Check-All-That-Apply and Storyworld Possible Selves: What Consumer Research Methods can do for the Study of Narrative Engagement

The empirical study of literary experiences affords the opportunity to investigate the extent to which the interpretations of literary critics may coincide with the meaning construction operations of flesh-and-blood readers. The present study explores the analytical potential of a statistics-based Check-all-that-apply (CATA) methodology, traditionally used in consumer research, in the study of real reader response. To this purpose, an online questionnaire designed along CATA lines is used to investigate the emergence of storyworld possible selves during narrative interaction with the graphic short story “City” (Wasco, 2015). The findings are compared to those of two previous studies of this short story, one literary (Herman & Vervaeck, 2019) and the other empirical (Martínez & Herman, 2020), and suggest that a CATA methodology can enlighten aspects of readerly response not previously addressed, particularly regarding the idiosyncratic construction of the main character in ways relevant to individual readers’ construction of themselves.