Gabriel and Young's Study About Reading a Piece of Narrative

Summary

Gabriel and Young (2011) created a study in which they tested the hypothesis that reading a piece of a narrative will lead to psychological assimilation of the information described within the narrative. There were 140 college undergrad participants, consisting of 68 women and 72 men, who were 69% white. The average age of the participants was 19.

This is a correlational study because it seeks to find an association between two variables. It explains the relationship between reading a passage and gaining the desire of belongingness to be a part of a group described in that narrative. Basically, supporting the collective- assimilation hypothesis; which describes how reading a narrative will lead to psychological assimilation to a group described within the narrative (Gabriel & Young, 2011). The independent variables in this study were the types of narratives being presented to the participants. There were two kinds of readings, which consisted of Twilight or Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Each reading had a designated chapter, participants reading Twilight, were to read Chapter thirteen while participants reading Harry Potter were provided with chapter 7 or chapter 8. The dependent variables were the scores of the participants; which determined whether or not they felt the need to belong to a group after reading the passage.

The study was conducted by telling participants that the study to get a better look into individual’s responses to books and movies. They were separated into two groups. One group of participants had to read chapter 13 from Twilight in order to see if the participants would want to become vampires. In this chapter Edward gives a vivid description to Bella of what it’s like to be a vampire. The second group had to read chapter 7 or 8 from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, where Harry and his wizard friends go through wizard related tasks, the purpose of reading this chapter was to see if the participants wanted to become wizards after going through the reading. After completing the reading, they took a variety of tests. The first test was an identity Implicit Assimilation test in which, participants had to complete to go through two critical blocks which consisted of 40 trials each. In the first block, participants were given the instructions to categorize “me” related words and “wizard” related word using the same response key. They also had to categorize “not me” words “vampire” words using another response key. In the second critical block, the pairings were reversed. The purpose of this test was to observe whether the velocity in which individuals provided a response to the two stimuli using the same key would indicate inferred associations between the two categories (Gabriel & Young, 2011). Another apparatus that was used was the Twilight/ Harry Potter Narrative Collection Assimilation Scale. This scale’s purpose was to measure whether participants felt associated to either vampires or wizards. They were asked three questions about each of the topics.

The results of this study confirmed the hypothesis. Participants who read the Harry Potter chapters identified themselves as wizards, while those who read the Twilight chapters identified themselves as vampires. Participants fulfilled their need to belong by going through the readings and identifying themselves within the groups of what they had previously read. Additionally, the IAT’s high scores demonstrated stronger associations between the self and the vampires, while lower scores displayed stronger associations between the self and wizards (Gabriel & Young, 2011).

Critique

This study was supportive of the hypothesis provided, that reading a narrative will lead participants to want to belong to the group described within the narrative. This study was valid, as it did measure what it was supposed to measure. The validity of the study was supported when the researchers administered the Twilight/Harry potter Narrative Collective- Assimilation Scale. This scale was designed to measure the need of having to belong to Twilight vampires or Harry Potter wizards by asking questions about self-identification dealing with each of the topics to the readers. Even though there were numerous tests measuring different parts of the study, overall this study can be considered reliable because the scores of each of the tests consistently confirmed the collective-assimilation hypothesis.

The study authors did accurately interpret their findings. Their findings supported the theory that reading a piece of a narrative is linked to the desire of belonging to a group within the reading. However, there are certain things that I would have changed. For example, the sample of participants were controlled. In the study, the participants were all college students and around the same age. The average age of the study was 19 years old. Depending on the age of the individual, their answers to the questions asked during the assessments may vary. A retired adult may not respond with the same answer as a 19-year-old would. These participants had also taken an assessment dealing with the same topic previously during the semester, making them more inclined towards the topic. The participants weren’t exactly a good representation of a variety of people.

Furthermore, if I were to conduct a follow up study, I would change the way that participants were chosen. I would want my sample to be more varied; with different ages and not just college level students but maybe people with careers and retired adults. Additionally, I would ask more than 3 questions about each topic to test the reliability of the study. Adding more questions will allow you to see if the answers from the participants will change or stay inclined towards wanting to belong to the group described in the reading.