Age-Gap Relationships in Brazil and Ukraine: How Reading Literature Affects Them

Chesnokova, Anna and van Peer, Willie (2025) Age-Gap Relationships in Brazil and Ukraine: How Reading Literature Affects Them Колективна (три і більше авторів). Springer, Cham.

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Abstract

Love comes in many forms, as we all know and as the quote holds. Some forms are more frequent than others. As a consequence, less frequent forms may be either tolerated or dismissed as deviant, and therefore socially sanctioned. And different cultures may deal with such forms very differently. In this chapter, we look at one form that is less frequent, namely, age-gap relations: love relations between either an older man and a considerably younger woman or vice versa: an older woman and a considerably younger man. Since it may be expected that nations differ in their attitudes toward such relationships, we investigated two that are (geographically and culturally) wide apart: Brazil and Ukraine. We offer some examples of empirical methods (those that aim at knowledge that comes from observation and experience, that is, evidence gathered through the senses that can be analyzed independently by anyone wishing to reanalyze the data gathered) with which to investigate short time and longitudinal effects of confronting fictional love stories. We report a case study, in which we checked how social views on intimate relationships involving a substantial age difference between partners were influenced by reading literary passages from canonical literature, focusing on age-gap relationships. The results cast light on the views on age-gap relations in these respective cultures and thereby highlight their national mentality. Additionally, the findings lend support to the idea that reading literature influences human attitudes.

Item Type:	Monograph (Колективна (три і більше авторів))
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Love; age-gap relationships; empirical research; cultural attitudes; literary reading; effects of reading on perceptions of love
Subjects:	Монографії > Видані в іноземному видавництві мовами ОЕСР/ЄС
Divisions:	Факультет романо-германської філології > Кафедра лінгвістики та перекладу
Depositing User:	Анна Вадимовна Чеснокова
Date Deposited:	29 Aug 2025 10:06
Last Modified:	29 Aug 2025 10:06
URI:	https://elibrary.kubg.edu.ua/id/eprint/53005

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