Journal•ISSN: 0588-8018
Communications
Éditions du Seuil
About: Communications is an academic journal published by Éditions du Seuil. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Intercultural communication & Interpersonal communication. It has an ISSN identifier of 0588-8018. Over the lifetime, 2337 publications have been published receiving 21727 citations.
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549 citations
TL;DR: This article found that exposure to fiction exposure was positively correlated with social support, while exposure to non-fiction exposure was associated with loneliness and negatively related to social support and concluded that fiction exposure still predicted performance on an empathy task.
Abstract: Readers of fiction tend to have better abilities of empathy and theory of mind (Mar et al., 2006). We present a study designed to replicate this finding, rule out one possible explanation, and extend the assessment of social outcomes. In order to rule out the role of personality, we first identified Openness as the most consistent correlate. This trait was then statistically controlled for, along with two other important individual differences: the tendency to be drawn into stories and gender. Even after accounting for these variables, fiction exposure still predicted performance on an empathy task. Extending these results, we also found that exposure to fiction was positively correlated with social support. Exposure to nonfiction, in contrast, was associated with loneliness, and negatively related to social support.
364 citations