The potential of literature to increase empathy was investigated in an experiment. Participants (N = 100, 69 women) completed a package of questionnaires that measured lifelong exposure to fiction and nonfiction, personality traits, and affective and cognitive empathy. They read either an essay or a short story that were equivalent in length and complexity, were tested again for cognitive and affective empathy, and were finally given a non-self-report measure of empathy. Participants who read a short story who were also low in Openness experienced significant increases in self-reported cognitive empathy (p .05). No increases in affective empathy were found. Participants who were frequent fiction-readers had higher scores on the non-self-report measure of empathy. Our results suggest a role for fictional literature in facilitating development of empathy.
2026. Social Robots Against Bullying – Effects of Embodiment and Interactivity on Social Story Experience and Efficiency. In Interactive Storytelling [Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 16375], ► pp. 72 ff.
2025. How psychological and descriptive narratives modulate the perception of facial emotional expressions: an event-related potentials (ERPs) study. Experimental Brain Research 243:6
Chen, Lijuan, Lizhan Sun, Cheng Jia & Xiaodong Xu
2025. The effects of narrative voice and focalization on literary text understanding: an ERP investigation. Reading and Writing 38:9 ► pp. 2581 ff.
Currie, Nicola, Charlotte Webber, Katherine Wilkinson, Christina Clark, Gemma Moss & Sarah McGeown
2025. How Does Reading Fiction Support Adolescents’ Wellbeing? A Qualitative Study Examining Positive Affect, Connection and Personal Growth. Reading Psychology 46:7 ► pp. 654 ff.
Currie, Nicola K., Katherine Wilkinson & Sarah McGeown
2025. Reading Fiction and Psychological Well‐being During Older Adulthood: Positive Affect, Connection and Personal Growth. Reading Research Quarterly 60:1
Lassi, Nicholas
2025. The power of books: regular reading for pleasure and its impact on youth deviancy. Educational Research for Policy and Practice 24:2 ► pp. 195 ff.
Mathiesen, Signe Lund, Amanda Grenier, Walter Wittich, Mahadeo Sukhai & Björn Herrmann
2025. Narrative engagement in story listening: The challenge of age and vision loss. Journal of Aging Studies 75 ► pp. 101355 ff.
Qi, Zhi & Hong You
2025. The influence of exposure to foreign literature on Chinese readers’ out-group attitudes: the sequential mediating role of emotional investment and cultural empathy. Frontiers in Psychology 16
Scott, Rachel, Kristie L. Poole, Louis A. Schmidt & Raha Hassan
2025. Caring Too Much or Too Little? Relations Among Motivations for Social Withdrawal, Empathy, and Prosociality in Emerging Adulthood. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 66:5 ► pp. 717 ff.
Usluoglu, Feyruz
2025. How Reading Fiction Affects Us?. Uluslararası Davranış, Sürdürülebilirlik ve Yönetim Dergisi 11:21 ► pp. 50 ff.
Yan, Zihan & Yaohong Xiang
2025. Social Life Simulation for Non-Cognitive Skills Learning. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 9:2 ► pp. 1 ff.
ALKAN, Yağmur & Salim DURUKOĞLU
2024. Ortaokul Öğrencilerinin Kitap Okumaya Yönelik İlgi ve Tercihlerinin İncelenmesi. Ana Dili Eğitimi Dergisi 12:1 ► pp. 137 ff.
Comes-Fayos, J., A. Romero-Martínez, M. Lila, M. Martínez & L. Moya-Albiol
2024. Low sadness and high happiness facial prevalence to others' suffering in intimate partner violence against women perpetrators: influence of emotional decoding deficits. Current Psychology 43:25 ► pp. 21981 ff.
2024. Conversations with No One. Poetics Today 45:2 ► pp. 291 ff.
Kelly, Cavenaugh
2024. Healthcare Education: Can Literary Narratives Address Occupational Therapy’s ‘Incongruence’ in Values?. Occupational Therapy In Health Care 38:2 ► pp. 439 ff.
Lieto, Antonio, Manuel Striani, Cristina Gena, Enrico Dolza, Anna Maria Marras, Gian Luca Pozzato & Rossana Damiano
2024. A sensemaking system for grouping and suggesting stories from multiple affective viewpoints in museums. Human–Computer Interaction 39:1-2 ► pp. 109 ff.
Ozbay, Yagmur, Suzanne Oosterwijk, Eftychia Stamkou & Maja Vukadinovic
2024. Beyond beauty: Does visual art facilitate social cognitive skills?. PLOS ONE 19:10 ► pp. e0308392 ff.
Shen, Jocelyn, Daniella DiPaola, Safinah Ali, Maarten Sap, Hae Won Park & Cynthia Breazeal
2024. Empathy Toward Artificial Intelligence Versus Human Experiences and the Role of Transparency in Mental Health and Social Support Chatbot Design: Comparative Study. JMIR Mental Health 11 ► pp. e62679 ff.
Shulman, Kaiulani, Karen Baicker & Linda Mayes
2024. Reading for life-long health. Frontiers in Pediatrics 12
Tsang, Art & Daniel Fung
2024. Compulsory versus voluntary extensive reading: Investigating English learners' perceptions, proficiency and school banding. The Curriculum Journal 35:2 ► pp. 168 ff.
Yama, Hiroshi
2024. Are Humans Moral Creatures? A Dual-Process Approach for Natural Experiments of History. In Human and Artificial Rationalities [Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 14522], ► pp. 210 ff.
Fekete, Judit, Zsuzsanna Pótó, Eszter Varga, Dóra Hebling, Márton Herold, Noémi Albert, Borbála Pethő, Tamás Tényi & Róbert Herold
2023. The effect of reading literary fiction on the theory of mind skills among persons with schizophrenia and normal controls. Frontiers in Psychiatry 14
Mínguez-López, Xavier
2023. La educación literaria en educación infantil: leer antes de leer. Enunciación 28 ► pp. 185 ff.
Sanz-Valdivieso, Lucía
2023. Give it to her. Journal of Language and Sexuality 12:2 ► pp. 173 ff.
Silva, Paulo Henrique Dias & Sara Del Prete Panciera
2023. Teoria da Mente e Empatia em Adultos Típicos: Uma Revisão de Escopo. Psico-USF 28:3 ► pp. 533 ff.
Troxler, Reba, Thalia Goldstein, Steven Holochwost, Charles Beekman, Stephanie McKeel & Muna Shami
2023. Deeper engagement with live theater increases middle school students’ empathy and social perspective taking. Applied Developmental Science 27:4 ► pp. 352 ff.
YAZICI, Nermin & Günçe GÜNDUĞDU
2023. TÜRKÇE DERS KİTAPLARINDA YER ALAN ANLATISAL METİNLERDE OKUR EMPATİSİNİ YÖNLENDİREN DİLSEL GÖRÜNÜMLER. Hacettepe Üniversitesi Türkiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi (HÜTAD) :38/Özel Sayı ► pp. 199 ff.
Borkfelt, Sune
2022. Literary Narratives and the Empathics of Slaughter. In Reading Slaughter [Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature, ], ► pp. 33 ff.
Crowe, Taylor & Tracey S. Hodges
2022. Elementary Education and Perspective-Taking. In Creativity as Progressive Pedagogy [Advances in Educational Technologies and Instructional Design, ], ► pp. 351 ff.
Eekhof, Lynn S., Kobie van Krieken & Roel M. Willems
2022. Reading about minds: The social-cognitive potential of narratives. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 29:5 ► pp. 1703 ff.
Grenier, Robin S, Jamie L Callahan, Kristi Kaeppel & Carole Elliott
2022. Advancing book clubs as non-formal learning to facilitate critical public pedagogy in organizations. Management Learning 53:3 ► pp. 483 ff.
Gustafsson, Anna W, Per Johnsson, Kajsa Järvholm, Katarina Bernhardsson, Torbjörn Forslid & Anders Ohlsson
2022. Historical empathy and medicine: Pathography and empathy in Sophocles’ Philoctetes. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 25:3 ► pp. 561 ff.
Kuzmičová, Anežka & Teresa Cremin
2022. Different fiction genres take children’s memories to different places. Cambridge Journal of Education 52:1 ► pp. 37 ff.
König, Sannah & Saskia Schabio
2022. 6th FabLearn Europe / MakeEd Conference 2022, ► pp. 1 ff.
Mason, Jessica
2022. Teachers’ Intertextual Identities and English Education. In Pedagogical Stylistics in the 21st Century, ► pp. 263 ff.
Miller, Henry “Cody”, Shelby Boehm, Kathleen Colantonio-Yurko & Brittany Adams
2022. Himpathy, Herasure, and Down Girl Moves: A Critical Content Analysis of Sexual Assault in Young Adult Literature. Journal of Literacy Research 54:3 ► pp. 298 ff.
Rohm, S., F. R. Hopp & E. G. Smit
2022. Exposure to serial audiovisual narratives increases empathy via vicarious interactions. Media Psychology 25:1 ► pp. 106 ff.
Tracey, S. Hodges & Hilboldt Swain Holly
2022. Preparing Preservice Teachers to Develop Elementary Students’ Resiliency Through Empathy, Writing, and Diverse Picture Books. In Developing Trauma-Informed Teachers, ► pp. 63 ff.
Wimmer, Lena & Heather J Ferguson
2022. Testing the validity of a self-report scale, author recognition test, and book counting as measures of lifetime exposure to print fiction. Behavior Research Methods 55:1 ► pp. 103 ff.
2021. ‘Never mind the bullocks’: animating the go-along interview through creative nonfiction. Mobilities 16:3 ► pp. 306 ff.
Bulfin, Ailise
2021. ‘I'll touch whatever I want’: Representing Child Sexual Abuse in Contemporary Children's and Young Adult Gothic. Gothic Studies 23:1 ► pp. 21 ff.
Dahy, Faten Abdelaziz & Khaled Mostafa Karam
2021. Potentials of Empathetic Stimuli in Creative Nonfiction: Zimbardo’sThe Lucifer Effectand Danner’sTorture and Truth. English Studies 102:4 ► pp. 468 ff.
Eekhof, Lynn S., Kobie van Krieken, José Sanders & Roel M. Willems
2021. Reading Minds, Reading Stories: Social-Cognitive Abilities Affect the Linguistic Processing of Narrative Viewpoint. Frontiers in Psychology 12
Franks, A. Dean, Audra I. Classen & Tracey S. Hodges
2021. Recognizing, Embracing, and Advocating for Diversity to Develop Young Children's Social-Emotional Skills. In Handbook of Research on Supporting Social and Emotional Development Through Literacy Education [Advances in Educational Technologies and Instructional Design, ], ► pp. 134 ff.
Franks, A. Dean, Audra I. Classen & Tracey S. Hodges
2022. Recognizing, Embracing, and Advocating for Diversity to Develop Young Children's Social-Emotional Skills. In Research Anthology on Early Childhood Development and School Transition in the Digital Era, ► pp. 760 ff.
Kotrla Topić, Marina
2021. EMOTIONAL ENGAGEMENT, BUT NOT TRANSPORTATION LEADS TO HIGHER EMPATHY AFTER READING A FICTIONAL STORY, IN MORE AGREEABLE PARTICIPANTS. Primenjena psihologija 14:2 ► pp. 211 ff.
Lathrop, Ben
2021. From Engagement to Empathy: Performance in the ELA Classroom.
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Lecce, Serena, Federica Bianco & Claire Hughes
2021. Reading minds and reading texts: Evidence for independent and specific associations. Cognitive Development 57 ► pp. 101010 ff.
Mellor, Rebecca Louise & Elia Psouni
2021. The Study of Security Priming on Avoidant Attentional Biases: Combining Microsaccadic Eye-Movement Measurement With a Dot-Probe Task. Frontiers in Psychology 12
Namba, Shushi, Russell Sarwar Kabir, Kiyoaki Matsuda, Yuka Noguchi, Kohei Kambara, Ryota Kobayashi, Jun Shigematsu, Makoto Miyatani & Takashi Nakao
2021. Fantasy Component of Interpersonal Reactivity is Associated with Empathic Accuracy: Findings from Behavioral Experiments with Implications for Applied Settings. Reading Psychology 42:7 ► pp. 788 ff.
Rokotnitz, Naomi
2021. Fantasy, Fiction, and the Foundations of “Relational Authenticity”: J. M. Barrie'sPeter and Wendyand Søren Kierkegaard'sFear and TremblingRevisited. Interdisciplinary Literary Studies 23:2 ► pp. 204 ff.
Schwering, Steven C., Natalie M. Ghaffari-Nikou, Fangyun Zhao, Paula M. Niedenthal & Maryellen C. MacDonald
2021. Exploring the Relationship Between Fiction Reading and Emotion Recognition. Affective Science 2:2 ► pp. 178 ff.
Wimmer, Lena, Gregory Currie, Stacie Friend & Heather J. Ferguson
Wimmer, Lena, Stacie Friend, Gregory Currie & Heather J. Ferguson
2021. Reading Fictional Narratives to Improve Social and Moral Cognition: The Influence of Narrative Perspective, Transportation, and Identification. Frontiers in Communication 5
Chlebuch, Natasha, Thalia R. Goldstein & Deena Skolnick Weisberg
2020. Fact or fiction?. Scientific Study of Literature 10:2 ► pp. 167 ff.
David, Amy, Amanda S. Mayes & Elizabeth C. Coppola
2020. The Effect of Live Theatre on Business Ethics. Humanistic Management Journal 5:2 ► pp. 215 ff.
Fåhraeus, Anna W. E.
2020. Fiction as a Means to Understanding the Dynamics of Empathy. Educare :3 ► pp. 46 ff.
García Ochoa, Gabriel & Sarah McDonald
2020. Cultural Literacy and the Case for Empathy. In Cultural Literacy and Empathy in Education Practice, ► pp. 21 ff.
Gross, Daniel M. & Stephanie D. Preston
2020. Darwin and the Situation of Emotion Research. Emotion Review 12:3 ► pp. 179 ff.
Kolaiti, Patricia
2020. Perceptual relevance and art: Some tentative suggestions. Journal of Literary Semantics 49:2 ► pp. 99 ff.
Kuzmičová, Anežka, Theresa Schilhab & Michael Burke
2020. m-Reading: Fiction reading from mobile phones. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 26:2 ► pp. 333 ff.
Laermans, Jorien, Hans Scheers, Philippe Vandekerckhove & Emmy De Buck
2020. PROTOCOL: Recreational book reading for promoting cognitive functioning and emotional well‐being in older adults: A systematic review. Campbell Systematic Reviews 16:4
Lin, Xi
2020. The Engaged Spectator: Reading BL Novels in Contemporary China. Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences 13:2 ► pp. 233 ff.
Mahmoudi, Masoumeh, Mehdi Pourasghar & Kamaledin Alaedini
2020. Literature and Medicine: Clinical Symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Contemporary Iranian Fictions. Iranian Journal of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences 14:3
Poerio, Giulia & Peter Totterdell
2020. The Effect of Fiction on the Well-Being of Older Adults: A Longitudinal RCT Intervention Study Using Audiobooks. Psychosocial Intervention 29:1 ► pp. 29 ff.
Smith, Ann Kowal, Capria Jaussen & Karen R. Nestor
2020. The seminar goes to work: Towards a theory of collaborative literacy. Industry and Higher Education 34:4 ► pp. 263 ff.
Walkington, Zoë, Stefanie Ashton Wigman & David Bowles
2020. The impact of narratives and transportation on empathic responding. Poetics 80 ► pp. 101425 ff.
Zambaldi, Carla Fonseca
2020. A literatura e medicina: a literatura como fonte de escuta, empatía e autorreflexão. MEDICA REVIEW. International Medical Humanities Review / Revista Internacional de Humanidades Médicas 8:1 ► pp. 29 ff.
Black, Jessica E.
2019. An IRT Analysis of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test. Journal of Personality Assessment 101:4 ► pp. 425 ff.
Bracher, Mark, Deborah Barnbaum, Michael Byron, Tammy Clewell, Nancy Docherty, Françoise Massardier-Kenney, David Pereplyotchik, Susan Roxburgh & Elizabeth Smith-Pryor
Deane, Paul, Swapna Somasundaran, René R. Lawless, Hilary Persky & Colleen Appel
2019. The Key Practice, Building and Sharing Stories and Social Understandings: The Intrinsic Value of Narrative. ETS Research Report Series 2019:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Kuzmičová, Anežka & Katalin Bálint
2019. Personal Relevance in Story Reading. Poetics Today 40:3 ► pp. 429 ff.
Mumper, Micah L. & Richard J. Gerrig
2019. How Does Leisure Reading Affect Social Cognitive Abilities?. Poetics Today 40:3 ► pp. 453 ff.
Nikolajeva, Maria
2019. What is it Like to be a Child? Childness in the Age of Neuroscience. Children's Literature in Education 50:1 ► pp. 23 ff.
Pinotti, Andrea & Massimo Salgaro
2019. Empathy or Empathies? Uncertainties in the Interdisciplinary Discussion. Gestalt Theory 41:2 ► pp. 141 ff.
Satchwell, Candice
2019. Collaborative writing with young people with disabilities: raising new questions of authorship and agency. Literacy 53:2 ► pp. 77 ff.
Vaziri, H., L. Tay, M. G. Keith & J. O. Pawelski
2019. History, literature, and philosophy: A systematic review of positive functioning. The Journal of Positive Psychology 14:6 ► pp. 695 ff.
2018. Learning Medicine With, From, and Through the Humanities. In Understanding Medical Education, ► pp. 223 ff.
Costabile, Kristi A., Randi Shedlosky-Shoemaker & Adrienne B. Austin
2018. Universal stories: How narratives satisfy core motives. Self and Identity 17:4 ► pp. 418 ff.
D’Adamo, Amedeo
2018. Welcome to Dantean Space!: Empathy and Space in Singin’ in the Rain, Legally Blonde, the Pursuit of Happyness and Aliens. In Empathetic Space on Screen, ► pp. 3 ff.
Kaakinen, Johanna K., Orsolya Papp-Zipernovszky, Egon Werlen, Nuria Castells, Per Bergamin, Thierry Baccino & Arthur M. Jacobs
2018. Does Originality Evoke Understanding? The Relation between Literary Reading and Empathy. Review of General Psychology 22:2 ► pp. 169 ff.
Mangen, Anne, Anne Charlotte Begnum, Anežka Kuzmičová, Kersti Nilsson, Mette Steenberg & Hildegunn Støle
2018. Empathy and literary style. Orbis Litterarum 73:6 ► pp. 471 ff.
Mar, Raymond A.
2018. Stories and the Promotion of Social Cognition. Current Directions in Psychological Science 27:4 ► pp. 257 ff.
Oatley, Keith & Maja Djikic
2018. Psychology of Narrative Art. Review of General Psychology 22:2 ► pp. 161 ff.
Salgaro, Massimo & Benjamin Van Tourhout
2018. Why Does Frank Underwood Look at Us? Contemporary Heroes Suggest the Need of a Turn in the Conceptualization of Fictional Empathy. Journal of Literary Theory 12:2 ► pp. 345 ff.
Samur, Dalya, Mattie Tops & Sander L. Koole
2018. Does a single session of reading literary fiction prime enhanced mentalising performance? Four replication experiments of Kidd and Castano (2013). Cognition and Emotion 32:1 ► pp. 130 ff.
Alderson-Day, Ben, Marco Bernini & Charles Fernyhough
2017. Uncharted features and dynamics of reading: Voices, characters, and crossing of experiences. Consciousness and Cognition 49 ► pp. 98 ff.
Ayu, Antonia
2017. The Effect of Reading Fiction on Empathy. SSRN Electronic Journal
Boerma, Inouk E., Suzanne E. Mol & Jelle Jolles
2017. The Role of Home Literacy Environment, Mentalizing, Expressive Verbal Ability, and Print Exposure in Third and Fourth Graders’ Reading Comprehension. Scientific Studies of Reading 21:3 ► pp. 179 ff.
Calarco, Navona, Katrina Fong, Marina Rain & Raymond A. Mar
2017. Self-in-Self, Mind-in-Mind, Heart-in-Heart: The Future of Role-Taking, Perspective Taking, and Empathy. In Advances in Group Processes [Advances in Group Processes, 34], ► pp. 151 ff.
De Mulder, Hannah N. M., Frank Hakemulder, Rianne van den Berghe, Fayette Klaassen & Jos J. A. van Berkum
Duncan, Charles, Georgene Bess-Montgomery & Viktor Osinubi
2017. Why Martha Nussbaum is Right: The Empirical Case for the Value of Reading and Teaching Fiction. Interdisciplinary Literary Studies 19:2 ► pp. 242 ff.
Gavaler, Chris & Dan Johnson
2017. The genre effect. Scientific Study of Literature 7:1 ► pp. 79 ff.
2017. Preschoolers' moral judgments of environmental harm and the influence of perspective taking. Journal of Environmental Psychology 53 ► pp. 11 ff.
Junker, Christine R. & Stephen J. Jacquemin
2017. How Does Literature Affect Empathy in Students?. College Teaching 65:2 ► pp. 79 ff.
Kuzmičová, Anežka, Anne Mangen, Hildegunn Støle & Anne Charlotte Begnum
2017. Literature and readers’ empathy: A qualitative text manipulation study. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 26:2 ► pp. 137 ff.
Samur, Dalya, Olivier Luminet & Sander L. Koole
2017. Alexithymia predicts lower reading frequency: The mediating roles of mentalising ability and reading attitude. Poetics 65 ► pp. 1 ff.
Bavishi, Avni, Martin D. Slade & Becca R. Levy
2016. A chapter a day: Association of book reading with longevity. Social Science & Medicine 164 ► pp. 44 ff.
Burke, Michael, Anezka Kuzmicova, Anne Mangen & Theresa Schilhab
Mol, Suzanne E., Jelle Jolles, Tamara Van Batenburg‐Eddes & Maureen K. Bult
2016. Early adolescents' and their parents' mental imagery in relation to perceived reading competence. Journal of Research in Reading 39:3 ► pp. 253 ff.
Pino, Maria Chiara, Monica Mazza & Garet P. Lahvis
2016. The Use of “Literary Fiction” to Promote Mentalizing Ability. PLOS ONE 11:8 ► pp. e0160254 ff.
Tamir, Diana I., Andrew B. Bricker, David Dodell-Feder & Jason P. Mitchell
2016. Reading fiction and reading minds: the role of simulation in the default network. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 11:2 ► pp. 215 ff.
Black, Jessica E. & Jennifer L. Barnes
2015. The effects of reading material on social and non-social cognition. Poetics 52 ► pp. 32 ff.
De Smedt, Johan & Helen De Cruz
2015. The Epistemic Value of Speculative Fiction. Midwest Studies In Philosophy 39:1 ► pp. 58 ff.
Kann-Rasmussen, Nanna & Gitte Balling
2015. Ikke-læsning som «problem» i dansk kulturpolitik - En analyse af læsekampagnen Danmark Læser. Nordisk kulturpolitisk tidsskrift 18:2 ► pp. 250 ff.
McTigue, Erin, April Douglass, Katherine L. Wright, Tracey S. Hodges & Amanda D. Franks
2015. Beyond the Story Map. The Reading Teacher 69:1 ► pp. 91 ff.
van Duijn, Max J, Ineke Sluiter & Arie Verhagen
2015. When narrative takes over: The representation of embedded mindstates in Shakespeare’s Othello. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 24:2 ► pp. 148 ff.
McIntyre, Dan
2014. The year’s work in stylistics 2013. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 23:4 ► pp. 389 ff.
Riese, Katrin, Mareike Bayer, Gerhard Lauer & Annekathrin Schacht
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