Transfer and Cultivation

This chapter argues that in many cases the judgments, beliefs, and feelings generated toward fictional entities are also directed toward the actual world or are transferred from the fictional to the actual. In other words, perspectives and emotions elicited by screen stories bear on the actual world. I call this process “transfer.” Screen stories do not merely transfer beliefs and responses from the fictional to the actual; they also have the capacity to cultivate skills and sensitivities or, conversely, to lead to failures of thought and response in viewers. Screen stories can inculcate general perspectives on the world, on people, on the self-other distinction, on thinking about in-groups and out-groups, and on responses to narrative paradigm scenarios such as revenge, reconciliation, and approaches to common human problems.