10.2357/ REAL-2021-0002 J aN a lber Literature as Identity Laboratory Storyworld Possible Selves and Boundary Expansions Literature has many values because it serves a wide variety of different functions Among other things, it provides knowledge of distant times and places, and it enhances our understanding of other minds and emotions In addition, literature invites us to exercise our evaluative and ethical dispositions, and it provides training in ideological complications Furthermore, literature enables us to examine alternatives to the status quo, and it sometimes even urges us to conceptualise physical, logical, and human impossibilities Finally, literature often involves defamiliarising effects: It takes us out of our automated perceptions and thus creates new perspectives on the world 1 In this paper, I will zoom in on the cognitive functions of literature 2 I am interested in the complex interaction between the mental and bodily processes that recipients undergo on the one hand, and literature on the other 3 More 1 For an overview of the functions that are listed here, see Rüdiger Ahrens/ Laurenz Volkmann, eds , Why Literature Matters: Theories and Functions of Literature (Heidelberg: Winter, 1996); Marion Gymnich/ Ansgar Nünning, eds , Funktionen von Literatur: Theoretische Grundlagen und Modellinterpretationen (Trier: WVT, 2005); as well as Jan Alber et al , eds , Why Study Literature? (Aarhus: Aarhus UP, 2011) 2 I am of course not the first person to address the cognitive functions of literature. My research builds on the following work on cognitive literary studies: Monika Fludernik, Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology (London/ New York: Routledge, 1996); Manfred Jahn, “Frames, Preferences, and the Reading of Third-Person Narratives: Towards a Cognitive Narratology,” Poetics Today 18 4 (1997), 441-468; Peter Stockwell, Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction (London: Routledge, 2002); Alan Palmer, Fictional Minds (Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2004); Lisa Zunshine, Why We Read Fiction (Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2004); Alan Palmer, Social Minds in the Novel (Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2010); Monika Fludernik, “Narratology in the 21st Century: The Cognitive Approach to Narrative,” PMLA 125 4 (2010), 924-930; David Herman, Storytelling and the Sciences of Mind (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2013); and Vera Nünning, Reading Fictions, Changing Minds: The Cognitive Value of Fiction (Heidelberg: Winter, 2014) 3 Like Karin Kukkonen and Marco Caracciolo, I conceptualise the relationship between our bodies and our minds in terms of reciprocity In other words, I foreground the embodiment of mental processes and their extension into the world through material artefacts and cultural practices I am primarily interested in practical engagements regarding the question of ‘what it is like’ to have an experience through a dynamic un- 58 J aN a lber 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0002 specifically, I want to address how readers relate to literature on the basis of their cognitive architectures, while also paying attention to the question of how literature influences them in return. 4 In Oneself as Another (1990), Paul Ricoeur defines literature as “a vast laboratory for thought experiments.” 5 I want to build on this idea by arguing that literature also serves as an identity laboratory, i e as a platform that enables us to experiment with our identities and to experience boundary expansions and self-modifications. This paper was inspired by the concept of the storyworld possible self (SPS), which was developed by María-Ángeles Martínez 6 In short, Martínez argues that readers address alternative identities by relating to fictional characters in specific ways. 7 According to her, recipients blend their self-concepts with the perceived attributes of characters, thus creating what she calls “storyworld possible selves (SPSs) ” 8 These alternative selves or SPSs enable us to try out other identities and ways of dealing with the world, and they have an effect on us We can, for example, use them in the context of artistically motivated forms of self-transformation Regarding the underlying motivaderstanding of literature based on our sensorimotor skills See Karin Kukkonen/ Marco Caracciolo, “Introduction: What is the ‘Second Generation’? ,” Style 48 3 (2014), 261-274; Jan Alber et al , “Introduction: Unnatural and Cognitive Perspectives on Narrative,” Poetics Today 39 3 (2018), 429-445; and Jan Alber, “Logical Contradictions, Possible-Worlds Theory, and the Embodied Mind,” Possible-Worlds Theory and Contemporary Narratology, eds Alice Bell/ Marie-Laure Ryan (Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2019), 157-176 4 On the question of what literature does to readers and/ or their self-concepts, see David S Miall/ Don Kuiken, “A Feeling for Fiction: Becoming What We Behold,” Poetics 30 4 (2002), 221-241; Don Kuiken/ David S Miall/ Shelley Sikora, “Forms of Self Implication in Literary Reading,” Poetics Today 25 2 (2004), 171-203; Raymond A Mar/ Keith Oatley, “The Function of Fiction is the Abstraction and Simulation of Social Experience,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 3 3 (2008), 173-192; Marc Sestir/ Melanie C Green, “You Are Who You Watch: Identification and Transportation Effects on Temporary Self-Concept,” Social Influence 5 4 (2010), 272-288; Raymond A Mar/ Joan Peskin/ Katrina Fong, “Literary Arts and the Development of the Life Story,” New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development 131 (2011), 73-84; David S Miall, “Emotions and the Structuring of Narrative Responses,” Poetics Today 32 2 (2011), 323-348; David Comer Kidd/ Emanuele Castano, “Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind,” Science 342 (2013), 377-380; Tobias Richter/ Markus Appel/ Frank Calio, “Stories Can Influence the Self-Concept,” Social Influence 9 (2014), 172-188; and Ansgar Nünning/ Vera Nünning, “How to Stay Healthy and Foster Well-Being with Narratives, or: Where Narratology and Salutogenesis Could Meet,” How to Do Things with Narrative: Cognitive and Diachronic Perspectives, eds Jan Alber/ Greta Olson (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017), 157-186 5 Paul Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, (1990; Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1992), 148 6 See María-Ángeles Martínez, “Storyworld Possible Selves and the Phenomenon of Narrative Immersion: Testing a New Theoretical Construct,” Narrative 22 1 (2014), 110-131; and María-Ángeles Martínez, Storyworld Possible Selves (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018) 7 Martínez, Storyworld Possible Selves, 123-133 8 Martínez, “Storyworld Possible Selves,” 119 Literature as Identity Laboratory 59 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0002 tions, the media psychologist Michael D Slater and his colleagues state that the identification with fictional characters provides “a means individuals may use for temporary relief from the task of self-regulation and from the limitations of individual personal and social identities ” 9 They argue that such boundary expansions are inspired by an interest in “autonomy, agency, and affiliation that cannot be entirely satisfied within the confines of the personal and social self ” 10 In what follows, I will explain Martínez’ approach, which is based on cognitive psychology, cognitive linguistics, and possible-worlds theory, in greater detail. To begin with, the concepts of empathy and identification play an important role for her The term ‘empathy’ is usually used to refer to a simulative mechanism that involves the attempt to understand others by putting ourselves into their shoes 11 It is a more intense reaction compared to ‘sympathy’ where we remain in our own shoes and only support the ideas or actions of someone else from our perspectives 12 The phenomenon of ‘identification’ is even more intense than empathy because it involves a loss of self-awareness 13 In the words of Jonathan Cohen, the term denotes the mechanism through which audience members experience literature “as if the events were happening to them ” 14 Indeed, according to Juan-José Igartua, identification is a “construct with at least two dimensions: empathy (cognitive and emotional) 9 Michael D Slater et al , “Temporarily Expanding the Boundaries of the Self: Motivations for Entering the Story World and Implications for Narrative Effects,” Journal of Communication 64 3 (2014), 439 10 Ibid , 446 11 See Eva Maria Koopman/ Michelle Hilscher/ Gerald C Cupchik, “Reader Responses to Literary Depictions of Rape,” Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 6 1 (2012), 66-73; Eva Maria Koopman/ Frank Hakemulder, “Effects of Literature on Empathy and Self-Reflection: A Theoretical-Empirical Framework,” Journal of Literary Theory 9 1 (2015), 79-111; and Eva Maria Koopman, Reading Suffering: An Empirical Inquiry into Empathic and Reflective Responses to Literary Narratives (Rotterdam: ERMeCC, 2016) 12 See Keith Oatley, “Meetings of Minds: Dialogue, Sympathy, and Identification in Reading Fiction,” Poetics 26 (1999), 439-454 13 On identification, see e.g. Keith Oatley, “A Taxonomy of the Emotions of Literary Response and a Theory of Identification in Fictional Narrative,” Poetics 23 (1994), 53-74; Gerald C. Cupchik, “Identification as a Basic Problem for Aesthetic Reception,” The Systemic and Empirical Approach to Literature and Culture as Theory and Application, eds Tötösy de Zepetnek et al (Edmonton: U of Alberta P, 1997), 11-22; and Maria Kotovych et al., “Textual Determinants of a Component of Literary Identification,” Scientific Study of Literature 1 2 (2011), 260-291 14 Jonathan Cohen, “Defining Identification: A Theoretical Look at the Identification of Audiences with Media Characters,” Mass Communication and Society 4 (2001), 245 60 J aN a lber 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0002 and the sensation of becoming the character, or merging ” 15 In this context, it is perhaps worth noting that etymologically speaking, ‘identification’ may be translated from Latin as ‘making oneself the same as someone or something ’ For instance, many readers and film viewers identify with the figure of Harry Potter who is treated rather condescendingly by his stepparents, the Dursleys, but then turns out to be an important wizard who can fight the evil Lord Voldemort. What makes the figure of Harry Potter so attractive for readers? And what exactly happens when we identify with a fictional character? The neuroscientist Daniel L Ames and his colleagues have used fMRIs to demonstrate that conscious attempts to adopt another person’s perspective activate the brain regions that are typically engaged in self-referential thought Furthermore, they show that forms of strong alignment between the test person and the perspective of someone else lead to “a blurring of the distinction between self and other ” 16 Along similar lines, the social psychologist Jason P Mitchell writes that perceivers can use their own mental states as proxies for other minds […] We might imagine experiencing the same constellation of events, predict what we ourselves would subsequently think and feel, and infer that another person would experience roughly the same states 17 This kind of research confirms the metaphor of ontological crossing, which plays a central role in cases of absorption (or immersion), i e the subjective impression of being transported from the actual world into an alternative possible world which one then inhabits and experiences Richard Gerrig, for instance, argues that recipients are metaphorically transported into fictional worlds by engaging in participatory responses to the narrative 18 An extreme 15 Juan-José Igartua, “Identification with Characters and Narrative Persuasion through Fictional Feature Films,” Communications 35 4 (2010), 349 16 Daniel L Ames et al , “Taking Another Person’s Perspective Increases Self-Referential Neural Processing,” Psychological Science 19 7 (2008), 643 17 Jason P Mitchell, “Inferences about Mental States,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (Biological Sciences) 364 1521 (2009), 1310 18 Richard J Gerrig, Experiencing Narrative Worlds: On the Psychological Activities of Reading (New Haven: Yale UP, 1993) On absorption, see also Melanie C Green/ Timothy C Brock/ Geoff F Kaufman, “Understanding Media Enjoyment: The Role of Transportation into Narrative Worlds,” Communication Theory 14 4 (2004), 311-327; Jean-Marie Schaeffer/ Ioana Vultur, “Immersion,” Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, eds David Herman et al (London: Routledge, 2005), 237-239; Rick Busselle/ Helena Bilandzic, “Measuring Narrative Engagement,” Media Psychology 12 (2009), 321-347; Moniek Kuijpers et al , “Exploring Absorbing Reading Experiences: Developing and Validating a Self-Report Scale to Measure Story World Absorption,” Scientific Study of Literature Literature as Identity Laboratory 61 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0002 case of ontological crossing occurs in computer games such as Doom 19 (1993) or Call of Duty 20 (2003) in which a real-world player assumes the role of a game-internal character (namely the first-person shooter) who then becomes the player’s avatar Although we cannot directly influence the attributes or actions of the target characters, we still experience an overlap between self and other when we read literature: Readers blend their self-concepts with the perceived attributes of the characters Indeed, the media psychologist Christoph Klimmt and his colleagues have shown that recipients who identify with James Bond […] experience - for the moment of exposure - that they are James Bond This means that they ascribe Bond’s salient properties […] to themselves For most people, their image of themselves under the condition of identification with James Bond would differ substantially from their usual self-image. 21 One might thus argue that identification involves the blending of features. But what exactly does ‘to blend’ mean in this context? Mark Turner explains the process of blending by pointing out that “cognitively modern human beings have a remarkable, species-defining ability to pluck forbidden mental fruit - that is, to activate two conflicting mental structures […] [such as tree and person, J A ] and to blend them creatively into a new mental structure […] [such as speaking tree, J A ] ” 22 In a similar way, we can blend our self-concepts with fictional characters that then serve as model persons for new experiences. Since we can leave fictional narratives at any point, they are ideal environments to try out new roles and types of behaviour without facing the risks we usually face in real-life situations The computer games Doom and Call of Duty, for instance, enable real-world players to shoot fictional characters without ever facing the danger of being shot themselves The players remain safe at their desks in the real world They experience a merging of self and other that enables them to experience what someone else is experiencing while simultaneously maintaining a sense of their own selves Through the phenomenon of metonymic immersion (which concerns the fact that we are only partly absorbed because we can interrupt 4 1 (2014), 89-122; and Markus Appel et al , “The Transportation Scale-Short Form (TS- SF),” Media Psychology 18 2 (2015), 243-266 19 DOOM, devs John Carmack/ John Romero (id softare, 1993) 20 Call of Duty, dev. Infinity Ward (Activision, 2003). 21 Christoph Klimmt/ Dorothee Hefner/ Peter Vorderer, “The Video Game Experience as ‘True’ Identification: A Theory of Enjoyable Alterations of Players’ Self-Perception,” Communication Theory 19 4 (2009), 356 22 Mark Turner, “Double-Scope Stories,” Narrative Theory and the Cognitive Sciences, ed David Herman (Stanford, CA: CSLI, 2003), 117 62 J aN a lber 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0002 the process of immersion at any point), fictional narratives are perfect platforms for experiments with identities, boundary expansions, and self-transformations To shed more light on the process of identification with fictional characters, I would like to introduce the notion of the self-concept The social psychologist Hazel R Markus argues that the self-concept is a complex mental structure which consists of two types of interrelated networks, namely self-schemata on the one hand, and possible selves on the other While self-schemata concern what we think we are in a social sense, possible selves closely correlate with what we could be or become at some point (including what we desire and fear). Markus defines self-schemata as “cognitive generalizations about the self” which are “derived from past experiences ” In addition, they “organize and guide the processing of the self-related information contained in individuals’ social experience ” 23 Self-schemata have been confirmed by our experiences and function as self-perceived category memberships for oneself They include physical characteristics, psychological predispositions, social and professional roles, gender, ethnicity, ideological beliefs, skills, particular interests, and hobbies Possible selves, by contrast, represent individuals’ ideas of what they might become, what they would like to become, and what they are afraid of becoming, and thus provide a conceptual link between cognition and motivation […] They function as incentives for future behavior […] and they provide an evaluative and interpretive context for the current view of self 24 Possible selves have not been confirmed by social experience and include desired options (such as the loved and admired self, the successful self, the good-looking self, or the self you ought to be) but also dreaded options (such as the lonely self, the incompetent self, the depressed self, the unemployed self, or the criminal self) Possible selves are usually private and sometimes even repressed, particularly when they involve socially condemned behaviour such as infidelity, promiscuity, jealousy, hatred, revenge, irresponsibility, or other forms of norm breaking However, these hidden possible selves can be tried out within the safe simulation environment that literature provides It is in fact the permanent interaction between our self-schemata and our possible selves that determines our identities, i e our perception, our emotions, and our motivations The immediate effects of this interaction are 23 Hazel R Markus, “Self-Schemata and Processing Information about the Self,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 35 2 (1977), 63 24 Hazel R Markus/ Paul Nurius, “Possible Selves,” American Psychologist 41 (1986), 954 Literature as Identity Laboratory 63 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0002 usually of course only temporary ones and concern what one might call the working self-concept, but if the intensity of one’s exposure to these alternative models is increased, they may eventually become more permanent and reach the deeply ingrained core self-schemata Martínez argues that we can test and potentially reconfigure our identities by relating ourselves to fictional characters in specific ways. According to her, the blends between our self-concepts and the perceived attributes of a narrative’s central experiencer may result in different storyworld possible selves (SPSs), which she defines as “imaginings of the self in storyworlds.” 25 The creation of SPSs is of course highly subjective and differs from recipient to recipient Nevertheless, one can distinguish between four central types of SPSs To begin with, in cases of self-schema SPSs, we identify with a character because we consider this figure to be similar to ourselves. In such cases, the experience of boundary expansion is minimal or perhaps even non-existent Martínez argues that readers are “willingly involved in self-schema matches with a focalizer, so that, while sharing this character’s experiences in the simulated situation, [they] will prime opportunities for behavioral training in the self-schema domain ” 26 For instance, as professors of English literature we might fuse our self-schemata with characters such as Philip Swallow, Morris Zapp, Sybil Maiden, or Fulvia Morgana in campus novels like David Lodge’s Changing Places (1975) or Small World (1984) because we consider these academics to be as ordinary, square, nerdy, boring, or idiosyncratic as we think we are I would like to speculate that realist, modernist, and what one might call post-postmodernist types of literature often trigger the creation of self-schema SPSs as well Although there is a high degree of overlap between our self-schemata and the character traits in such cases, we can train ourselves in the self-schema domain through such blends Second, desired self SPSs involve fusions between our possible selves and characters that possess traits we wish for In such cases, we engage in forms of wishful identification and we do experience a certain degree of boundary expansion The recipient assumes the identity of someone whose bodily appearance or psychological set-up is radically different from her or his and uses the SPS to imagine having characteristics or predispositions that he or she would like to have For example, certain readers like to experience the world from the perspective of James Bond because they would in fact enjoy being as courageous, cool, good-looking, charismatic, or polygamous as 007 is, while others perhaps want to be able to rebel against patriarchal ideology 25 Martínez, “Storyworld Possible Selves,” 119 26 Ibid , 122 64 J aN a lber 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0002 in the manner of Sophie Fevvers, the central protagonist of Angela Carter’s postmodernist Nights at the Circus (1984): Fevvers is a fabulous bird-woman and moves away from the unhealthy Victorian ideal of femininity towards a spectacle of bodily presence, eroticism, appetite, autonomy, and self-determination. Depending on one’s specific desires and dreams, the characters in medieval romances, fantasy novels, super-hero stories, and science-fiction narratives may also trigger the creation of desired self SPSs Third, feared self SPSs involve blends between our possible selves and figures that display features that we dread The characters in question might be lonely, incompetent, unemployed, victimised, psychologically deranged, or perverse Interestingly, these features do not seem to prevent us from blending our possible selves with their attributes Indeed, Martínez points out that “we frequently feel irresistibly attracted by focalizers on the verge of social exclusion ” 27 Similarly, Guan Soon Khoo speaks of the paradoxical pleasures of tragedy and illustrates that we often identify with tragic heroes such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Macbeth although we do not want to be like them at all 28 Michael D Slater and his colleagues also show that recipients frequently choose grim stories to “immerse themselves in […] uncomfortable thoughts and feelings ” 29 Readers might, for instance, fuse their possible selves with Winston Smith, the central protagonist of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty- Four (1949), to create a feared self SPS Throughout this dystopian novel, Winston Smith feels suppressed by the telescreens, the system of doublethink, the language Newspeak, and the Anti-Sex League Later on, he is tortured by O’Brien inside the Ministry of Truth until he states that he believes that 2 + 2 = 5 if that is what the Party wants him to believe Even though most of us clearly do not want to share the fate of Winston Smith, it can be instructive to experience ‘what it is like’ to live in a totalitarian system like Oceania The creation of such SPSs might be motivated by our curiosity regarding the less fortunate, by our interest to prevent the development of certain possible selves, or simply by what Slater and his colleagues call “a release from the experience of the personal self ” 30 Other figures that prompt the creation of feared self SPSs are characters that suffer from psychophysical disturbances (such as Septimus Warren Smith in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway [1925] or the first-person narrator of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” [1892]) as well as openly perverse figures like Humbert Humbert, the 27 Ibid , 124 28 Guan Soon Khoo, “Contemplating Tragedy Raises Gratifications and Fosters Self-Acceptance,” Human Communication Research 42 (2016), 271 29 Slater, “Temporarily Expanding,” 444 30 Ibid Literature as Identity Laboratory 65 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0002 paedophile narrator of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955); Hannibal Lecter, the cannibalistic serial killer in Thomas Harris’s novels Red Dragon (1981), Silence of the Lambs (1988), Hannibal (1999), and Hannibal Rising (2006); or Patrick Bateman, the sadist and misogynist narrator of Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho (1991) In the case of past self SPSs, finally, a character reminds us of one of our past selves and we blend our understanding of this former identity and the character construct What Martínez has in mind here are self-schemata that used to play a role in the past and have fed into our present selves Examples are the good student self, the bullied teenage self, or the holiday happy self Such SPSs enable us to share the character’s emotions, but also, and more importantly, to relive our own Compared to the creation of desired or feared self SPSs, the experience of boundary expansion is probably slightly less intense because we partly relive one of our past selves in these kinds of SPSs One reason why so many readers identify with Harry Potter might be that the condescending way in which his stepparents, the Dursleys, treat Harry Potter reminds them of their own neglected childhood self I am relatively certain that many of us feel that our parents did not recognise our true potential either, but then we managed to outgrow them - maybe not by going to Hogwarts to become the most important wizard in the world, but perhaps by going to university to work on a PhD or to do important intellectual or academic work According to Martínez, our emotional involvement through the creation of SPSs does not only concern the experiences of the characters but also their influence on us: Our emotional reactions are not “derived exclusively from empathic concern with the focalizer, but also from dynamic processes of self-schema modification.” 31 In other words, SPSs do not only touch us emotionally because we put ourselves into the shoes of others and experience what they experience, but also because they challenge and potentially transform our self-schemata Martínez’s concept of the storyworld possible self does not really enable us to generate new readings or interpretations (which I consider to be a relatively superfluous endeavour given that so many interpretations already exist anyway) Her concept rather calls for an empirical investigation of the question of how flesh-and-blood readers relate to fictional characters Such empirical investigations are important because cognitive scholars frequently talk about the question of how readers respond to fictional narratives, but they usually simply equate their own intuitions and speculations with readers as such 31 Martínez, “Storyworld Possible Selves,” 121 66 J aN a lber 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0002 Like Wolfgang Iser (who speaks for the so-called ‘implied reader’ 32 ) and Jim Phelan (who equates his readings with the so-called ‘authorial audience’ and also talks about what the ‘actual audience’ does 33 ), cognitive scholars typically rely upon hypothetical reader constructs that are based on their own reading experiences, and from my perspective, this method is not very instructive because it lacks in terms of generalisability 34 Martínez, by contrast, takes the individual reading experience into consideration She argues that SPSs allow us to study narrative engagement from “an individual standpoint” since they contain features that are “derived from personal, individual experience ” 35 I would like to end this article by proposing two empirical experiments that deal with SPSs In the context of empirical experiments, participants are typically presented with one or several textual passages which they are asked to read, while their reactions are measured One usually compares the effects of at least two conditions These conditions might have to do with different textual features, different reading groups, or different contexts of reception - depending on what one wishes to measure 36 To begin with, I want to determine whether certain groups of readers feel drawn to certain SPSs In this context, I would thus like to test the following four hypotheses: H1: Readers who are happy with their lives experience the highest degree of identification when they create self-schema SPSs. H2: Readers who suffer from stress or uncertainties experience the highest degree of identification when they create desired self SPSs. 32 See Wolfgang Iser, The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response (London: Routledge/ Kegan Paul, 1978) 33 See James Phelan, Experiencing Fiction: Judgments, Progressions, and the Rhetorical Theory of Narrative (Columbus: The Ohio State UP, 2007) 34 Jan Alber, “Rhetorical Ways of Covering Up Speculations and Hypotheses, or Why Empirical Investigations of Real Readers Matter,” Style 51 1-2 (2018), 34-39 35 Martínez, Storyworld Possible Selves, 23 36 On empirical literary studies, see Marisa Bortolussi/ Peter Dixon, Psychonarratology: Foundations for the Empirical Study of Literary Response (Cambridge: CUP, 2003); David S Miall, Literary Reading: Empirical and Theoretical Studies (New York: Peter Lang, 2006); Marisa Bortolussi/ Peter Dixon, “The Scientific Study of Literature: What Can, Has, and Should Be Done,” Scientific Study of Literature 1 1 (2011), 59-71; Willie van Peer et al , Scientific Methods for the Humanities (Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2012); Gerhard Lauer, “Introduction: Empirical Methods in Literary Studies,” Journal of Literary Theory 9 1 (2015), 1-3; Marisa Bortolussi/ Peter Dixon/ Roy Sommer, “Introduction: Empirical Approaches to Narrative,” Diegesis 5 1 (2016), 1-3; Jan Alber/ Caroline Kutsch/ Sven Strasen, “Empirical Literary Studies,” Methods of Textual Analysis in Literary Studies, eds Vera Nünning/ Ansgar Nünning (Trier: WVT, 2020), 273-296; and Jan Alber/ Sven Strasen, eds , Empirical Literary Studies, special issue of Anglistik 31 1 (2020) Literature as Identity Laboratory 67 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0002 H3: Readers who are bored with their lives experience the highest degree of identification when they create feared self SPSs. H4: Readers who like to reminisce about the past experience the highest degree of identification when they create past self SPSs. In order to test these hypotheses, I will have to determine different clusters of readers (for the sake of simplicity, I will call them happy, stressed, bored, and nostalgic-sentimental readers) This can be done by using a questionnaire that includes statements about the readers’ current self-schemata (such as “my current life has a clear sense of purpose,” “it is difficult for me to relax,” “I wish my life was more exciting,” or “I frequently engage in daydreams about the past”) followed by a seven-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (= totally agree) to 7 (= totally disagree) 37 I would then use a within-subjects design and confront the participants with four textual passages that invite them to create a self-schema, a desired self, a feared self, and a past self SPS respectively Next, I would use the identification scale developed by Igartua to measure the subjectively perceived degree of identification. 38 In a third and final step, I would compare the reader profiles with the degrees of identification in the four cases My second experiment concerns the degree of boundary expansion that readers experience when they create different SPSs Here is the hypothesis that I would like to test: H5: Readers will experience the highest degree of boundary expansion when they create feared self SPSs (followed by desired self and then past self SPSs) The creation of self-schema SPSs, by contrast, will involve a rather low degree of boundary expansion Again, I would use a within-subjects design and confront the participants with four textual passages that invite them to create a self-schema, a desired self, a feared self, and a past self SPS respectively Next, I would use the boundary expansion scale developed by Benjamin K Johnson et al in 2016 to measure the subjectively perceived degree of boundary expan- 37 This questionnaire could, for instance, be based on the following investigations and scales: Ed Diener et al , “The Satisfaction with Life Scale,” Journal of Personality Assessment 49 (1985), 71-75; Eunkook Mark Suh/ Ed Diener/ Frank Fujita, “Events and Subjective Well-Being: Only Recent Events Matter,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70 5 (1996), 1091-1102; and Michael F Steger et al , “The Meaning in Life Questionnaire: Assessing the Presence of and Search for Meaning in Life,” Journal of Counseling Psychology 53 (2006), 80-93 38 Igartua, “Identification,” 356. 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0002 68 J aN a lber sion in the four cases 39 One could then also try to connect the two experiments to determine which groups of readers are particularly interested in boundary expansions My intuition would be that it is primarily readers who wish to transcend their current lives because they feel stressed or bored (followed by the nostalgic-sentimental group that likes to re-experience or live in the past) Martínez does not only enable us to see literature as an identity laboratory in which people engage in various experiments with their self-schemata and possible selves She also paves the way towards empirical investigations of what exactly real readers do within this identity laboratory It seems to me that - as cognitive scholars of literature - we should accept this challenge and finally move beyond hypothetical reader constructs by investigating actual flesh-and-blood readers and the ways in which they deal with literature in greater detail Works Cited Ahrens, Rüdiger/ Laurenz Volkmann, eds Why Literature Matters: Theories and Functions of Literature. Heidelberg: Winter, 1996 Alber, Jan “Rhetorical Ways of Covering Up Speculations and Hypotheses, or Why Empirical Investigations of Real Readers Matter ” Style 51 1-2 (2018), 34-39 --- “Logical Contradictions, Possible-Worlds Theory, and the Embodied Mind ” Possible-Worlds Theory and Contemporary Narratology Eds Alice Bell/ Marie-Laure Ryan Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2019, 157-176 Alber, Jan/ Marco Caracciolo/ Stefan Iversen/ Karin Kukkonen/ Henrik Skov Nielsen “Introduction: Unnatural and Cognitive Perspectives on Narrative ” Poetics Today 39 3 (2018), 429-445 Alber, Jan/ Stefan Iversen/ Louise Brix Jacobsen/ Rikke Andersen Kraglund/ Henrik Skov Nielsen/ Camilla Møhring Reestorff, eds Why Study Literature? Aarhus: Aarhus UP, 2011 Alber, Jan/ Caroline Kutsch/ Sven Strasen “Empirical Literary Studies ” Methods of Textual Analysis in Literary Studies eds Vera Nünning/ Ansgar Nünning Trier: WVT, 2020, 273- 296 Alber, Jan/ Sven Strasen, eds Empirical Literary Studies, special issue of Anglistik 31 1 (2020) Ames, Daniel L / Adrianna C Jenkins/ Mahzarin R Banaji/ Jason P Mitchell “Taking Another Person’s Perspective Increases Self-Referential Neural Processing ” Psychological Science 19 7 (2008), 642-644 Appel, Markus/ Timo Gnambs/ Tobias Richter/ Melanie C Green “The Transportation Scale-Short Form (TS-SF) ” Media Psychology 18 2 (2015), 243-266 Bortolussi, Marisa/ Peter Dixon Psychonarratology: Foundations for the Empirical Study of Literary Response Cambridge: CUP, 2003 39 See Benjamin K Johnson et al , “Entertainment and Expanding Boundaries of the Self: Relief from the Constraints of the Everyday,” Journal of Communication 66 3 (2016), 392 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0002 69 Literature as Identity Laboratory ---. “The Scientific Study of Literature: What Can, Has, and Should Be Done.” Scientific Study of Literature 1 1 (2011), 59-71 Bortolussi, Marisa/ Peter Dixon/ Roy Sommer “Introduction: Empirical Approaches to Narrative ” Diegesis 5 1 (2016), 1-3 Busselle, Rick/ Helena Bilandzic “Measuring Narrative Engagement ” Media Psychology 12 (2009), 321-347 Call of Duty. 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