Reading, Literature, and Psychology in Action

Book excerpt: ‘Psychology in Action’ is a term coined by the Guest Editors from the Centre for Research into Reading, Literature and Society (CRILS), University of Liverpool, in their work in filming, recording and analyzing shared reading groups, led by The Reader organization. It refers both to the work of psychology within literary texts and to the responses of multifarious reader-participants to literature read live and aloud in small community groups within a variety of settings. In particular, ‘psychology in action’ has meant seeing readers suddenly activated into deep personal thinking, responding to situations imaginatively simulated by reading literature in ways that trigger surprised and involuntary emotion, autobiographical memory and spontaneous empathy.