Why Humans Get Emotionally Attached to Fictional Characters

While flipping the page of a book, have you ever been fond of a character, or binge-watching a movie made you feel you were getting emotionally attached to the characters? Why do you think that happens to you? When you engage with a story, your brain isn't just watching or reading. Our brain tends to perform a complex simulation that blurs the line between fiction and reality. It makes you believe that fiction is our reality. You start to imagine your life with or as the character.

Bridge to Healing

When you are lonely, you tend to hold onto something, and that something can be a fictional character. This loneliness makes you feel different, so you choose a personality from a TV show or a murder mystery. The reason behind this is that the plot of what you’re watching or reading makes the characters an essential part of that story. So, when you relate to them, this makes you feel seen.  It is your brain’s survival strategy to get out of a very emotional state. It’s not just escapism, but your brain tries to trick you.

Your brain looks for a safe friend or a partner whom you can trust and who will understand you. When someone is suffering from something like depression, anxiety, or any stress, it makes the real interaction very exhausting and terrifying. It feels like a real person will not understand, invalidate, or judge your emotions.

Depression can make you feel that your own personality is overwhelming. By choosing a strong fictional character, your brain tries to borrow their personality traits for a while. When a story ends, a normal person will feel grief, but a person with depression will feel drained. And they generally hold onto the character until they find another safe friend. Thus, it is very common in a person suffering from loneliness or an emotionally drained person.

Primitive Brain

Neuroscientifically, your brain is a sucker for drama, a twisted plot. While your prefrontal cortex knows the character is fictional, your primitive limbic system (the emotional centre) doesn't always get the memo.

Studies have shown that, during an MRI scan, if a person is thinking about a fictional character. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex lights up the same area that lights up while we think about a close friend or a family member.

When you see a character in pain, your "mirror neurons" fire as if you were experiencing that pain yourself. Your brain essentially "shadow-boxes" the character’s emotions, making their triumphs and tragedies feel like your own.

When you see a character in pain, your "mirror neurons" fire as if you were experiencing that pain yourself. Your brain essentially "shadowboxes" the character’s emotions, making their triumphs and tragedies feel like your own.

The Chemistry of Connection-Hormones

When we get caught up in a story, our bodies release various hormones. They are as follows:

• Oxytocin: the bonding hormone that is released when we feel empathy to create a sense of attachment, love, and affection.
• Dopamine: This is a Happy hormone released during high-stakes scenes or shipping moments, rewarding our brain for staying engaged with the narrative or watching something good happening to the fictional character.
• Cortisol: a stress hormone released during a fight. It makes us feel the same way the character does during the tense moment.

These hormones connect to the fictional character, as your brain doesn’t have any fictional filter for hormones. It simply reacts to those cues. As if it is happening to you, suppose a story grabs your attention when there is a threat to the character: the hormone cortisol spikes. It makes you feel as if it is happening to you similarly. Oxytocin forces you to burn with them through empathy, and dopamine acts as a reward for their success. This hormonal trick leads you to realise that the character's journey is really shaping reality. Thus, these characters get emotionally connected to us.

The bottom line.

Getting attached to a fictional character is not a sign of losing touch with reality. It’s like a brilliant survival strategy for your brain. Sometimes things might be overwhelming. This character acts as an emotional aid. This character might be fictional. Assistance provides comfort and support for our emotional well-being, and it is real. They are like the candle that shows you the light during the night.