Identification and empathy

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Identification and empathy

• Methods and techniques of audience and reception
  research

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Class 1. Introduction

• Aim
• Theme
• Program
• Assignments
• Reading
• REDES
• Assessment
• Forming groups

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Aim

• Research training
• Choice of method
• Plan
• Collect data
• Analysis (SPSS)
• Reporting findings
• Meantime learing about emotion psychology
• Contribute to science?
• Replication
• Intercultural
• Interdisciplinary

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Theme
Wolfgang Peterson, Never Ending Story (1984)
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Theme
Woody Allen, Play it again Sam, 1972
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Theme involvement

• Diegetic effect
• Empathy
• Identification
• Absorption
• Flow

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Interrelated?

• E.g., Empathy and Absoption
• Miall Kuiken (1995)

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Absoption

• Personality trait
• Tellegen Atkinson (1974)
• Defined Readiness to be captured by imaginal
  events
• E.g., I can imagine things so vividly that they
  hold my attention as a good movie or story does.

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Empathy (LRQ)

• Sometimes I feel like Ive almost become a
  character Ive read about in fiction. (.856)
• When I read fiction I often think about myself
  as one of the people in the story. (.737)
• I sometimes wonder whether I have really
  experienced something or whether I have read
  about it in a book. (..677).
• Miall Kuiken (1995)

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Flow

• Experiences of becoming engaged in controllable
  but challenging activities requiring skill and
  which are intrinsically motivated.
• Csikszentmihalyi

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Flow activities

• Clear goal
• Immediate feedback
• Autotelic
• Intrinsic motivation
• Requires concentration

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Flow phenomena

• Involved deeply, effortlessly
• No thoughts of worries, frustrations of everyday
  life
• Sense of self disappears
• Strenghtened sense of self afterwards
• Time perception changes

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Flow
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Operationalization

• My mind isnt wandering. I am not thinking of
  something else. I am totally involved in what I
  am doing. My body feels good. I dont seem to
  hear anything. The world seems to be cut off from
  me. I am less aware of myself and my problems.
• (Csikszentmihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, 1988195)

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Operationalization

• My concentration is like breathing. I never
  think of it. I am really oblivious to my
  surroundings after I really get going. I think
  that the phone could ring and the door bell could
  ring or the house burn down or something like
  that.
• I am so involved in what I am doing. I dont see
  myself as separate from what I am doing

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Flow, some more remarks

• Cultural factors
• Stable governments
• Affluent societies
• Education
• Medium
• Relation to well-being
• Relation to form
• Brechts V-effect?

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Program

• Week 1-5
• Training in basic research techniques
• Design your studies
• Week 6-7
• Collecting data
• Week 8
• Entering and analyzing data
• Week 9-10
• Writing your reports

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Reading

• Reader
• Example studies
• Handbook
• Extra texts on the web
• (Psychological approaches)

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REDES

• Research and development of empirical studies
• Planning
• Utrecht Feb. 18 April 22
• Turin Feb. 28 - April 15
• Rio March 1 June 30
• Extra credits for joint effort, extended
  deadlines
• Register at REDES Forum

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Research assignment

• Dependent involvement
• Independent formal feature, medium
• Covariates culture, gender
• Method manipulation
• Material all sorts of media

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Assessment

• Exam (50)
• Reports on stages of research project
• Critical readings
• SPSS assignments
• Research report (50)

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Final remarks

• Working independently
• Extra meetings
• BA-thesis follow-up

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Forming groups

• Size 3-4 students per group
• Group name contact person
• Supervision
• Assignment

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Questions?