That is at the essence of our humanity. In 2013 an influential study published in science found that reading literary fiction improved participants results on tests that measured social perception and empathy.

Why We Read Fiction Theory Of Mind And The Novel Theory And

But we also learn much about how best to live our lives in ways that can only be captured by fiction.

Why do we read fiction. In fact we think fiction is a. The answer is simple. Fiction has a power that no other form of communication does.

Lisa zunshine 2006 suggests that when we read fiction we might be giving ourselves an opportunity to practise our theory of mind on the characters in our books whilst accompanying scaffolding gives us a sense that we re doing a good job. Everyone reads fiction for different reasons. Being conscious of this role of fiction may strengthen your writing.

According to goldstein a person reading fiction tends to react more strongly towards a story than when he she would read a non fictional story because fiction provides a safe arena in which a reader can experience emotions without the need for self protection. Reading historical fiction allows us to be moved by what happened. Readers read fiction to gain perspective.

When we read stories we re free from peer judgment when responding to what happens to the invented characters. Alternatively historical fiction might make give readers context to the world that they live in. Reading about aliens invading the universe can put your problems in perspective i mean you literally could be dealing with the end of the world.

Even after we know the facts we continue to search for sense and meaning. The power to insert you fully and completely in someone else s mind. Yes we respond we do find pleasure in reading fiction.

Because fiction does not follow the reader into real life the reader can allow oneself to freely experience strong emotions without immediate transfer of these emotions to real life. The next time you feel even a tiny bit guilty for picking up a work of fiction instead of a self help book consider these 9 benefits of reading fiction. It is a meld between the mind of the reader and the writer and.

Fiction is a uniquely powerful way to understand others tap into creativity and exercise your brain. But whatever interests may be appealed to by fiction the special and immediate interest that takes us to fiction is always our interest in a story. And we like it because fiction as an image of life stimulates and gratifies our interest inlife.

We read it because we like it. Empathy is one of the must needed qualities for leaders and entrepreneurs. To use our imagination to escape for different perspectives better or worse ways of looking at the world to find a deeper truth that non fiction cannot convey to relate and find the characters within ourselves.