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Article published In: Scientific Study of Literature
Vol. 11:2 (2021) ► pp.266–282

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Exploring the dimensional relationships of story world absorption

A commentary on the role of attention during absorbed reading

 | University of Basel
Published online: 25 January 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ssol.20004.kui
Abstract
Absorption has proven to be an important mediator of reading enjoyment and persuasive text effects (Green, M. C., & Brock, T. C. (2000). The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narratives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(5), 701–721. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Kuijpers, M. M., Hakemulder, F., Tan, E. S. H., & Doicaru, M. M. (2014). Exploring absorbing reading experiences: the development and validation of a self-report scale to measure story world absorption. Scientific Study of Literature, 4(1), 89–122. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Typically, absorbing experiences with narrative media are captured using self-report measuring instruments. One such instrument is the Story World Absorption Scale, which is comprised of four dimensions: Attention, Emotional Engagement, Mental Imagery, and Transportation (Kuijpers, M. M., Hakemulder, F., Tan, E. S. H., & Doicaru, M. M. (2014). Exploring absorbing reading experiences: the development and validation of a self-report scale to measure story world absorption. Scientific Study of Literature, 4(1), 89–122. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). As of yet, we do not know how these dimensions relate to one another. Data from four different studies (one survey and three experiments) using the Story World Absorption Scale were investigated with the use of structural equation modeling to attempt to answer this question. The results show that attention fulfills a crucial role in the absorption experience confirming the work of Kuiken and Douglas (Kuiken, D., & Douglas, S. (2017). Forms of absorption that facilitate the aesthetic and explanatory effects of literary reading. In F. Hakemulder, M. M. Kuijpers, E. S. H. Tan, K. Balint & M. M. Doicaru (Eds.) Narrative Absorption (pp. 217–249). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, (2018). Living metaphor as the site of bidirectional literary engagement. Scientific Study of Literature, 8(1), 47–76. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) on absorption-like states. The findings inspire a discussion on how we (should) use multi-dimensional instruments in the field of empirical literary studies.
Article outline
  • Introduction
    • Dimensions of narrative absorption
    • The present research
  • Method
    • Sample characteristics
    • Measures
    • Data analyses
  • Results
    • Hypothesis 1
    • Hypothesis 2
  • General discussion
    • The role of attention in absorption
    • Reconceptualization of the story world absorption construct
    • Future research
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (18)
References
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Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Petley, Lauren, Sarah Jane Gascoyne & Myleen Hoffman
2025. Engaging Stories for the Study of Attention and Audition (ESSAA): A Database of Engagement Scores for Narrative Stimuli. Auditory Perception & Cognition 8:2 ► pp. 157 ff. DOI logo
Kuijpers, Moniek M., Massimo Lusetti, Piroska Lendvai & Simone Rebora
2024. Validation of the Story World Absorption Scale through annotation of online book reviews. Journal of Cultural Analytics 9:1 DOI logo
Dayter, Daria, Miriam A. Locher & Thomas C. Messerli
2023. Pragmatics in Translation, DOI logo
Kuzmičová, Anežka, Markéta Supa & Martin Nekola
2022. Children’s perspectives on being absorbed when reading fiction: A Q methodology study. Frontiers in Psychology 13 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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