Be a Better Person - Read Fiction

[Steve C]

Came across this and found it interesting.

Does reading fiction make us better people?

Reading fiction has been said to increase people’s empathy and compassion. But does the research really bear that out?

www.bbc.com

 

[Paul Whybrow]

An interesting article. I agree with what Claudia Hammond says about how fiction increases empathy. Some people read only non-fiction, looking down their noses at novels, which is perhaps a clue to their lack of social skills. I've known several experts in their field who read only books about their interest, and they were insular with problems picking up on social clues.

I've found that as a writer, I need to rein in my empathy at times, for it begins to harm what's expected by a reader from the dynamics of the plot. I endeavour to create three-dimensional characters in my crime novels, including the antagonists, the criminals that have included serial killers, kidnappers and cannibals. Portraying the motivation for their vile crimes is one thing, and it's fun to wrong-foot a reader who might start to sympathise with them, but there comes a point when a bad guy has to be just that—an evil threat that needs to be eliminated by my good guy detective.

Part of the problem of doing this is that villains are always more fun to create, as unless you give your hero a slew of addictions and moral failings, they start to look like holier-than-thou bores. As Alfred Hitchcock observed about storylines: The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture.

 

[Rich.]

Interesting article @Steve C. Thanks for sharing it. The section that jumped out at me was this one:

Before we extrapolate to wider society we need to be careful about the direction of causality. There is always the possibility that in real life, people who are more empathic in the first place are more interested in other people’s interior lives and that this interest draws them towards reading fiction. It’s not an easy topic to research: the ideal study would involving measuring people’s empathy levels, randomly allocating them either to read numerous novels or none at all for many years, and then measuring their empathy levels again to see whether reading novels had made any difference.​

I'd love to see the results of that ideal study if it could be performed! But I would agree that the short-term studies mentioned elsewhere in the article do raise tantalising questions.

 

[KateESal]

Interesting.

Is empathy more useful than sympathy? Does one necessarily need empathy to feel sympathy?

You can put yourself in another person's mindset, but will that necessarily encourage you to act in a kind way towards them?
Can people who are less empathic still feel sympathetic impulses towards others?

I suspect the two are linked.

If someone drops a bunch of pens near me, I may well help them to pick up the pens, but is that because I understand how they must be feeling (empathic), or because I am naturally inclined to be kind, or because I have been brought up to be helpful, or because I am anally retentive and hate mess on the floor?

I'm willing to bet that more empathic people are more inclined to kind behaviour, but I don't think it's always the reason.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I don't know that reading fiction is necessarily going to increase empathy, just that it might give one pause for reflection, and an attitude might change, or it might harden instead. It might. Non-fiction calls to the emotions just as strongly, I was very much affected and impressed as a teen by books like The Harmless People and The Marsh Arabs