Connecting through emotional stories
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2012 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Stories are crucial tool for knowledge communication and emotion sharing. Through the personal stories we share our experiences and memories, communicate our intentions, achievements and failures, but also make commitments, develop trust or even act. By listening to the stories we are mentalizing and empathizing all the time, trying to relate ourselves to the actors of the story and a narrator, and drawing a lesson from it. Telling and listening to the personal stories is common and essential in religion. Conversion stories are for the most part highly emotional and persuasive, and very explicit about emotions. Converts are articulating their emotions even if the story they are telling is based on a script prescribing how we should feel about events in the story (e.g. death of a close relative, achievements in a school etc.). What is the role of explicitly stated emotions in the story in creating prosocial feelings and behavior? Do explicitly stated emotions make the story more vivid and emotional, and do they afterwards enhance empathy and boost prosocial feelings and behavior towards narrator and/or other listeners? Do they make a group of listeners more cohesive? Poster deals with experimental design to probe this topic. |
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