Reading and Empathy.

"A reader lives a thousand lives before they die." - George R.R. Martin

Can we make the world a better place by just reading books? Many of us in these trying times could certainly use and should project empathy for others. But, as we know, it can at times be a difficult thing to do. One potential for learning and being able to spread empathy...read more fiction.

In past years, there have been numerous studies on how reading enhances our lives. Reading creates imagination, logic, language building, reduces stress, garners knowledge, and yes, even can make us more empathetic.

In 2006, author and psychologist, Keith Oatley, created a study to test the potential for advanced empathy within readers of fiction. His explanation being, that reading creates a simulation of the human experience. Therefore, helping us understand better how others live and perceive the world. The study tested readers of fiction in one group, non-fiction readers in the second group. Using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index test, they were able to score people across different levels of empathy. Adding in The Mind in the Eyes test, participants were required to view an array of images of sets of eyes. They then had to determine the emotion they detected in the eyes. The results found, overwhelmingly, that those that read fiction were better at both the Interpersonal Reactivity Index and The Mind in the Eyes test. Marking these readers on the scale as much more empathetic.

One question that was raised in the study was; does reading fiction create empathy, or do empathetic people gravitate to be readers? They tested this scenario as well. And again found results to back the idea that reading fiction creates more empathy.

There have been many other studies conducted on this idea through the years. This is just one of many.

Reading fiction gives us the great ability to be introduced to potentially new and uncomfortable ideas, situations and other cultures, from a safe distance. We mentally step into someone else's life and stay there long enough to feel like we have lived it. Their emotional upheaval, the angst, the joy, their trials, and their culture. It is one of the rare few ways we can literally walk in another's shoes, so to speak.