Alex Fisher is currently a visiting postdoctoral researcher at Tilburg University, having recently completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge. You can find more of Alex’s (infectiously imaginative) work here.
A post by Alex Fisher
Much recent work has explored how we learn through imagination, acquiring new attitudes in an epistemically justified manner. In other cases, however, imagination seems to infect our mental lives in a far less rational way.
Theatrical actors often describe how aspects of their character start to seep into their own personality as they get “stuck” in a role, experiencing “boundary blurring” or “character bleed”. Allen, a junior theatre major, admits:
You forget who you are sometimes. You start intermingling with this character and you lose yourself and you start doing things. […] I played a character who had a certain walk [and] I would walk around [that way] onstage. And I would be walking around [campus] and be doing the same thing. I would realize I'm doing that and having this bad attitude that this character has about everything I'm seeing. I think, “Whoa, I don't know if this has gone too far or not.” (Burgoyne, Poulin, and Rearden 1999, 162)
Isaac Butler reports experiencing similar as a budding actor in New York:
After performances, I would stare at a wall in my dorm room for hours trying to come back to normal. […] I hated the person I became during rehearsal as the nastiness of the character bled into my own personality, and I was not tough enough to manage the emotions my performance dug into. (Butler 2022, 15)
A similar phenomenon has been observed amongst virtual reality users. The “Proteus Effect” describes how individuals’ behaviour and attitudes conform to those of the avatar they play as (Yee and Bailenson 2007; 2009). Participants who controlled taller avatars in a virtual space behaved more confidently in a subsequent non-virtual negotiation task than those assigned shorter avatars, in line with the general behaviour of taller individuals. Participants who played an attractive avatar exhibited higher self-disclosure than those who played an unattractive avatar, just as attractive individuals tend to be more extroverted. Imaginatively adopting an identity in virtual reality influenced users’ actions even after it had been relinquished.
Videogame players likewise report finding themselves retaining ways of thinking, impulses, and expectations that they took on within the imaginative context of the videogame (Ortiz De Gortari et al 2011; 2014; 2015a; 2015b). Analogous effects are found in counter-attitudinal role-playing: participants who pretended to make a public statement to the opposite of what they believed subsequently aligned their attitudes more closely with the statement (Janis and King 1954; Festinger 1957; Festinger and Carlsmith 1959).
In these cases, we find ourselves feeling what we initially only imagined feeling, coming to think in ways we only imagined thinking, or even acquiring morally questionable character traits we imagined taking on. We experience what Tamar Szabó Gendler (2006) has called imaginative contagion.
In fact, we can distinguish two slightly different forms of contagion. First, as is Gendler’s focus, mental states like emotions persist immediately following an imaginative episode – call this immediate contagion. The actor remains glum after playing a tragic character. The moviegoer is anxious and easily frightened immediately after watching a horror film.
In other cases, however, we experience delayed contagion. The actor comes offstage and relinquishes their character, yet finds themselves thinking like them days later. They successfully abandon the mental states they adopted while playing the role, avoiding immediate contagion, yet find them resurfacing later.
I will try to answer two questions concerning the mechanics and ethics of imaginative contagion:
1. Why does contagion occur, especially within certain contexts?
2. Does contagion pose an ethical concern, since we might retain problematic attitudes that we imaginatively adopted?
1. Explaining Imaginative Contagion
Imaginative states are usually very different to their non-imaginative counterparts, both phenomenologically and in their connection to action. Yet in the above examples, imagination becomes very similar to non-imaginatively adopting mental states, explaining why contagion occurs.
Imagination typically has a very different connection to action to non-imaginative states. If I believe that there is a venomous spider on my back, this results in various mental states, emotions, and ultimately actions. Merely imagining the spider should have no such direct influence on action. In interactive contexts such as theatre, videogames, and virtual reality, however, imagination does directly connect to action. We imagine being a character on stage and subsequently act in ways they would. We role-play as a character in a videogame or virtual reality, and our imagined attitudes motivate various actions that we perform just as non-imaginative attitudes do.
Furthermore, certain contexts require imaginatively adopting mental states in a way much like actually holding them. Recall Allen, who played a character with a distinctive walk. To convincingly deliver the timid, stuttering shuffle or the calm, confident strut, Allen might need to imaginatively adopt the associated attitudes in a way that blurs the boundary with actually holding them, becoming immersed in imagination.[1] Something similar holds as we become immersed in role-playing as another in a videogame or in virtual reality.
This likeness between our imaginative mental states and their non-imaginative counterparts in interactive and immersive contexts can explain cases of immediate contagion. When imagined mental states are very similar to their actual counterparts, they are less easily given up following pretence. It is far easier to quarantine imagined mental states when they are very different to our non-imaginative mental states.
Delayed contagion, meanwhile, warrants a different explanation – one of habit. The obvious explanation for Allen’s walking like his character offstage is habit. He began to walk that way during rehearsals, and constant repetition formed habits that persisted outside of the imaginative context. We can likewise form habits of performing mental actions through repetition. I habitually confirm that I have my keys when leaving the house. In acting, we pretend to be another and imaginatively take on their attitudes and perspective. Over time, we can form habits of doing so that persist outside of the imaginative context, resulting in imaginative contagion. Seeing delayed contagion as a product of habit explains its frequency within certain contexts. Habit formation is a demanding process, requiring repetition over long periods. It is no surprise that delayed contagion is generally uncommon, yet is frequently found amongst actors and role-players who continually imaginatively adopt alternative personas, and do so in an interactive and immersed manner.
2. The Ethics of Imaginative Contagion
Imaginative contagion might seem morally concerning. Couldn’t we habituate troubling attitudes through engagement with media such as violent videogames and other imaginative activities? Philosophical work on the ethics of imagination typically focuses on the permissibility of imagining immoral content when stipulated to have no adverse consequences. Imaginative contagion, however, offers a potentially damaging effect of imagination. I will highlight two processes that prevent contagion, however – particularly that of highly immoral attitudes – somewhat diminishing this concern.
Imaginative resistance, where we struggle (whether through inability or mere unwillingness) to imaginatively adopt morally deviant outlooks, has received extensive philosophical discussion. One underappreciated benefit of imaginative resistance, however, is that it prevents the contagion of horrific attitudes. The most heinous attitudes are often not ones we can bring ourselves to imaginatively adopt, precluding the possibility of their contagion.
Imaginative resistance alone, however, cannot fully explain what prevents contagion. We frequently succeed in imaginatively adopting troubling attitudes, yet we do not find ourselves acquiring them. Here, we successfully quarantine imaginative attitudes, keeping them isolated from our own. Quarantine is often construed as a passive process. Yet this passive conception overlooks various actions we can take to ensure this boundary is maintained.
I claimed above that contagion occurs due to similarities between imaginatively and actually adopting attitudes. One thing we can do to prevent contagion, then, is render our imaginative attitudes very different to their actual counterparts. The actor might refrain from becoming too invested in a role, keeping some imaginative distance, rather than fully losing themselves as a method actor might. Yet keeping this distance might come at an aesthetic cost, with the actor now unable to give a compelling performance.
Perhaps more practical would be a technique the actor could employ after imaginative activities. Examples are common in dramatherapy, where de-roling practices aim to keep separate patients’ imagined identities adopted during role-play. Participants put on masks and costumes, or emphasise moving into and away from the dramatic space. In other cases, they explicitly relinquish their role following imaginative activities, noting differences between themselves and their imagined persona (Chesner 1993, 129). The comparative lack of such techniques in theatrical and cinematic acting, where the focus is on delivering a compelling performance, rather than the consequences of role-play, can help explain the frequency of contagion.
Does imaginative contagion pose a moral concern, then? For many heinous attitudes, we may face resistance to imaginatively adopting them at all. And when imaginers do adopt horrific attitudes in imagination for extended periods of time, we might advocate greater use of techniques for preserving quarantine. Yet cases of contagion should prompt us to be a little more careful which attitudes and perspectives we adopt within imaginative contexts. As we have seen, imagination is often not as well-insulated as we might like to think.
Notes
[1] How to characterise cases of imaginative immersion is contested. Susanna Schellenberg (2013) holds that imaginative immersion is best characterised as existing on a continuum between imagination and belief, as actors start out imagining, but end up with attitudes somewhere between the two. Shen-yi Liao and Tyler Doggett (2014; see also Liao manuscript) instead claim that actors become unaware of the imagined nature of their mental states as they enter imaginative immersion. On either description, immersed attitudes are more like non-imaginative attitudes than usual, hence their susceptibility to contagion.
References
Burgoyne, Suzanne, Karen Poulin, and Ashley Rearden. 1999. ‘The Impact of Acting on Student Actors: Boundary Blurring, Growth, and Emotional Distress’. Theatre Topics 9 (2): 157–79. https://doi.org/10.1353/tt.1999.0011.
Butler, Isaac. 2022. The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Chesner, Anna. 1993. ‘Dramatherapy and Psychodrama’. In The Handbook of Dramatherapy, edited by Sue Jennings. Routledge.
Festinger, Leon. 1957. A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford University Press.
Festinger, Leon, and James M. Carlsmith. 1959. ‘Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance’. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 58 (2): 203–10. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0041593.
Gendler, Tamar Szabó. 2006. ‘Imaginative Contagion’. Metaphilosophy 37 (2): 183–203. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9973.2006.00430.x.
Janis, Irving L., and B. T. King. 1954. ‘The Influence of Role Playing on Opinion Change’. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 49 (2): 211–18. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0056957.
Liao, Shen-yi. manuscript. ‘Immersion Is Attention / Becoming Immersed’. https://philpapers.org/rec/LIAIIA.
Liao, Shen-yi, and Tyler Doggett. 2014. ‘The Imagination Box’. Journal of Philosophy 111 (5): 259–75. https://doi.org/10.5840/jphil2014111521.
Ortiz De Gortari, Angelica B., Karin Aronsson, and Mark Griffiths. 2011. ‘Game Transfer Phenomena in Video Game Playing: A Qualitative Interview Study’. International Journal of Cyber Behavior, Psychology and Learning (IJCBPL) 1 (3): 15–33.
Ortiz De Gortari, Angelica B., and Mark D. Griffiths. 2014. ‘Automatic Mental Processes, Automatic Actions and Behaviours in Game Transfer Phenomena: An Empirical Self-Report Study Using Online Forum Data’. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction 12 (4): 432–52. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-014-9476-3.
———. 2015. ‘Game Transfer Phenomena and Its Associated Factors: An Exploratory Empirical Online Survey Study’. Computers in Human Behavior 51:195–202.
Ortiz De Gortari, Angelica B., Halley M. Pontes, and Mark D. Griffiths. 2015. ‘The Game Transfer Phenomena Scale: An Instrument for Investigating the Nonvolitional Effects of Video Game Playing’. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 18 (10): 588–94. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2015.0221.
Schellenberg, Susanna. 2013. ‘Belief and Desire in Imagination and Immersion’. Journal of Philosophy 110 (9): 497–517. https://doi.org/10.5840/jphil2013110914.
Yee, Nick, and Jeremy N. Bailenson. 2007. ‘The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-Representation on Behavior’. Human Communication Research 33 (3): 271–90. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2007.00299.x.
———. 2009. ‘The Difference Between Being and Seeing: The Relative Contribution of Self-Perception and Priming to Behavioral Changes via Digital Self-Representation’. Media Psychology 12 (2): 195–209. https://doi.org/10.1080/15213260902849943.