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Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth: the experience of fictional identification in adolescence

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Resumo:This study examined how adolescents experience and interpret their identification with fictional characters and worlds. Anchored in an existential–phenomenological framework, fiction was approached as a symbolic arena where identity, morality, and belonging unfold. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight adolescents aged 16 to 17 from an international school context. Findings revealed that adolescents engage with fiction as a developmental and existential space of becoming. Through identification, they revisited past selves, explored moral tensions, and rehearsed possible futures. Fiction was not experienced as separate from reality but as its extension—an “as-if” world where emotion, embodiment, and imagination converge. Themes of recognition, authenticity, and transformation emerged as central: fiction mirrored adolescents’ evolving identities, offered belonging where reality withheld it, and provided symbolic experiments in freedom and responsibility. Fictional identification thus appears as a lived, interpretative practice that allows adolescents to articulate who they already are in the process of becoming. Fiction is not an escape from reality but its most reflective continuation, mediating the dialogue between imagination and existence.
Autores principais:André, João Maria Fino Neves
Assunto:Fictional identification adolescence phenomenology meaning-making authenticity Identificação ficcional adolescência fenomenologia construção de sentido autenticidade
Ano:2025
País:Portugal
Tipo de documento:dissertação de mestrado
Tipo de acesso:acesso aberto
Instituição associada:Ispa-Instituto Universitário
Idioma:inglês
Origem:Repositório do Ispa - Instituto Universitário

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