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Rating the Acting Moment: Exploring Characteristics for Realistic Portrayals of Characters

Good actors appear to become their characters, making them come alive, as if they were real. Is this because they have succeeded in merging themselves with their character? Are there any positive or negative psychological effects of this experience? We examined the role of three characteristics that...

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Autores principales: Panero, Maria Eugenia, Winner, Ellen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7889958/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33613366
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.615311
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author Panero, Maria Eugenia
Winner, Ellen
author_facet Panero, Maria Eugenia
Winner, Ellen
author_sort Panero, Maria Eugenia
collection PubMed
description Good actors appear to become their characters, making them come alive, as if they were real. Is this because they have succeeded in merging themselves with their character? Are there any positive or negative psychological effects of this experience? We examined the role of three characteristics that may make this kind of merging possible: dissociation, flow, and empathy. We also examined the relation of these characteristics to acting quality. Acting students (n = 44) and non-acting students (n = 43) completed a dissociation measure, and then performed a monologue that was recorded and rated on the dimensions of acting. Participants were then reassessed on dissociation to determine whether it increased as a function of performance. They were also then assessed on flow and empathy. Actors did not differ from non-actors on dissociation, but did score significantly higher than non-actors on some flow and empathy subscales, indicating a positive psychological experience and outcome. While non-actors’ dissociation marginally increased post-performance, actors’ dissociation rose significantly, which could indicate a negative psychological experience. Surprisingly, acting ratings were unrelated to the levels of dissociation, flow, or empathy. We concluded that, while these are tools used by actors to immerse themselves fully in their characters, they may not be necessary to create the illusion of an imaginary character come to life on stage.
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spelling pubmed-78899582021-02-19 Rating the Acting Moment: Exploring Characteristics for Realistic Portrayals of Characters Panero, Maria Eugenia Winner, Ellen Front Psychol Psychology Good actors appear to become their characters, making them come alive, as if they were real. Is this because they have succeeded in merging themselves with their character? Are there any positive or negative psychological effects of this experience? We examined the role of three characteristics that may make this kind of merging possible: dissociation, flow, and empathy. We also examined the relation of these characteristics to acting quality. Acting students (n = 44) and non-acting students (n = 43) completed a dissociation measure, and then performed a monologue that was recorded and rated on the dimensions of acting. Participants were then reassessed on dissociation to determine whether it increased as a function of performance. They were also then assessed on flow and empathy. Actors did not differ from non-actors on dissociation, but did score significantly higher than non-actors on some flow and empathy subscales, indicating a positive psychological experience and outcome. While non-actors’ dissociation marginally increased post-performance, actors’ dissociation rose significantly, which could indicate a negative psychological experience. Surprisingly, acting ratings were unrelated to the levels of dissociation, flow, or empathy. We concluded that, while these are tools used by actors to immerse themselves fully in their characters, they may not be necessary to create the illusion of an imaginary character come to life on stage. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-02-04 /pmc/articles/PMC7889958/ /pubmed/33613366 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.615311 Text en Copyright © 2021 Panero and Winner. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Panero, Maria Eugenia
Winner, Ellen
Rating the Acting Moment: Exploring Characteristics for Realistic Portrayals of Characters
title Rating the Acting Moment: Exploring Characteristics for Realistic Portrayals of Characters
title_full Rating the Acting Moment: Exploring Characteristics for Realistic Portrayals of Characters
title_fullStr Rating the Acting Moment: Exploring Characteristics for Realistic Portrayals of Characters
title_full_unstemmed Rating the Acting Moment: Exploring Characteristics for Realistic Portrayals of Characters
title_short Rating the Acting Moment: Exploring Characteristics for Realistic Portrayals of Characters
title_sort rating the acting moment: exploring characteristics for realistic portrayals of characters
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7889958/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33613366
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.615311
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