Positive emotions in fairy-tale reading: a text-mining study of nostalgia among adult purchasers from 1, 428 online reviews

Abstract

Despite the popularity of Chinese classic fairy tales, research on the psychological associations of reading such stories remains limited, especially regarding the discursive expressions and functions of nostalgia. This study explores the association between nostalgia and the reported experience of reading Chinese classic fairy tales among adult purchasers. Taking the classic “Chinese Fairy Tales” (12 volumes) on Dangdang.com as a case, we collected 1, 428 purchaser reviews through crawler technology. Text-mining and sentiment analysis were employed to analyze purchasers’ reported reading experiences and identify psychological factors specifically related to fairy-tale reading. Findings reveal that nostalgia emerges as a prominent discursive theme in adult purchasers’ reviews when discussing their selection of fairy tales for children. The theory of readers’ nostalgia and psychological ownership—encompassing five aspects: occupying a position, self-efficacy, self-identity, responsibility, and territoriality—is clearly reflected in the analyzed discourse. This study highlights the role of nostalgia in adult purchasers’ book-selection motivations and offers an exploratory mapping of psychological ownership themes in the context of nostalgic reading.