ScienceNot yet confirmed elsewhere1 publisher2 min readPublished
A remorseful character's inner thoughts made readers more forgiving in three Ohio State studies
Ohio State researchers ran three studies with 1,563 people and found that inner-thought narration promoted forgiveness of a fictional repairman. Participants asked to recall a real wrong tended to carry it over; the coverage does not report an effect size.
The Scientist · Science desk
What happened
- The story is about Mary, who adopted a puppy at 85 after a lifelong grief; a repairman she warned to keep the door shut leaves it open, and the puppy escapes.
- Participants were offered different information about the act: he disregarded Mary's warning, or he left the door open by accident while distracted by problems at home.
- Angus Fletcher of Ohio State's Project Narrative and Mark Matthews, a recent Ohio State Ph.D., published the work Oct. 1 in Frontiers in Psychology.
Why it matters
- constraint Fletcher links the work to daily anger, depression, pessimism and anxiety, but the study as described tests forgiveness, so those outcomes remain untested here.
- precedent After a 2013 literary-fiction result failed to replicate, a one-device test with matched wording sets a template that other claims about narrative effects can be held to.
- decision Teams considering narrative features for wellbeing products have a testable hypothesis from this work, but no reported effect size to plan around.
The control is the useful part of the design. In both versions the repairman expresses the same regret in the same words: "I wish I didn't leave the door open." In one he thinks it to himself, and in the other he says it to Mary [6]. That holds the regret constant, so a difference in forgiveness has to come from where the reader sits relative to him: inside his head, or across the room.
The choice to test one device follows a failure. A 2013 study reported that reading passages of literary fiction, compared with nonfiction or popular fiction, improved readers' grasp of others' beliefs and desires [8]. Efforts to replicate it, by other groups and by the original researchers, have not panned out [9]. Fletcher and Matthews instead picked one writing technique they predicted would pinpoint one way literature produces the empathy that leads to forgiveness [11].
Fletcher described the logic in plain terms. "We put the most powerful of those techniques into a story, and then tested whether that story without the technique creates empathy and if the story with the technique creates empathy," he said [10]. On the result, he said, "If you just give people a story without the empathy technique, they're not likely to forgive a character" [12].
The wellbeing claim is a step further. Citing Gallup research that found over 1 in 5 people worldwide routinely feel angry, Fletcher said the study suggests stories may be a prescription for better emotional health [13]. Literature, he said, is "something that you can just use a little bit to help get you through daily anger, daily depression, daily pessimism, daily anxiety" [14]. We think the design supports a narrower statement: in the story described, access to the repairman's thoughts promoted forgiveness of him, and participants prompted to recall a past transgression tended to extend that forgiveness to it [c1, c2]. Anger, depression and anxiety are Fletcher's inference.
The press account does not report effect sizes, the number of participants per condition, or how real-life forgiveness was measured. The thing this doesn't tell you is whether the carryover outlasted the session, or whether it appears with any story other than this one.
What to watch
- Whether the Frontiers in Psychology paper reports effect sizes, per-condition sample sizes and how real-life forgiveness was measured.
- Whether other groups reproduce the effect with stories other than the Mary and repairman vignette.
- Whether any follow-up tests if the carryover to a real grudge lasts beyond a single session.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence40
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+35
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence40
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
Over three studies involving a total of 1,563 people, Fletcher and Matthews found that forgiveness of a fictional character can be promoted through the literary technique of internal focalization, and that facilitating literary forgiveness can bring about forgiveness of real-life transgressions.
ReportedSupportedSource: Ohio State researchers Angus Fletcher and Mark Matthews, via phys.orgView cited source - [2]
Study participants who were prompted to reflect on a past transgression tended to extend their forgiveness of a fictional person to that real-life event.
- [3]
Internal focalization is when the story narrative gives access to a character's innermost thoughts; in this study, a man's regret about his careless act.
- [4]
The story is about Mary, who as a child watched her puppy die after being hit by a car and swore off dog ownership until, at 85, she adopted a puppy to heal her lifelong grief; she hires a repairman, warns him to keep the door shut, and he leaves it open so the puppy escapes.
- [5]
Participants were offered different information about the repairman's act: either he disregarded Mary's warning, meaning it was entirely his fault, or he accidentally left the door open because he was distracted by personal issues at home.
- [6]
In the internal focalization condition the text reads 'The repairman thought to himself, I wish I didn't leave the door open'; in the nonliterary condition it reads 'The repairman said to Mary, I wish I didn't leave the door open.'
- [7]
The research was published Oct. 1 in Frontiers in Psychology; Angus Fletcher, senior author, is a professor of English at The Ohio State University's Project Narrative, and he completed the study with Mark Matthews, a recent Ohio State Ph.D. graduate in social psychology.
- [8]
A 2013 study reported that reading passages of literary fiction, compared to nonfiction or popular fiction, enhanced a reader's ability to understand others' beliefs and desires, known as theory of mind.
- [9]
Efforts to replicate the 2013 study, by others and by the original researchers themselves, have not panned out.
- [10]
"We put the most powerful of those techniques into a story, and then tested whether that story without the technique creates empathy and if the story with the technique creates empathy," Fletcher said.
- [11]
Fletcher and Matthews focused on one writing technique that they predicted would pinpoint one way in which literature influences the human emotion of empathy that leads to forgiveness.
- [12]
"If you just give people a story without the empathy technique, they're not likely to forgive a character."
- [13]
With Gallup research finding that over 1 in 5 people worldwide routinely feel angry, Fletcher said this study suggests stories may be a prescription for better emotional health.
- [14]
"It's something that you can just use a little bit to help get you through daily anger, daily depression, daily pessimism, daily anxiety," Fletcher said of literature.
Sources
1 independent publisher whose own reporting we read for this story.
- phys.orgHow literature can inspire us to forgive
1 article · October 13, 2026
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