Increasing Empathy and Reducing Prejudice: An Argument for Fictive Osteobiographical Narrative

Abstract

Osteobiography is a research method that offers many benefits to bioarchaeologists, both conceptual (e.g., disclosing the contingency of the production of scientific knowledge, engaging with the social construction of identities in the past) and practical (e.g., improving outreach to the public and increasing relevance to other academic disciplines). This article focuses on how the practical benefits of osteobiography can be maximized without compromising the conceptual ones. Research by social psychologists suggests that affective modes of interpretation, and accounts of single, identified individuals, are each productive ways of eliciting empathy from, and reducing prejudice in, readers. The current study evaluated whether these effects extend to fictive osteobiographical narrative. Respondents to an online questionnaire were randomly assigned to read one of three versions of an osteobiography: analytical technical, analytical colloquial, and affective/analytical narrative. The osteobiographies presented the same bioarchaeological data and were comparable in length, but they varied in style (exclusively analytical vs. affective and analytical) and language (technical vs. colloquial). The fictive osteobiographical narrative was the only version that was significantly effective at both generating empathy for past peoples and reducing prejudice toward distant places and modern populations. We argue that affective modes of osteobiographical interpretation such as fictive narrative styles of writing should be pursued more frequently and such interpretations should be disseminated more widely by bioarchaeologists as a means of public outreach.