Being exposed to narrative fiction may provide us with practice in dealing with social interactions and thereby enhance our ability to engage in mentalizing (understanding other people’s mental... Show moreBeing exposed to narrative fiction may provide us with practice in dealing with social interactions and thereby enhance our ability to engage in mentalizing (understanding other people’s mental states). The current study uses a confirmatory Bayesian approach to assess the relationship between mentalizing and both the self-reported frequency of exposure to narrative fiction across media (books, films, and TV series) and the particular types of fiction that are consumed (eudaimonic vs. hedonic). This study focuses on this relationship in children and adolescents, because they are still developing their social abilities. Exposure to narrative fiction may thus be particularly important in providing input on how to interpret other people’s mental states for this age group. In our study, we find no evidence for a simple relationship between overall frequency of narrative fiction exposure and mentalizing ability in this age group. However, exposure to eudaimonic narrative fiction is consistently positively related to mentalizing and, for some media types and aspects of mentalizing, more strongly so than exposure to hedonic narrative fiction. No evidence was obtained to suggest that there are any differential effects related to the medium of the narrative fiction exposure (written vs. visual). Show less
Human interaction is characterised by an ongoing polyphony of perspectives and perspectives-on-perspectives. Not only do we share and coordinate our own inner life with that of the people we... Show moreHuman interaction is characterised by an ongoing polyphony of perspectives and perspectives-on-perspectives. Not only do we share and coordinate our own inner life with that of the people we interact with, but we also constantly make implicit and explicit reference to the intentional states of others who may or may not be present at the time of speaking, or who may even exist only in the imagined worlds of thought and fiction. In the cognitive sciences, this polyphony has generally been conceptualised as a series of embedded 'orders of intentionality': A thinks that B understands that C expects... (etc.). I argue that this conceptualisation stands in stark contrast to how multiple perspectives are handled in actual discourse and interaction. Based on linguistic and narratological analysis of literary texts, newspaper articles, examples from spoken discourse, and stimuli from psychological experiments investigating multiple-order intentionality in the lab, a new perspective is offered on how we deal with networks of embedded and interlinked intentional states. The findings are discussed in the light of current theories about mindreading (a.k.a. ‘theory of mind’), discussing in particular cognitive models, issues of development and learning, and scenarios of how this capacity may have evolved in our lineage. Show less
One of the most prominent changes in adolescence is social reorientation. In other words, adolescents develop more intimate relationships with peers, they discover what it is like to be involved in... Show moreOne of the most prominent changes in adolescence is social reorientation. In other words, adolescents develop more intimate relationships with peers, they discover what it is like to be involved in a romantic relationship, and they take (social) risks by for example showing risky driving in the presence of friends. Given that social networks with peers become central elements in the adolescent’s life, investigating the role of individual differences related to the development of social reorientation seems highly relevant. This dissertation contributes to a better understanding of stability and change in social reorientation during adolescence by explaining the crucial role of empathy in social interactions from a brain and behavioral perspective. Future research can benefit from the presented studies by applying it to a more detailed analysis of individual differences in this important period in life, which may help to explain why some adolescents are successful in developing social competencies and relationships, whereas others experience difficulties. Eventually, this may lead to the development of interventions for youth who do not cope well with the social requirements from the environments, and help to improve their lives and the lives of individuals around them Show less
