“Magic and the Mind”: The Impact of Cultural and Linguistic Background on the Perception of Characters in Harry Potter

While there has been a multitude of studies of Harry Potter since its first appearance, including studies analyzing individual characters, social classes in the wizarding world, and a number that examine the “Harry Potter phenomenon” as a whole, there are none that systematically analyze and compare the characters in terms of how they are perceived. This paper examines and compares the perceptions of the personality of seven characters in Harry Potter held by individuals who have read the books or watched the movies of Harry Potter in either English or Chinese language. The study was undertaken through an online survey that used the Ten-Item Personality Inventory as the core instrument. It was found that Chinese respondents were significantly more likely to score the characters higher in Extraversion, Agreeableness and Openness, although other factors, including gender and the respondents’ “exposure” to Harry Potter, also had a significant impact on perceptions. These findings both confirm various other studies that have examined cross-cultural differences in perceptions and extend previous work by applying it to another domain, namely the analysis of fictional characters. The findings carry important implications for, among others, teachers of multicultural student groups and translators of children’s fiction.

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Notes

Some people are bicultural (have the attitudes and customs of two cultural groups) and/or bilingual (equally proficient in two languages). Even bilingual individuals, however, might consider that one of those languages is their primary language.

Nationality—a person’s citizenship—should not be confused with, and needs to be considered separately from, their cultural and linguistic background.

An explanation of what constitutes a statistically significant difference is provided in a note to Table 3.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and, especially, Dr. Clementine Beauvais, for their valuable comments on this paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

1. University of Oxford, Oxford, UK Rowena Y. Z. Stening
2. National Graduate School of Development, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China Bruce W. Stening

1. Rowena Y. Z. Stening