FICTION’S EFFECTS ON ATTITUDES AND EMPATHY TOWARDS PERSONS WITH DISABILITY

Abstract

Fictional narratives provide a potential platform for changing attitudes and increasing empathy for stigmatized groups. This has been shown to occur through parasocial contact with characters, and narrative transportation into the narrative. This study investigates if text theme and narrative perspective of a supporting character with disability affects attitudes and empathy towards persons with disabilities. Participants read either a disability themed or control fictional narrative, and engaged in a short writing exercise from the perspective of either a supporting character or an observer. Narrative transportation was measured immediately after the writing exercise. Measures of attitudes, perspective-taking, and empathic concern were also taken immediately after the writing exercise and one week later. Findings suggest that attitudes and perspective-taking were not affected by the fictional narrative. A sleeper effect was found for empathic concern, where empathic concern decreased after a week. However, this was only found for participants who had a family member or friend with disability. Results indicate the possibility of a threshold below which narrative transportation and parasocial contact are ineffective in changing attitudes, and highlight that personal contact with persons with disability might affect responses to disability-themed fiction.