Fact or fiction?

Abstract

Many studies have claimed to find that reading fiction leads to improvements in social cognition. But this work has left open the critical question of whether any type of narrative, fictional or nonfictional, might have similar effects. To address this question, as well as to test whether framing a narrative as fiction matters, the current studies presented participants (N = 268 in Study 1; N = 362 in Study 2) with literary fiction texts, narrative nonfiction texts, expository nonfiction texts, or no texts. We tested their theory-of-mind abilities using the picture-based Reading the Mind in the Eyes task and a text-based test of higher-order social cognition. Reading anything was associated with higher scores compared to reading nothing, but the effects of framing and text type were inconsistent. These results suggest that prior claims regarding positive effects of reading fiction on mentalizing should be seen as tenuous; other mechanisms may be driving previously published effects.

Does writing promote social cognition? The role of fictionality and social content.

“…Research comparing the effects of fiction and nonfiction on social cognition frequently confounds up to three variables: fictionality (whether or not something is real), social content (whether or not the content focuses on people), and narrativity (whether something is written in expository or narrative form). To the best of our knowledge, the only experimental study that explicitly pitted narrative versus expository texts found no effect of narrativity (Chlebuch et al, 2020). Other experiments compare the effects of (narrative) fiction versus expository nonfiction (e.g., Black & Barnes, 2015a;, thus confounding form with fictionality.…”

“…Research examining the effects of merely labeling a written stimulus "fiction" versus "nonfiction" has found no effect on transportation, or engagement with the story (Green & Brock, 2000), or on empathic understanding and subsequent prosocial behavior (Koopman, 2015). Chlebuch et al (2020) found no effect of framing on RMET performance across two studies, and although labeling fiction as fiction resulted in lower scores on a text-based assessment of social-cognitive ability in one of two studies, there was no effect of labeling nonfiction in either.…”

“…Results from experimental studies have been mixed (cf. Bal & Veltkamp, 2013; Black & Barnes, 2015a; Chlebuch et al, 2020; Kidd & Castano, 2013; Panero et al, 2016; Pino & Mazza, 2016; Samur et al, 2018) but as a whole suggest a slight benefit of reading fiction compared with nonfiction or nonreading control conditions (Dodell-Feder & Tamir, 2018), particularly when social cognition is operationalized as the ability to read emotions in pictures of eyes 1 . The inconsistent pattern of results across studies may in part reflect the difficulties inherent in testing for potential effects of reading (see Panero et al, 2016).…”

Cognitive effects and correlates of reading fiction: Two preregistered multilevel meta-analyses.

“…However, two central issues remain unresolved. The first is the robustness of these findings in view of multiple failed replications and studies with null results (see, e.g., Chlebuch et al, 2020; Lenhart & Richter, 2022; Panero et al, 2016; Samur et al, 2018; Wimmer, Currie, et al, 2021, 2022). Second, a capacity for high levels of empathy and ToM is generally considered desirable (e.g., A.…”

“…However, two central issues remain unresolved. The first is the robustness of these findings in view of multiple failed replications and studies with null results (see, e.g., Chlebuch et al, 2020;Samur et al, 2018;Wimmer, Currie, et al, 2021, 2022. Second, a capacity for high levels of empathy and ToM is generally considered desirable (e.g., A. M. Ferguson et al, 2021;Goldstein & Winner, 2012) and research confirming that reading fiction has robust positive effects on these capacities is likely to be welcomed.…”