The DOI matches its Crossref record.
Reading other minds: Effects of literature on empathy
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.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“In addition to fiction providing a means of better understanding themselves, adolescents also recognized the potential of fiction reading for developing empathy and helping them to understand others (Djikic et al., 2013; Eekhof et al., 2022; Vezzali et al., 2015).”
From How Does Reading Fiction Support Adolescents’ Wellbeing? A Qualitative Study Examining Positive Affect, Connection and Personal Growth (2025) · cites this paper as Djikic et al., 2013
In the citing paper
“It has been suggested that fiction literature may have a greater influence on readers' emotions and behaviour than non-fiction literature (Djikic et al., 2013).”
From Longitudinal associations between reading for pleasure and child maladjustment: Results from a propensity score matching analysis (2020) · cites this paper as Djikic et al., 2013
In the citing paper
“However, many studies that deployed the model (e.g., Bal & Veltkamp, 2013;Chlebuch et al. 2020;Djikic et al., 2013) sought and claimed to find effects that became manifest after reading a single text.”
From The effects of reading narrative fiction on social and moral cognition (2021) · cites this paper as Djikic et al., 2013
Citations
Cites
Still being checked.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Reading literary fiction improves theory of mind
Kidd, D. C., & Castano, E. (2013) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1239918 · Cited by 1,642
Fiction: Simulation of Social Worlds
Oatley, K. (2016) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2016.06.002 · Cited by 461
Self-citationCognitive approaches to emotions
Oatley, K., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2014) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2013.12.004 · Cited by 317
Self-citationPanero, M. E., Weisberg, D. S., Black, J., Goldstein, T. R., Barnes, J. L., Brownell, H., & Winner, E. (2016) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/pspa0000064 · Cited by 289
Leisure reading and social cognition: A meta-analysis.
Mumper, M. L., & Gerrig, R. J. (2017) · Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts · doi:10.1037/aca0000089 · Cited by 249
Metadata
- Authors
- Djikic, M., Oatley, K., & Moldoveanu, M. C.
- Affiliations
- University of Toronto (CA)
- Venue
- Scientific Study of Literature
- Published
- 2013-05-31
- Volume
- 3
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 28-47
- ISSN
- 2210-4372 (ISSN-L)
- 2210-4380
- OpenAlex
- W2003469141
- Cited by
- 187
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 2
- FWCI
- 7.30
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Scientific Study of Literature (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Empathy and Medical Education
- Social Sciences › Communication › Media Influence and Health
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Narrative Theory and Analysis
- Keywords
- empathy, fiction reading, cognitive empathy, affective empathy, short stories, openness to experience, personality traits
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
