Sympathy and Fascination
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4159382 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Katherine Tullmann (0000-0002-0282-1377, Union College, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 56 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 115-129 |
| Publication date | 2016-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The British Journal of Aesthetics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-0904 • E-ISSN: 1468-2842 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/aesthj/ayw003 |
| OpenAlex | W2513747144 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
Why do we form strong emotional attachments to unlikeable and immoral characters during our engagements with fictions? These pro-attitudes persist even as we realize that we would loathe these people if we were to encounter them in real-life. In this paper, I explore the implications of the sympathy for the devil phenomenon. I begin by considering several popular explanations, including simulation, aesthetic distancing, pre-focusing, and the ‘best of all characters’. I conclude that each one is inadequate. I then propose my own explanation of the phenomenon, the fascinated attention approach
Aesthetics · Art · Psychoanalysis · Sympathy · Psychology · Social Psychology
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,25 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2022 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |