I keep coming across this idea that reading fiction increases people’s empathy. It made me curious to hear if you’ve dated a man that reads a lot of fiction – have you found that to be true?
I keep coming across this idea that reading fiction increases people’s empathy. It made me curious to hear if you’ve dated a man that reads a lot of fiction – have you found that to be true?
Comments
Yes. Anecdotally yes. But overall empathy develops from desire to be empathetic. Most men who read fiction get the benefit of understanding they’re not an island and that other people experience life the same way they do OR have experiences outside their own and think of things differently. If that catalyzes into empathy is wholly person-dependent.
It’s selection bias.
I guess I don’t have a lot to compare to, but my fiancé is a huge reader (both fiction and non), and he’s certainly an empathetic person. Is there a correlation though? Who knows. (He’s also a writer, both in his spare time and for a living, including writing fiction.) My ex-husband wasn’t not a reader at all, but certainly much less of one than my fiancé is… but he’s quite empathetic as well.
Perhaps some men — or people in general — who read lots of fiction but aren’t naturally that empathetic experience an increase, but then there isn’t really a way to measure who would’ve been empathetic regardless. Unless someone went from not being a reader of fiction to reading tons of it and there was a noticeable change in their ability to empathise with others, no way of saying.
Depends what fiction. One of the least empathetic people I ever met was a huge Stephen King fan.
Of course putting yourself in other people’s shoes leads to more sonder and consideration that others aren’t just NPCs in a solopsistic fantasy world. But…they have to want to. There are plenty of book-smart people who are cruel.
I haven’t found this to be true in my own life. I know some major assholes who read tons of fiction and some extremely kind men who only read non-fiction or not at all.
I don’t think the development of empathy is that simple.