14 DAY TRIAL // According to the conclusion of a new study, it would appear that the reason why books tend to have such a huge impact on our minds and psychologies is because they fill out an ancient human need.
Cases in which people have gotten so drawn into fantasy worlds are not rare at all. Consider the fans of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Twilight and the Chronicles of Narnia as just a few examples. All of them feel like they belong in those alternate realties.
Many have decided that they want to become vampires – and started acting as such – after reading various novels and books featuring such characters. Scientists have always been curious to see why this is happening, and the new research helps them make more sense out of things.
“Obviously, you can’t hold a book’s hand, and a book isn’t going to dry your tears when you’re sad,” explains one of the authors of the new study, Shira Gabriel. He holds an appointment as a psychologist at the University at Buffalo (SUNY).
He believes that some other, very important thing must be going on, that underlies the nearly-human connection that people feel with books while reading. For all intents and purposes, the relationship is as clear as it gets.
Details of the new work will be presented in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, which is a scientific journal edited by the Association for Psychological Science, Science Blog reports.
What books do, the SUNY team explains, is fill out the need for belonging, which has accompanies our species from day one, and which was crucial to our evolution as a species. This need is deeply human, and all people crave for it, regardless of whether they want to admit it or not.
The way this happens in books is the readers become directly involved with the narrative. This may have something to do with the act of imagining that takes place as we image all the different characters, situations and places described by the author.
Gabriel and graduate student Ariana Young set up a series of experiments to test their idea. Some 140 participants were divided into groups and instructed to read excerpts from either Twilight or Harry Potter.
Tests applied after the study period revealed that subjects tended to “become” either vampires or wizards, depending on which of the books they were asked to read.
A mood and overall life satisfaction study conducted immediately afterwards revealed that the participants exhibited the same level of happiness after reading as if they were part of a real social group, and belonged to it fully.
“The study explains how this everyday phenomenon – reading – works not just for escape or education, but as something that fulfills a deep psychological need,” Young concludes.