Volume 3, Issue 1
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Abstract

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.

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/content/journals/10.1075/ssol.3.1.06dji
2013-01-01
2024-03-29
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http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1075/ssol.3.1.06dji
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Keyword(s): art; empathy; literature; perspective taking; theory of mind

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