"By and large, reading is a solitary activity. True, on a nightly basis, plenty of folks tuck little ones in with enchanting bedtime stories. (Apparently, my favorite as a toddler was called "The White Cat," an old yarn involving-of course-a cat, one whose head had to be lopped off by his ladylove before he could turn into a human prince, but let's drop that and move on.)"
"Yet, r esearchers have been curious about whether discerning the inner worlds of made-up characters translates to an enhanced capacity to comprehend people in real life. Previous work revealed that reading fiction once was connected to greater social awareness. I even wrote about that in a post a few years ago. But as it turns out, later research called this conclusion into question."
"In a new study that just came out, a team of researchers examined the link between interpersonal awareness (i.e., being able to perceive how people feel and grasp their inner lives) and reading fiction. They looked at this link in the context of ongoing, regular reading and a single instance of reading. They also compared reading to watching a movie, although they didn't have an expectation of which one would be more connected to social attunement."
A new study compared interpersonal awareness after single-instance and ongoing fiction reading and after watching film. Interpersonal awareness is defined as perceiving how people feel and grasping their inner lives. The study found that a single session of reading fiction or watching a film clip did not relate to social perceptiveness. Prior work had reported a link between a single reading session and greater social awareness, but later work questioned that conclusion. Regular, ongoing fiction reading showed an association with interpersonal awareness, while film viewing did not.
Read at Psychology Today
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