Have you ever been so invested in a novel that when a character goes through an especially emotional experience, you also find yourself experiencing those emotions? If so, you’re not alone. In fact, many people feel transported into the stories they are reading as if they were viewing the story from the character’s point of view. This phenomenon is called “narrative transportation,” and it is associated with empathy. Â
Many think reading fiction doesn’t offer as many benefits as reading non-fiction. But in reality, engaging with novels comes with possibly as many — albeit different — benefits as reading non-fiction does, one of them being an increase in empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand the emotions, thoughts, and feelings of others without having to experience them yourself.
Reading fiction allows you to venture into fictional characters’ minds, which can simulate social experiences of the real world. By engaging with a character’s thoughts and feelings, we can better understand how others in real life think and feel. Like anything, practice makes perfect; the more you read about people and their experiences, the better you’ll understand them. In fact, when shown pictures of people’s eyes, individuals exposed to more fiction were more accurate in distinguishing the emotion the person was displaying in the photo (Mar et al., 2009). If you want to try this test, you can search it up! It’s called Reading the Mind in the Eyes test.Â
Perspective-taking is a core feature of empathy. When reading novels, we get to see the world from different points of view than our own, which can help us understand people’s diverse experiences. This can help combat biases by putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes. Indeed, individuals who read a story about a person from a historically marginalized culture were then more likely to view people from two different races as more similar than individuals who did not read a narrative story (Johnson et al., 2014).Â
Overall, reading fiction is not only for enjoyment. It also gives us insight into other people’s minds, which we can use to learn new perspectives, help others, and expand our knowledge about the world. The next time someone alludes to the idea of fiction being a waste of time, counter back by telling them about all the excellent research showing how it can boost empathy.Â