Various scholars have made claims about literature's potential to evoke empathy and self-reflection, which would eventually lead to more pro-social behavior. But is it indeed the case that a seemingly idle pass-time activity like literary reading can do all that? And if so, how can we explain such an influence? Would the effects be particular to unique literary text qualities or to other aspects that literary texts share with other genres (e. g., narrativity)? Empirical research is necessary to answer these questions. This article presents an overview of empirical studies investigating the relationship between reading and empathy, and reading and selfreflection. We reveal those questions in the research that are not addressed as of yet, and synthesize the available approaches to literary effects. Based on theory as well as empirical work, a multi-factor model of literary reading is constructed.With regard to reading and empathy, the metaphor of the moral laboratory (cf. Hakemulder 2000) comes close to a concise summary of the research and theory. Being absorbed in a narrative can stimulate empathic imagination. Readers go along with the author/narrator in a (fictional) thought-experiment, imagining how it would be to be in the shoes of a particular character, with certain motives, under certain circumstances, meeting with certain events. That would explain why narrativity can result in a broadening of readers' consciousness, in particular so that it encompasses fellow human beings. Fictionality might stimulate readers to consider the narrative they read as a thought experiment, creating distance between them and the events, allowing them to experiment more freely with taking the position of a character different from themselves, also in moral respects. Literary features, like gaps and ambiguous characterization, may stimulate readers to make more mental inferences, thus training their theory of mind. However, apart from literature possibly being able to train basic cognitive ability, we have little indication for the importance of literary imagination over narrative or fictional imagination.Regarding self-reflection, while there is no convincing evidence that literary texts are generally more thought-provoking than non-literary texts (either narrative

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Effects of "Literariness" on Emotions and on Empathy and Reflection After Reading

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This study investigated the effects of text genre (expository, life narrative, literary narrative) on reflection (direct thoughts on various subjects and thinking back after one week), using both quantitative and qualitative measures. In addition, the interactive effect of personal factors (personal experience, trait empathy, exposure to literature) and affective responses during reading (narrative feelings, aesthetic feelings, empathic distress) on direct thoughts when reading stories was explored using AMOS. Respondents (N = 210) read two texts within the same genre, one about grief and one about depression, with one week between texts. Each week, they completed a questionnaire. In the short run, the expository texts evoked most “personal” thoughts, but after a week, respondents had thought back to the narrative texts more frequently than to the expository. A small percentage of participants showed a tendency to deeper reflection, predominantly in the literary condition. Direct thoughts were predicted by personal experience with the subject matter, empathic distress, sympathy/empathy with the character, and perceived foregrounding. These results suggest a confirmation of earlier evidence: for narrative texts, emotional reading experiences may be more likely to lead to reflection.