Hierarchy in the Library: Egalitarian Dynamics in Victorian Novels
نویسنده
چکیده
The current research investigated the psychological differences between protagonists and antagonists in literature and the impact of these differences on readers. It was hypothesized that protagonists would embody cooperative motives and behaviors that are valued by egalitarian hunter-gatherers groups, whereas antagonists would demonstrate status-seeking and dominance behaviors that are stigmatized in such groups. This hypothesis was tested with an online questionnaire listing characters from 201 canonical British novels of the longer nineteenth century. 519 respondents generated 1470 protocols on 435 characters. Respondents identified the characters as protagonists, antagonists, or minor characters, judged the characters’ motives according to human life history theory, rated the characters’ traits according to the five-factor model of personality, and specified their own emotional responses to the characters on categories adapted from Ekman’s seven basic emotions. As expected, antagonists are motivated almost exclusively by the desire for social dominance, their personality traits correspond to this motive, and they elicit strongly negative emotional responses from readers. Protagonists are oriented to cooperative and affiliative behavior and elicit positive emotional responses from readers. Novels therefore apparently enable readers to participate vicariously in an egalitarian social dynamic like that found in hunter-gatherer societies. We infer that agonistic structure in novels simulates social behaviors that fulfill an adaptive social function and perhaps stimulates impulses toward these behaviors in real life.
منابع مشابه
Science and scientists in Victorian and Edwardian literary novels: insights into the emergence of a new profession.
Literary fiction has seldom been seriously considered as a mode of science communication. Here, I review novels from the 19th century canon of English literature in which characters either have, or aspire to have, substantive professional scientific roles to see what insights they provide into the practice of science in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. They reflect the historical transition of...
متن کاملPhase transition from egalitarian to hierarchical societies driven by competition between cognitive and social constraints
Empirical evidence suggests that social structure may have changed from hierarchical to egalitarian and back along the evolutionary line of humans. We model a society subject to competing cognitive and social navigation constraints. The theory predicts that the degree of hierarchy decreases with encephalization and increases with group size. Hence hominin groups may have been driven from a phas...
متن کاملThe effect of developing the dynamics of library software system on information security management (Case study: Libraries of Islamic Azad universities of the country)
Background and Objective: Information security is of vital importance in most organizations. This is especially central in academic libraries due to the specific type of visitors, exchange and transfer of information to the users. Thus, the purpose is to investigate the relationship of the development of library software and information security management in the libraries of Islamic Azad Uni...
متن کاملThe exploitation of “Grade of Membership (GoM) model” and “Combined Analysis method” in analysing of urban dynamics and urban hierarchy in Khorasan region (1956-2016)
Concerning the importance of urban network studies and the role of hierarchy system in population decentralization in metropolitan areas, this paper by using acknowledged indicators and Grade of Membership (GoM) model and using Combined Analysis method has tried to find the changes in urban hierarchy of Khorasan region during the period 1956-2016. The outcomes show that urban system in Khorasan...
متن کامل