Non Fiction? Non Empathetic.

[text_maniac]

This weeks New Scientist has an interesting article by Keith Oatley of Toronto Uni. He and his colleagues have found that "reading fiction really does have psychological benefits".

First, they tested ability to read emotions and social situations using tests like those used to assess autism, and found that the ability correlated with the amount of fiction people read. So which is cause and effect? Well, next they gave people tests for analytic and emotional reasoning, followed by either a fictional or non fictional essay to read. Those who had read the fiction showed an improvemnet in emotional reasoning, but not the analytical test. Lastly they took a short story by Chekhov and created a control text from it, with the same story but in documentary form. Those who read the Chekhov text showed the larger changes in personality than the controls, although the type of change varied from one individual to another.

The thesis is that reading fiction is a bit like running a computer simulation of society, enabling those who do it most to develop better social skills. Personally I'm tempted to think that cause and effect work the other way too, although there was no mention of testing for this. If I'm right, social people will choose more fiction, and you have a positive feedback loop in which those with the best social skills will improve most....

 

[silverseason]

The thesis is that reading fiction is a bit like running a computer simulation of society, enabling those who do it most to develop better social skills. Personally I'm tempted to think that cause and effect work the other way too, although there was no mention of testing for this. If I'm right, social people will choose more fiction, and you have a positive feedback loop in which those with the best social skills will improve most....

I think of fiction as a way of enlarging experience, both social and otherwise. I cannot possibly live in all the different ages and cultures but through fiction I can experience them. In that way perhaps it is similar to the simulation of a computer game.

Other people may seek only the familiar, or a world they have made familiar. I am thinking of all those romance novels, most of which look much alike.

So whether you benefit in empathy or social skills by reading may relate not only to how much you read by also why you read and how you select what you read.

 

[SFG75]

I like to think of fiction as wearin' a Tuxedo T-shirt, 'cause it says, like, "I want to be formal, but I'm here to party too." I like to party, so I like my fiction to party.