allows us to safely practice our understanding of others and our emotional responses to other’s situations (Zunshine, 2006).”
Stories and the Promotion of Social Cognition (2018, background): “This would mean that some genres are more “mentalistic” and therefore more likely to promote social cognition, as some researchers have argued (Zunshine, 2006).”
The Common Neural Basis of Autobiographical Memory, Prospection, Navigation, Theory of Mind, and the Default Mode: A Quantitative Meta-analysis (2009, neutral): “social cognition and narrative processing (e.g., Mar & Oatley, in press; Keen, 2007; Mar, Oatley, Hirsh, dela Paz, & Peterson, 2006; Zunshine, 2006; Palmer, 2004; Peskin & Astington, 2004; Oatley, 1999; Bruner, 1986).”
The Function of Fiction is the Abstraction and Simulation of Social Experience (2008, background): “It trains us to extend our understanding toward other people, to embody (to some extent) and understand their beliefs and emotions (Keen, 2006; Mar, Oatley, Hirsh, dela Paz, & Peterson, 2006; Zunshine, 2006), and ultimately to understand ourselves (Moore & Macgillivray, 2004).”
What You Read Matters: The Role of Fiction Genre in Predicting Interpersonal Sensitivity (2013, background): “Some theorists have explicitly argued that it is suspense and mystery novels that are most likely to be associated with empathy, as these genres call upon the reader to infer and monitor the mental states of characters to a greater degree than other genres (Zunshine, 2006).”
The neural bases of social cognition and story comprehension. (2011, background): “A number of theorists and researchers have postulated that readers employ ToM in the understanding of stories (Bruner 1986, Keen 2007, Mar & Oatley 2008, Zunshine 2006), and this is certainly the assumption of story-based studies of ToM.”