What is it about?
Flow is a concept from motivational and positive psychology that until now has not played a key role in experiential reading research. This study shows that integrating flow with existing reading concepts can afford a theoretical framework to predict the evolvement of reading pleasure that is supported by empirical evidence.
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Why is it important?
Reading pleasure is hard to predict, yet an important variable for reading research due to its role in reading motivation, well-being, and other reading effects. The flow concept offers a new perspective on how we can empirically study and predict reading pleasure.
Perspectives
As a psychologist, writing this paper gave me a great opportunity to bring my personal interest in fiction reading together with a broader psychological theory that had not yet been applied to literature. I think applying psychological theories and methods to research questions that have traditionally been discussed mostly amongst humanity scholars and philosophers, is an interesting new direction for research.
Birte Thissen
Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The pleasures of reading fiction explained by flow, presence, identification, suspense, and cognitive involvement., Psychology of Aesthetics Creativity and the Arts, November 2021, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/aca0000367.
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