The role of literary fiction in facilitating social science research

The paper examines how, and to what extent, social scientists engage with literary fiction in their academic work. Motivated by long-standing debates about disciplinary boundaries (e.g., C. P. Snow’s “two cultures”) and the common interest of literary studies and the social sciences in understanding human behavior and social relations, the authors ask what forms of influence literature has on social scientists’ research questions, publications, and teaching. While literary scholars frequently draw on social science theories and methods, the reverse flow is less documented. The study aims to clarify existing, often implicit, uses of literary fiction by social scientists, thereby informing broader discussions of interdisciplinarity and the practical significance of literature for social scientific inquiry.

The authors situate their study within several strands of prior work and commentary. They note literary scholars’ growing comfort with social science methodologies and theorists (e.g., Durkheim, Goffman, Latour; descriptive turn in literary studies: Love 2010; Marcus and Love 2016; engagements with Frankfurt School and Marx). On the social science side, Martin (2019) argues that fiction provides sites for imagining policy and legitimizing governance, and Shiller (2019) calls for incorporating narratives and fiction in economics. Morson and Schapiro (2017) advocate for what economics can learn from the humanities, including literature. Watts (2002) offers the only identified typology of how economists use literature (four categories: eloquent descriptions of behavior; historical evidence; alternative accounts of rationality; evidence of anti-market bias). However, the authors argue that published social science work often includes fleeting or decorative references to literature that such typologies miss. They thus expand on existing frameworks to better capture the breadth of uses across the social sciences, not just economics.

The project proceeded in two steps. 1) Archival qualitative analysis of social science articles on JSTOR: The authors compiled a delimited archive of social science articles and searched for references to a pre-specified list of 30 prominent Anglophone authors (mainly pre–mid-20th century) and two iconic fictional characters (Robinson Crusoe and Sherlock Holmes). Search terms were derived from cross-referencing popular rankings and media lists of important authors, with the aim of producing a large enough body of results rather than an exhaustive list. They qualitatively analyzed articles to identify how literary fiction was used and developed an expanded typology of uses, refining and extending Watts’s (2002) categories. Expanded typology (examples and subcategories):

• Literature as argument: Causal argument/Historical data (literature as agent of change); Alternate explanation (literary writers as rival social theorists); Philosophical position (author associated with a sustained argument across works).
• Literature as context: Historical context (using literary texts to characterize a period); Biography (author/text biographical details to situate events).
• Literature as metonym: Cultural standard (e.g., “Shakespeare” as a stand-in for Western culture); Parable (text decontextualized as a model, e.g., Robinson Crusoe as homo economicus).
• Literature as decoration: Literary effects/style (evoked via style/phrasing); Decoration (merely ornamental reference); Nonfiction quote (quotations attributed to authors outside literary works); Literature as inspiration (inspired scholar’s thinking); Literature as teaching tool (used in classroom or to explain concepts). Figure 2 reports proportions across the JSTOR corpus for categories derived from the compiled search list (illustrative percentages include: Parable 15.3%; Decoration 13.8%; Causal/Historical data 10.4%; Cultural standard 11.0%; Philosophical position 12.7%; Context 11.9%; Nonfiction quote 6.5%; Literary effect/style 2.3%; Biography 7.0%; Alternate explanation 7.3%). Limitations of step 1 acknowledged by the authors: reliance on pre-determined search terms; potential omission of influential authors (e.g., Steinbeck was not in the initial list, see Note 1); constraints of archival coverage and timeliness (new trends may be underrepresented).

2. Survey of social scientists: The authors designed, piloted, and electronically administered a survey to 13,784 researchers (PhD students to full professors) across the top 25 social science departments (Times Higher Education 2019 social sciences ranking). The survey asked about explicit and implicit uses of literary fiction in research, publications, and teaching, as well as recommended authors/works. They received 875 responses (7% response rate). Sample coverage was dominated by North American and European departments and included major disciplines: economics (20%), sociology (31%), political science (26%), psychology (19%), other (4%). Career stages included PhD students (35%), postdocs/assistant professors (20%), and tenured staff (42%). Ethical approval and data protection compliance are noted (SDU-RIO ref: 10.646). Data available upon reasonable request.

• General valuation of literature: 93% of respondents agreed that literature contains important insights into the nature of society and social life; only 2% disagreed.
• Influence on research development: 46% agreed or totally agreed that reading literature played a role in the formation of their research questions or development of projects; 34% disagreed.
• Use in publications: 25% reported occasionally using literary fiction in publications and 13% often or very often—nearly 40% in total acknowledged using literary sources in published work. Uses range from brief/decorative quotations and decontextualized parables (e.g., Robinson Crusoe as a model of homo economicus) to more sustained engagements (e.g., Piketty’s references to Austen and Balzac).
• Use in teaching: Less than a third (28–30%) reported never using fiction in teaching; most used it at least sometimes; approximately 12% frequently used literature in teaching (discipline breakdown in Table 3 indicates variability, with economists more skeptical than others).
• Discipline differences: Economists showed relatively lower frequencies of using fiction in teaching and publications compared to sociology, political science, and psychology, aligning with prior findings on economists’ disciplinary insularity.
• Career-stage differences: Early-career researchers were more skeptical and less likely to cite literature in publications. Table 4 shows the share reporting “Never” quoting fiction in publications: PhD 42%, Postdoc 40%, Assistant Professor 28%, Associate Professor 30%, Professor 20%.
• Archival typology vs. self-reports: Categories common in published articles (e.g., literature as decoration; literature as metonym) were rarely mentioned by respondents as part of their practice, indicating a gap between how literature appears in print and how scholars perceive or use it in their work processes.
• Reading list outputs: Top recommended authors (Table 5) included George Orwell, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky, William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Margaret Atwood, John Steinbeck, George Eliot, Aldous Huxley, Toni Morrison, Franz Kafka, Harper Lee, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, James Baldwin, Mark Twain, Ursula K. LeGuin, Chinua Achebe, Homer, and Émile Zola. Top works (Table 6) were 1984 (Orwell), Animal Farm (Orwell), Brave New World (Huxley), War and Peace (Tolstoy), The Handmaid’s Tale (Atwood), To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee), The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck), Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), Middlemarch (Eliot), and The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky). Canonical realist novels and frequently assigned school texts dominated, with notable contemporary women authors (Adichie, Atwood) also appearing.
• JSTOR corpus patterns: The expanded typology captured a wide array of uses, with sizeable shares in “parable,” “decoration,” “philosophical position,” “cultural standard,” “context,” and “cause/historical data,” indicating that literature is often invoked metonymically or decoratively in published social science, even if scholars do not emphasize such uses in self-reports.

The findings indicate that while social scientists broadly endorse the cognitive and social insight value of literature, their explicit incorporation of fiction varies by context (research inspiration, teaching, publications) and by career stage. A substantial minority report direct influence on research development and inclusion in publications, but the dominant published uses (as detected in the JSTOR corpus) often take metonymic or decorative forms that may be shaped by disciplinary publishing conventions. The gap between archival appearances (decoration/metonym common) and self-reports (inspiration and teaching emphasized) suggests that publication norms may discourage explicit cross-disciplinary engagement, especially for early-career academics under professional pressure to conform to disciplinary expectations. At the same time, the prevalence of canonical works in respondents’ recommendations reflects both curricula and cultural familiarity, implying that accessible, well-known fiction serves as a shared interpretive resource. Overall, the study addresses the research question by demonstrating diverse, often light-touch forms of interdisciplinarity already present in the social sciences, highlighting institutional and generational dynamics that modulate how literature is used and acknowledged.

The study contributes an empirically grounded account of how social scientists draw on literary fiction: a qualitative typology derived from a century-spanning JSTOR corpus and a contemporary survey capturing implicit and explicit uses in research, publications, and teaching. Nearly all respondents affirm literature’s value; many report influence on research formation and nontrivial inclusion in publications and pedagogy. The work shows that interdisciplinarity between literature and the social sciences frequently takes modest, casual forms rather than sustained theoretical integration, yet these practices are meaningful and potentially expandable. Future research should broaden search terms (including contemporary and non-Anglophone authors), diversify institutional samples beyond top-ranked NA/EU departments, investigate field-specific norms over time, and explore interventions (e.g., reading lists, pedagogical resources) that normalize and deepen productive engagements with literary criticism and fiction in social science research and teaching.

• JSTOR analysis depended on a preselected list of author/character search terms, risking omissions (e.g., John Steinbeck was not included; see Note 1) and biasing results toward canonical Anglophone, earlier-period authors.
• Archival reliance may underrepresent recent trends and contemporary fiction’s influence due to publication lags and disciplinary citation practices.
• The survey sample was dominated by North American and European departments from top-ranked institutions, limiting generalizability to broader institutional contexts.
• Response rate was 7%, with potential self-selection bias toward individuals sympathetic to literature’s value.
• Self-reports may not align with actual publication practices due to social desirability or recall biases; conversely, published articles may omit influences present during research development.
• The expanded typology, while broader than prior frameworks, may still not capture all nuanced or emerging modes of engagement across diverse social science subfields.