Does Originality Evoke Understanding? The Relation between Literary Reading and Empathy

Koopman, Eva Maria

doi:10.1037/gpr0000107

Cited by 16 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 73 publications

(140 reference statements)

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“…Third, though lifetime fiction exposure is positively associated with certain measures of social cognition, these positive associations may not generalize to the broader social construct. We recommend that in future work, researchers carefully delineate possible priming effects versus more durable changes with more naturalistic experiments that capitalize on positive aspects of reader engagement (e.g., transportation, intrinsic motivation to read; Mar, 2018b), and test for other characteristics of readers, readings, and their possible interactions (Koopman, 2018) that may influence fiction's social effects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of fiction reading on social outcomes: A four-week randomized controlled study

Dodell-Feder¹,

Liu²,

Amormino³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Does reading fiction improve our ability to understand one another? Correlational data suggest that lifetime fiction exposure is positively associated with social outcomes. The latest experimental data suggest that fiction reading may slightly improve social ability, although this conclusion is tenuous. Here, we test fiction’s putative causal impact on social outcomes by conducting a randomized controlled study in which adult participants (N=210) were randomly assigned to engage in no reading for pleasure, or to read fiction or nonfiction for 45 min/day, five days/week, for four weeks. At the end of the study, participants were assessed on three classes of social outcomes: theory of mind (ToM), empathy, and social functioning. Contrary to other experimental work, fiction readers did not outperform nonfiction readers or participants who abstained from pleasure reading on any social outcome. Nonfiction readers outperformed those who abstained from pleasure reading on empathy measures. For fiction readers, narrative transportation was positively associated with empathy post-reading, and intrinsic motivation was positively associated with empathy and ToM post-reading. Contrary to other correlational work, we did not observe associations between lifetime fiction exposure and social outcomes. These data are consistent with the following possibilities regarding fiction’s positive impact on social outcomes: such findings may reflect a priming effect, may occur only after prolonged exposure to fiction, and/or may occur for readers who exhibit a particular kind of engagement with the reading.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of fiction reading on social outcomes: A four-week randomized controlled study

Dodell-Feder¹,

Liu²,

Amormino³

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The story under review is a fictional literary narrative, in a way that covers all of the three basic discursive forms, namely narrativity (is structured around a sequence of events and goal-oriented characters), fictionality (is based on simulative processes of imagining what could have been or could happen) and literariness (contains aesthetic, foregrounded and unconventional stylistic features) (Koopman, 2018).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constructing Sexual Victimization: A Thematic Analysis of Reader Responses to A Literary Female-on-Male Rape Story on Goodreads

Tselenti

Cardoso

Carvalho

2023

The Journal of Sex Research

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Τhe aim of this study was to provide a detailed understanding of unprompted audience responses to a literary story of female-on-male rape on Goodreads. Thematic analysis of 429 reviews revealed 6 key themes and 12 sub-themes, which evolved around appraising the social function of the book, evaluating its literary features, assessing the depiction of femaleon-male rape especially in terms of its perceived realism, as well as around a variety of explicitly emotional and cognitive responses. The aesthetic features of the story proved to be of particular importance for shaping reader engagement. Reflective elaborations on the female rapist were found to constitute a marginal response pattern. Findings identified the existence of an overarching cognitive schema that construes sexual victimization as feminized and is linked to a tripartite pattern of comprehending female on-male rape (female-focused, gender-inclusive, gender-neutral). The study highlights the persistence of gendered rape myths structured around an "ideal victim" -"ideal offender" paradigm, which however co-exist with alternative responses oriented towards de-gendering sexual victimization. These findings suggest the importance of addressing audience responses in

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“…Depictions of persons quickly help to communicate attitudes of stakeholders in a naturally accessible way, guiding us through the story. Stories told in this way are engaging, allow for empathizing with stakeholders, and are thus easy to understand [41]. Geo-comics naturally weave into their storytelling a depiction of stakeholders as they act in their environment.…”

Section: Character-driven Narrativementioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies for Successful Learning with Geographical Comics: An Eye-Tracking Study with Young Learners

Reumont

Budke

2020

Education Sciences

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Many studies report that comics are useful as learning material. However, there is little known about how learning with comics works. Based on previously established theories about multimedia learning, we conducted an eye-tracking experiment to examine learning about geography with a specially designed combination of comic and map which we call geo-comic. In our experiment, we show that our geo-comic fulfills many prerequisites for promoting deep learning. Thus, we establish guidelines for an effective design of geo-comics and recommend deploying comics in combination with maps in geography classes.

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Does Originality Evoke Understanding? The Relation between Literary Reading and Empathy

Cited by 16 publications

References 73 publications

The impact of fiction reading on social outcomes: A four-week randomized controlled study

The impact of fiction reading on social outcomes: A four-week randomized controlled study

Constructing Sexual Victimization: A Thematic Analysis of Reader Responses to A Literary Female-on-Male Rape Story on Goodreads

Strategies for Successful Learning with Geographical Comics: An Eye-Tracking Study with Young Learners

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