Sarah Friend
Biographic Data
| ID | 119822 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sarah Friend |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sarah |
| FAMILY NAME | Friend |
| SIGNATURE | FRIEND S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Minnesota |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7791-8467 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 66 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Chatbot-fictionalism and empathetic AI: Should we worry about AI when AI worries about us
We focus on recent proposals to interpret interactions with empathetic AI systems as games of make-believe, analogous to our engagement with fictions. Chatbots are increasingly designed to detect and emulate emotional nuance, resembling real human interactions. These applications have raised ethical concerns. Critics focus on the potentially harmful effects of people’s tendency to anthropomorphize the chatbots – to respond to them as if they were…
Opening the closed mind? Effects of reading literary fiction on need for closure and creativity
Although philosophers have long claimed that reading fiction has the potential to improve imaginative capacities, empirical evidence on this topic is limited. We report an experiment that aims to conceptually replicate and extend previous work by Djikic and colleagues by testing whether reading literary fiction reduces the need for closure, and by testing for the first time whether it enhances openness to experience, cognitive complexity, imagina…
Insights Into Rural Youth Physical Activity: The Role of Micro- and Macro-Level Environments
Further research is warranted to explore if expanding access to PA equipment and infrastructure supports mitigates inactivity in rural youth
Are patterns of family evening meal practices associated with child and parent diet quality and weight-related outcomes
Associations of parent dietary role modeling with children's diet quality in a rural setting: Baseline data from the NU-Home study
The effect of narratives on attitudes toward animal welfare and pro-social behaviour on behalf of animals: Three pre-registered experiments
We report three randomised and pre-registered experiments examining the effects of narrative fiction (vs. narrative non-fiction vs. expository non-fiction) on concern for animal welfare. In Experiment 1a (N = 363) there was no significant increase in concern for animal welfare or willingness to donate to an animal charity among participants who read a narrative fiction text about a monkey's plight (vs. narrative non-fiction or expository non-fict…
Emotion in Fiction: State of the Art
In this paper, I review developments in discussions of fiction and emotion over the last decade concerning both the descriptive question of how to classify fiction-directed emotions and the normative question of how to evaluate those emotions. Although many advances have been made on these topics, a mistaken assumption is still common: that we must hold either that fiction-directed emotions are (empirically or normatively) the same as other emoti…
Reading Fictional Narratives to Improve Social and Moral Cognition: The Influence of Narrative Perspective, Transportation, and Identification
There is a long tradition in philosophy and literary criticism of belief in the social and moral benefits of exposure to fiction, and recent empirical work has examined some of these claims. However, little of this research has addressed the textual features responsible for the hypothesized cognitive effects. We present two experiments examining whether readers’ social and moral cognition are influenced by the perspective from which a narrative i…
Falsehoods in film: Documentary vs fiction
I claim that we should reject a sharp distinction between fiction and non-fiction according to which documentary is a faithful representation of the facts, whilst fiction films merely invite us to imagine what is made up. Instead, we should think of fiction and non-fiction as genres: categories whose membership is determined by a combination of non-essential features and which influence appreciation in a variety of ways. An objection to this appr…
Family-focused obesity prevention program implementation in urban versus rural communities: A case study
When adapting research-tested programs from urban to rural areas, it is important to identify the modifiable behavioral, social, and environmental factors associated with obesity to ensure the content of effective childhood obesity prevention programs is relevant. Customizing a program to meet the needs of the community may increase reach, engagement, and sustainability. In addition, long-term dissemination of a tailored program may significantly…
Fiction and Emotion: The Puzzle of Divergent Norms
A familiar question in the literature on emotional responses to fiction, originally put forward by Colin Radford, is how such responses can be rational. How can we make sense of pitying Anna Karenina when we know there is no such person? In this paper I argue that contrary to the usual interpretation, the question of rationality has nothing to do with the Paradox of Fiction. Instead, the real problem is why there is a divergence in our normative …
Fill “half your child's plate with fruits and vegetables”: Correlations with food-related practices and the home food environment
Directive and non-directive food-related parenting practices: Associations between an expanded conceptualization of food-related parenting practices and child dietary intake and weight outcomes
Parental role modeling of fruits and vegetables at meals and snacks is associated with children's adequate consumption
Body fat is differentially related to body mass index in U.S.‐born African‐American and East African immigrant girls
Objective: To examine ethnic differences in adiposity at a given body mass index (BMI) in a sample of U.S.‐born African‐American and East African immigrant adolescent girls. Methods: In a sample of black adolescent girls ( n = 79; ages 14–20) we compared measures of adiposity across the range of BMI‐for‐age among 55 U.S.‐born African‐American (mean BMI: 30.4; age: 15.4) and 24 East African immigrant girls (mean BMI: 21.8; age: 16.7). Fat and fat‐…
Family Weight Talk and Dieting: How Much Do They Matter for Body Dissatisfaction and Disordered Eating Behaviors in Adolescent Girls?
The Pleasures of Documentary Tragedy
Two assumptions are common in discussions of the paradox of tragedy: (1) that tragic pleasure requires that the work be fictional or, if non-fiction, then non-transparently represented; and (2) that tragic pleasure may be provoked by a wide variety of art forms. In opposition to (1) I argue that certain documentaries could produce tragic pleasure. This is not to say that any sad or painful documentary could do so. In considering which documentari…
Fictional Characters
If there are no fictional characters, how do we explain thought and discourse apparently about them? If there are, what are they like? A growing number of philosophers claim that fictional characters are abstract objects akin to novels or plots. They argue that postulating characters provides the most straightforward explanation of our literary practices as well as a uniform account of discourse and thought about fiction. Anti-realists counter th…
Disagreement and Deference: Is Diversity of Opinion a Precondition for Thought
Parental role modeling of fruits and vegetables at meals and snacks is associated with children's adequate consumption
Directive and non-directive food-related parenting practices: Associations between an expanded conceptualization of food-related parenting practices and child dietary intake and weight outcomes
Fictional Characters
If there are no fictional characters, how do we explain thought and discourse apparently about them? If there are, what are they like? A growing number of philosophers claim that fictional characters are abstract objects akin to novels or plots. They argue that postulating characters provides the most straightforward explanation of our literary practices as well as a uniform account of discourse and thought about fiction. Anti-realists counter th…
The Pleasures of Documentary Tragedy
Two assumptions are common in discussions of the paradox of tragedy: (1) that tragic pleasure requires that the work be fictional or, if non-fiction, then non-transparently represented; and (2) that tragic pleasure may be provoked by a wide variety of art forms. In opposition to (1) I argue that certain documentaries could produce tragic pleasure. This is not to say that any sad or painful documentary could do so. In considering which documentari…
Fiction and Emotion: The Puzzle of Divergent Norms
A familiar question in the literature on emotional responses to fiction, originally put forward by Colin Radford, is how such responses can be rational. How can we make sense of pitying Anna Karenina when we know there is no such person? In this paper I argue that contrary to the usual interpretation, the question of rationality has nothing to do with the Paradox of Fiction. Instead, the real problem is why there is a divergence in our normative …
Emotion in Fiction: State of the Art
In this paper, I review developments in discussions of fiction and emotion over the last decade concerning both the descriptive question of how to classify fiction-directed emotions and the normative question of how to evaluate those emotions. Although many advances have been made on these topics, a mistaken assumption is still common: that we must hold either that fiction-directed emotions are (empirically or normatively) the same as other emoti…
Associations of parent dietary role modeling with children's diet quality in a rural setting: Baseline data from the NU-Home study
Fill “half your child's plate with fruits and vegetables”: Correlations with food-related practices and the home food environment
The effect of narratives on attitudes toward animal welfare and pro-social behaviour on behalf of animals: Three pre-registered experiments
We report three randomised and pre-registered experiments examining the effects of narrative fiction (vs. narrative non-fiction vs. expository non-fiction) on concern for animal welfare. In Experiment 1a (N = 363) there was no significant increase in concern for animal welfare or willingness to donate to an animal charity among participants who read a narrative fiction text about a monkey's plight (vs. narrative non-fiction or expository non-fict…
Disagreement and Deference: Is Diversity of Opinion a Precondition for Thought
The Pleasures of Documentary Tragedy
Two assumptions are common in discussions of the paradox of tragedy: (1) that tragic pleasure requires that the work be fictional or, if non-fiction, then non-transparently represented; and (2) that tragic pleasure may be provoked by a wide variety of art forms. In opposition to (1) I argue that certain documentaries could produce tragic pleasure. This is not to say that any sad or painful documentary could do so. In considering which documentari…
Fictional Characters
If there are no fictional characters, how do we explain thought and discourse apparently about them? If there are, what are they like? A growing number of philosophers claim that fictional characters are abstract objects akin to novels or plots. They argue that postulating characters provides the most straightforward explanation of our literary practices as well as a uniform account of discourse and thought about fiction. Anti-realists counter th…
Family Weight Talk and Dieting: How Much Do They Matter for Body Dissatisfaction and Disordered Eating Behaviors in Adolescent Girls?
Body fat is differentially related to body mass index in U.S.‐born African‐American and East African immigrant girls
Objective: To examine ethnic differences in adiposity at a given body mass index (BMI) in a sample of U.S.‐born African‐American and East African immigrant adolescent girls. Methods: In a sample of black adolescent girls ( n = 79; ages 14–20) we compared measures of adiposity across the range of BMI‐for‐age among 55 U.S.‐born African‐American (mean BMI: 30.4; age: 15.4) and 24 East African immigrant girls (mean BMI: 21.8; age: 16.7). Fat and fat‐…
Parental role modeling of fruits and vegetables at meals and snacks is associated with children's adequate consumption
Directive and non-directive food-related parenting practices: Associations between an expanded conceptualization of food-related parenting practices and child dietary intake and weight outcomes
Fill “half your child's plate with fruits and vegetables”: Correlations with food-related practices and the home food environment
Fiction and Emotion: The Puzzle of Divergent Norms
A familiar question in the literature on emotional responses to fiction, originally put forward by Colin Radford, is how such responses can be rational. How can we make sense of pitying Anna Karenina when we know there is no such person? In this paper I argue that contrary to the usual interpretation, the question of rationality has nothing to do with the Paradox of Fiction. Instead, the real problem is why there is a divergence in our normative …
Reading Fictional Narratives to Improve Social and Moral Cognition: The Influence of Narrative Perspective, Transportation, and Identification
There is a long tradition in philosophy and literary criticism of belief in the social and moral benefits of exposure to fiction, and recent empirical work has examined some of these claims. However, little of this research has addressed the textual features responsible for the hypothesized cognitive effects. We present two experiments examining whether readers’ social and moral cognition are influenced by the perspective from which a narrative i…
Falsehoods in film: Documentary vs fiction
I claim that we should reject a sharp distinction between fiction and non-fiction according to which documentary is a faithful representation of the facts, whilst fiction films merely invite us to imagine what is made up. Instead, we should think of fiction and non-fiction as genres: categories whose membership is determined by a combination of non-essential features and which influence appreciation in a variety of ways. An objection to this appr…
Family-focused obesity prevention program implementation in urban versus rural communities: A case study
When adapting research-tested programs from urban to rural areas, it is important to identify the modifiable behavioral, social, and environmental factors associated with obesity to ensure the content of effective childhood obesity prevention programs is relevant. Customizing a program to meet the needs of the community may increase reach, engagement, and sustainability. In addition, long-term dissemination of a tailored program may significantly…
Are patterns of family evening meal practices associated with child and parent diet quality and weight-related outcomes
Associations of parent dietary role modeling with children's diet quality in a rural setting: Baseline data from the NU-Home study
The effect of narratives on attitudes toward animal welfare and pro-social behaviour on behalf of animals: Three pre-registered experiments
We report three randomised and pre-registered experiments examining the effects of narrative fiction (vs. narrative non-fiction vs. expository non-fiction) on concern for animal welfare. In Experiment 1a (N = 363) there was no significant increase in concern for animal welfare or willingness to donate to an animal charity among participants who read a narrative fiction text about a monkey's plight (vs. narrative non-fiction or expository non-fict…
Emotion in Fiction: State of the Art
In this paper, I review developments in discussions of fiction and emotion over the last decade concerning both the descriptive question of how to classify fiction-directed emotions and the normative question of how to evaluate those emotions. Although many advances have been made on these topics, a mistaken assumption is still common: that we must hold either that fiction-directed emotions are (empirically or normatively) the same as other emoti…
Opening the closed mind? Effects of reading literary fiction on need for closure and creativity
Although philosophers have long claimed that reading fiction has the potential to improve imaginative capacities, empirical evidence on this topic is limited. We report an experiment that aims to conceptually replicate and extend previous work by Djikic and colleagues by testing whether reading literary fiction reduces the need for closure, and by testing for the first time whether it enhances openness to experience, cognitive complexity, imagina…
Insights Into Rural Youth Physical Activity: The Role of Micro- and Macro-Level Environments
Further research is warranted to explore if expanding access to PA equipment and infrastructure supports mitigates inactivity in rural youth
Chatbot-fictionalism and empathetic AI: Should we worry about AI when AI worries about us
We focus on recent proposals to interpret interactions with empathetic AI systems as games of make-believe, analogous to our engagement with fictions. Chatbots are increasingly designed to detect and emulate emotional nuance, resembling real human interactions. These applications have raised ethical concerns. Critics focus on the potentially harmful effects of people’s tendency to anthropomorphize the chatbots – to respond to them as if they were…
Psychology (10 works) · Medicine (9 works) · Obesity, Physical Activity, Diet (9 works) · Demography (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Art (6 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Environmental health (6 works) · Literature (6 works) · Linguistics (5 works)