Fiction and Reality

Abstract

Although the relationship between fiction and reality would seem to be of general concern to social scientists interested in the unobtrusive observation of social processes, systematic empirical evidence concerning this relationship is hard to come by. This study examines 1000 cases of interpersonal conflict resolution drawn from contemporary Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and American fiction and discusses, under the broad headings of reliability and validity, a number of objections to taking these cases as “real.” More specifically, it is argued and/or demonstrated (1) that fiction can be read reliably, (2) that fiction is more about “life” than “art,” (3) that fiction is always in part mimetic, and (4) that while authors of fiction may choose their outcomes, they tend to be constrained by reality in depicting the processes that produce these outcomes. This last conclusion is based on a comparison between relationships found in the fiction and 36 propositions drawn from the social science literature.