“The Illusion of Independent Agency: Do Adult Fiction Writers Experience Their Characters as Having Minds of Their Own?”

Comment: Seeming to have minds of their own is the essence of alternate personalities in multiple personality disorder (a.k.a. dissociative identity disorder) and a study found that it is true of how most novelists experience their characters (1). But since it doesn’t cause them distress or dysfunction, it is a creative trait, not a disorder, what I call “multiple personality trait.”

1. Marjorie Taylor, Sara D. Hodges, Adèle Kohányi. “The Illusion of Independent Agency: Do Adult Fiction Writers Experience Their Characters as Having Minds of Their Own?” Imagination, Cognition and Personality, Vol. 22(4) 361-380, 2002-2003. https://pages.uoregon.edu/hodgeslab/files/Download/Taylor%20Hodges%20Kohanyi_2003.pdf