O papel da narrativa ficcional na empatia e no julgamento moral

Abstract

The study of moral judgment in psychology had great impact starting from the cognitive and, specially, after the affective revolution with the transition of a purely rationalist paradigm to one that highlights emotion as a central process in decision making. Therefore, moral judgments integrate moral rationalization and intuitive (related to affect and emotion) processes. Regarding empathy as being a relevant emotional process in moral judgment, different studies have discussed how it affects morality. The empathic mechanism as a product of natural selection favored our species survival promoting in-group emotional recognition. Therefore, to recognize and comprehend other individuals feelings and emotions promotes prosocial behavior for in-group members. Nevertheless, empathy is easily biased as a consequence of its tribal origin and might emphasize the suffering of out-group individuals. Empathy is presented as an important mechanism for fictional reading, facilitating the simulation of the characters mental and emotional states by the reader, turning fictional reading an important emotional experience. However, empathic experience in fictional reading might differ from the one used in interpersonal interactions, namely, instead of feeling as the character, we feel by the character. Different studies show that empathy enhancement occur when we read fictional narratives, facilitating emotional recognition. Therefore, the present study aimed to comprehend empathy’s influence on moral judgment through fictional narrative reading. This dissertation addresses this with an empiric article testing the moderator effect of empathy in moral judgment through fictional narrative reading. 97 subjects (52 female) were randomized to the fictional or non-fictional group. Each participant gave its demographic information and then responded the IRI, the RMET and responded moral dilemmas at T0. Three days later, at T1, participants read a piece according to its allocation group and responded again the measures previously applied. No differences between groups were found after fictional and non-fictional reading. However, a sex effect was found with women presenting fewer utilitarian judgments if compared to men after the intervention. Furthermore, empathy level reduced after non-fictional reading and ToM increased after both readings. These findings contradict previous findings that show an enhancement of cognitive and affective empathy through fictional reading.