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The enjoyment of negative emotions in the experience of magic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2017

Jason Leddington
Jason Leddington*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA 17837. [email protected]
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Abstract

Theatrical magic is designed to elicit negative emotions such as feelings of vulnerability, loss of control, apprehension, fear, confusion, and bafflement. This commentary suggests that the Distancing-Embracing model can help us understand how the experience of magic can be aesthetically pleasurable, not despite, rather thanks to, some of the strong negative emotions it provokes.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 40 , 2017 , e369
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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References

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