Resonance and reflection: Self-concept navigation through identification with self-relevant fictional characters

Identification with fictional characters is a common, meaningful experience that can influence self-concept. In this review of a wide-ranging body of literature, we identify three features of characters and stories that contribute to the likelihood that character identification will occur: narrative transportation, the character’s availability to the audience, and self-character similarity. We conclude that self-relevance is the underlying aspect of self-character interaction that can lead to self-concept change via identification. Further, we demonstrate that the features of fictional characters that contribute to identification are the same as or similar to psychological phenomena that influence identification and changes in self-concept in non-fictional contexts (i.e., with “real” people). Because connections with fiction provoke mental processes similar or identical to processes experienced in real life but expand the perspectives from which these processes are approached, we posit that identifying with imaginary people is an ideal opportunity for real self-change.