Science Shows Something Surprising About People Who Still Read Fiction

They tend to be more empathetic toward others. 







This is further apparent in a 2013 study that investigated emotional transportation, which is how sensitive people are to others' feelings. Researchers calculated emotional transportation by having participants express how a story they read affected them emotionally on a five-point scale — for example, how the main character's success made them feel, and how sorry they felt for the characters. 



Need more proof? Psychologists David Comer Kidd and Emanuele Castano at the New School for Social Research focused on the effect of literary fiction, rather than popular fiction, on readers. 

For the experiment, participants either read a piece of literary fiction or popular fiction, followed by identifying facial emotions solely through the eyes. Those who read literary fiction scored consistently higher, by about 10%. 

"We believe that one critical difference between lit and pop fiction is the extent to which the characters are complex, ambiguous, difficult to get to know, etc. (in other words, human) versus stereotyped, simple," Castano wrote to Mic



As the Guardian reports, Kidd argues that applying the skills we use when reading critically to the real world makes sense because "the same psychological processes are used to navigate fiction and real relationships. Fiction is not just a simulator of a social experience, it is a social experience."

The world around is as real as it gets. Might as well indulge in some fiction. Science says it'll make you better at interacting with people.