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CAN FICTION INDUCE EMPATHY IN REAL LIFE?

Ever wondered if transporting yourself in a fictional world can make you a better person in real life? Well, the good news is that it kind of does, not in a moral sense, but it might help you increase your empathy!


Many research studies have suggested that both the experience of reading fiction and the extent to which a reader feels ‘transported’ by the narrative are linked with empathy. And not only through reading, few studies even show that empathizing to characters in movies might help in increasing your emotional intelligence and empathy. Narrative empathy means the sharing of feelings and perspective-taking which is induced by hearing, viewing, reading or imagining narratives of another’s situation. 

Empathy is one’s ability to understand and experience another person’s psychological or affective state (i.e., imagine the self in someone else’s shoes; Borke 1971; Krebs 1970; Zahn-Waxler and Radke-Yarrow 1990). Two components of empathy are Cognitive and Affective. Cognitive empathy focuses on inferring another’s worldview, beliefs and intentions, whereas affective empathy is the capacity to share another’s emotions and feelings  (Blair, 2005).  Hogan (2010) has argued that these literary expressions of feelings and emotion might be ‘purer’ than those experienced in real-life, and thus they have the power to improve individuals’ empathic responses.  

We all know that reading fiction can be an intensely absorbing experience. This can also be called“being lost in a book” (Nell, 1988), or “being transported to a different world” (Gerrig, 1993). Kotovych et al. (2011) has argued that reading is like a conversation between narrator and reader: when they try to understand a character in a book, they make similar inferences about what the other is thinking and feeling and this increases our understanding of and identification with the character. Mar and Oatley (2008) believe that this process of understanding and identification with characters could actually translate to real life. Even when the reader and fictional character differ from each other in all kinds of practical and obvious ways, empathy for these fictional characters appears to require only minimal elements of situation, identity, and feeling, and not necessarily a realistic characterization. 

Nonfiction genres may also involve narrative empathy, but most published theories on narrative empathy focuses on fictional narratives, specifically fictional novels, film fiction and to some degree, even drama. Reading fictional stories has been linked with the development of empathy in reality in children and Harris (2000) has found continuity between adult’s and children’s engagement with fiction as well as real worlds. But at the same time, children can sometimes forget the difference between reality and fiction. For example, The hostage children in Beslan who wished that Harry Potter would come to their rescue. Adult readers on the other hand know how to differentiate between reality and fiction and do not expect fictional characters to offer them aid. Similarly, adult readers accept that they cannot help them out as much as they may want to intervene. This need to ‘help’ the fictional characters can lead to them being more prosocial in real life.

Similarly a task called “Fiction Emotion-Matching” was created for a study done by Thalia R. Goldstein and Ellen Winner, which presented participants with four 30-second fictional film clips in which the main character was either feeling sad or scared. These clips came from the movies ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ and ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ were chosen because the age of the protagonists was close to the age of the participants, the sadness of the protagonist was conveyed by the tone of voice and facial expressions. All participants correctly identified the emotion of the protagonist of the clips as either sad or scared which shows emotional intelligence and their emotions matched with that of protagonists which indicated empathy. 

So, now you have every reason to believe that all that time where you weren’t leisure reading or watching and were actually invested in the stories may have helped you increase your empathy in real time.

Written by - Kashvi Juneja


References

Argo, J. J., Zhu, R., & Dahl, D. W. (2008). Fact or fiction: An investigation of empathy differences in response to emotional melodramatic entertainment. Journal of Consumer Research, 34(5), 614-623.

Briggs, S. (2015, October 31). How to Teach Empathy Through Fiction. Retrieved from https://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/fiction-teaches-empathy-study-shows / 

Goldstein, T. R., & Winner, E. (2012). Enhancing empathy and theory of mind. Journal of cognition and development, 13(1), 19-37. 

Keen, S. (2013, September 14). Narrative Empathy. Retrieved from https://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/node/42.html#:~:text=1\  


Stansfield, J., & Bunce, L. (2014, July 14). The Relationship Between Empathy and Reading Fiction: Separate Roles for Cognitive and Affective Components. Retrieved from https://jeps.efpsa.org/articles/10.5334/jeps.ca/print

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