From Fiction to Social Cognition. The Impact of Literary Fiction on Theory of Mind

The project “The Administration of Fear: Using Art to Study Psycho-social Phenomena”, funded by the Network Programme Grant from the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation is proud to present a guest lecture by Professor Emanuele Castano, from the New School for Social Research, New York and Chair of the Psychology Department.

Professor Castano will present his research titled “From Fiction to Social Cognition. The Impact of Literary Fiction on Theory of Mind”: Fiction is a sort of gym for social cognition. Through it we learn how to understand ourselves and others. Not all forms of fiction, it is argued, impact these processes equally. I discuss how literary fiction is particularly positioned to enhance one's capacity for mentalizing, or Theory of Mind, and present experimental and correlational data in support of this claim.

Entrance is free and the programme is:

10.00-11.00: Lecture of Professor Emanuele Castano

11.00-11.15: Coffee and cake

11.15-12.00: Discussion

A short bio of Emanuele Castano

He is Professor and Chair in the Psychology Department of the New School for Social Research. He conducts research and writes about topics such as violent intergroup conflict and reconciliation, nationalism and international relations, and the existential motives of human behavior. His work appears in over fifty publications in top tier scientific journals. His latest work on the consequences of reading literary fiction for mentalizing processes, published in Science, has received worldwide media attention, including the front page of the New York Times. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Henry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, the European Union, the Economic and Social Research Council (UK) and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Italian by birth, he is fluent in French and English, and has been named by his young nephew, a citizen of the world.