The How or the What : The Impact of Narrative Style on Empathy
Abstract: Narratives in the forms of music or literature have traditionally been highlightedfor their ability to evoke empathy; however, the specific features of the narrativethat serve as the underlying mechanisms responsible for this effect remain unclear.The aim of the present study was to examine the impact of a narrative’s style onempathy. An experimental repeated measures research design was used with 41participants (31 female, 10 male; age range 20-63 yrs, M=30.2 yrs) that underwentthree conditions each comprised of a different stimulus (i.e., a song, a piece ofprose and a poem), with the same narrative content but differing in style. The orderof the stimuli was randomized across participants. After each stimulus, empatheticresponses were captured via self reports, measuring valence and arousal of theparticipant, as well as their perceived valence and arousal of the main character ofthe narrative. The song had a strong correlation between participant-rating andcharacter-rating on valence and arousal, thus evoking a stronger (affective)empathetic response than the other two styles of stimuli, having moderatecorrelations. The character-rating barely differed between the style of stimuli, andthe narrative first presented lowered the participants’ valence regardless of style.These findings could possibly be explained by cognitive empathy responding to thenarrative, evoking the same understanding of another person, whereas affectiveempathy seem more prone to respond to stylistic features. Future research andpossible therapeutic implications are discussed.
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