Comic-book superheroes and prosocial agency : a large-scale quantitative analysis of the effects of cognitive factors on popular representations

Carney, James and MacCarron, Pádraig (2017) Comic-book superheroes and prosocial agency : a large-scale quantitative analysis of the effects of cognitive factors on popular representations. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 17 (3-4). 306–330. ISSN 1567-7095

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Abstract

We argue that the counterfactual representations of popular culture, like their religious cognates, are shaped by cognitive constraints that become visible when considered in aggregate. In particular, we argue that comic-book literature embodies core intuitions about sociality and its maintenance that are activated by the cognitive problem of living in large groups. This leads to four predictions: comic-book enforcers should (1) be punitively prosocial, (2) be quasi-omniscient, (3) exhibit kin-signalling proxies and (4) be minimally counterintuitive. We gauge these predictions against a large sample of 19,877 characters that were derived from 72,611 comics using data scraping techniques. Our results corroborate the view that cognitive constraints exercise a selective effect on the transmission of popular culture.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Journal of Cognition and Culture
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3200/3207
Subjects:
?? social psychologyexperimental and cognitive psychologycultural studies ??
ID Code:
79535
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
16 May 2016 13:38
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
15 Jul 2024 16:02