{"id":117603,"date":"2026-10-02T01:04:52","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T05:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/?p=117603"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:04:52","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T05:04:52","slug":"does-reading-fiction-increase-empathy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/entertainment\/books-entertainment\/does-reading-fiction-increase-empathy\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Reading Fiction Increase Empathy? Only If You Get Lost"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='booster-block booster-read-block'>\n                <div class=\"twp-read-time\">\n                \t<i class=\"booster-icon twp-clock\"><\/i> <span>Read Time:<\/span>10 Minute, 12 Second                <\/div>\n\n            <\/div><p>You finish the last page of a good novel and sit there for a minute.<\/p>\n\n<p>The room looks the same. But something in you has shifted. You spent a few hundred pages inside someone else&#8217;s head. You worried about their choices. You understood why they did the thing you would never do. And now, for a little while, the people around you seem a bit easier to understand too.<\/p>\n\n<p>Is that real? Or is it just a nice feeling that fades by breakfast?<\/p>\n\n<p>Scientists have been arguing about this for more than ten years. A new review, published in late September 2026, pulled the evidence together. The answer to <strong>does reading fiction increase empathy<\/strong> turns out to be yes, a little. But only under one condition, and most of us have felt the difference without ever putting a name to it.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Does Reading Fiction Increase Empathy? What the New Review Found<\/h2>\n\n<p>The review appeared in the journal <em>Frontiers in Psychology<\/em>. Its author, Liu Chang, gathered <a href=\"https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/journals\/psychology\/articles\/10.3389\/fpsyg.2026.1865031\/full\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">21 studies on literary fiction, empathy and perspective-taking<\/a>. Perspective-taking is the skill of imagining how the world looks from inside someone else&#8217;s life.<\/p>\n\n<p>Here is how those 21 studies split:<\/p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>About half<\/strong> (10 of 21) found a clear positive effect.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Roughly a quarter<\/strong> (6 of 21) found an effect that only showed up under certain conditions.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Roughly a quarter<\/strong> (5 of 21) found little or nothing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p>Twelve of the studies had numbers that could be pooled together. Combined, they showed a small but steady effect. The strongest gains were in perspective-taking, the &#8220;what is this person thinking?&#8221; side of empathy. The &#8220;what is this person feeling, and do I want to help?&#8221; side moved too, a little less.<\/p>\n\n<p>The author&#8217;s own summary is careful, and worth hearing in full: reading literary fiction &#8220;does not uniformly transform readers&#8217; empathy, but is linked to modest, context-sensitive gains.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n<p>So it is not a magic pill. It is a nudge. But a nudge you can give yourself, at no cost, with a library card or a borrowed paperback.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"convertkit-form wp-block-convertkit-form\" style=\"\"><script async data-uid=\"6491fb8269\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.kit.com\/6491fb8269\/index.js\" data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" data-no-defer=\"1\" data-no-optimize=\"1\" nowprocket><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n<h2>The Catch: You Have to Get Lost in the Story<\/h2>\n\n<p>The single most important word in this research is one most people have never heard: <strong>transportation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n<p>Transportation is what psychologists call that feeling of being carried into a story. You forget the chair you are sitting in. You forget your phone. You are just there, with the characters.<\/p>\n\n<p>The review found that transportation kept showing up as the thing that made the difference. In study after study, the empathy gain appeared mainly for readers who were pulled in.<\/p>\n\n<p>And here is the part that surprised us. In 2013, two researchers in the Netherlands, Matthijs Bal and Martijn Veltkamp, <a href=\"https:\/\/researchportal.bath.ac.uk\/en\/publications\/how-does-fiction-reading-influence-empathy-an-experimental-invest\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tracked readers&#8217; empathy over a full week<\/a> after they read either a short story or a piece of non-fiction. Fiction readers who were carried into the story became more empathic over that week. But fiction readers who were <em>not<\/em> carried in? Their empathy went <em>down<\/em>. In both of the experiments they ran.<\/p>\n\n<p>Read that again. A story you push through, bored and distracted, may do you less good than no story at all. It is not the act of reading fiction that seems to matter. It is the act of giving yourself to it.<\/p>\n\n<p>That matches something most readers already know in their bones. The books that changed you were never the ones you skimmed. They were the ones you got lost in. Our close reading of <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/entertainment\/station-eleven-meaning\/\">Station Eleven<\/a> is really about this: one small story, handed from one person to another, quietly shaping who they became.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Why One Short Story Probably Won&#8217;t Change You<\/h2>\n\n<p>You may have seen a headline years ago saying that reading just a few pages of literary fiction made people better at reading emotions. That came from a famous 2013 study by David Kidd and Emanuele Castano, published in <em>Science<\/em>. It went everywhere.<\/p>\n\n<p>The part that did not go everywhere: when the same two researchers came back in 2019 to test it again, the effects were small and inconsistent. Other teams trying to repeat it found weaker results, or none.<\/p>\n\n<p>The new review is honest about this. It notes that since about 2016, larger and more careful studies have tended to find smaller effects than the early, exciting ones. And it says plainly that it is &#8220;very unlikely that a single reading session could have a large effect&#8221; on empathy.<\/p>\n\n<p>That is actually good news, if you think about it. Empathy is not something one story can install. It grows the way most good things grow: slowly, through many small repetitions, over a lifetime of stories.<\/p>\n\n<h2>What Actually Seems to Help<\/h2>\n\n<p>The review found the effects were most visible when two things were true. Readers were engaged with a story that asked something of them. And they were invited, by the story itself or by someone else, to actively imagine what the characters were thinking.<\/p>\n\n<p>That points to a few simple habits. None of them need money, a degree, or much time.<\/p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Choose stories that pull you in, not ones you &#8220;should&#8221; read.<\/strong> Being carried in is the whole game. A story you love beats a classic you resent.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Read without your phone in reach.<\/strong> Transportation does not survive a notification. Even ten quiet minutes counts.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Stop and ask one question.<\/strong> When a character does something you would never do, pause and ask: why would a real person do this? What would I need to have lived through to make the same choice?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Talk about it with someone.<\/strong> A book club, a friend, a child at bedtime. Asking &#8220;how do you think she felt?&#8221; out loud is the invitation the research keeps pointing to.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Listen if reading is hard.<\/strong> Stories told aloud have been carrying people into other lives for as long as there have been people. Free audiobooks and a story read to you by someone you love both count.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n<p>If you are curious where you stand right now, our free <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/my-emotional-intelligence-test\/\">How High Is My Emotional Intelligence?<\/a> test takes a few minutes and includes the empathy side of things.<\/p>\n\n<h2>The Oldest Version of This Trick<\/h2>\n\n<p>Here is something that clicked while we were reading through all this.<\/p>\n\n<p>The research says stories build empathy best when they end by inviting you to step inside someone else&#8217;s place. People have known how to do that for a very long time.<\/p>\n\n<p>One of the most retold short stories in the world is about a man beaten by robbers and left half-dead beside a road. Two respectable people see him and walk past on the other side. Then a stranger stops, someone from a group the listeners had been raised to distrust. He bandages the man, carries him to an inn, and pays for his care.<\/p>\n\n<p>Jesus told that story. It is a made-up story, and that is the point: it was fiction on purpose, built to teach. He told it to a man who had asked, more or less, who exactly counts as my neighbour? And Jesus did not end it with a rule. He ended it with a question. Which of those three was a neighbour to the man in the road?<\/p>\n\n<p>Notice what that question does. The man had asked from where he stood: who do I have to care about? The story turned him around and made him look up from the ditch, through the eyes of the one who was bleeding. That is perspective-taking, two thousand years before anyone had a word for it. Maybe the reason stories reach us is that we were made to be reached that way.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>A good place to start:<\/strong> if you have ever finished a story and felt a little closer to something bigger than yourself, we made a short free guide called <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/free-video-course-feeling-gods-presence\/?utm_source=wordpress&amp;utm_medium=article-inline&amp;utm_content=hero\"><strong>The Beginner&#8217;s Guide to Feeling God&#8217;s Presence Every Day<\/strong><\/a>. It is a simple video and companion PDF for noticing God in ordinary moments, including the quiet ones at the end of a good book. <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/free-video-course-feeling-gods-presence\/?utm_source=wordpress&amp;utm_medium=article-inline&amp;utm_content=hero\">Get the free guide<\/a>. Free.<\/p>\n\n<h2>So, Should You Read More Fiction?<\/h2>\n\n<p>Yes. But not because a study told you to, and not as a self-improvement chore.<\/p>\n\n<p>Read the stories that carry you away. Let them. And when you close the book, take one character with you for a day. Wonder how they would see the person in front of you on the bus, at the shop, at your own kitchen table.<\/p>\n\n<p>The research says the change is small. Small things done often are how most people actually change. If you want to explore the ideas in what you are reading, our free <a href=\"https:\/\/chatgpt.com\/g\/g-hXb8QPXN5-books-the-bible-faith-lessons-in-what-you-read\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Books &amp; the Bible<\/a> assistant (it opens in ChatGPT) is a good companion for that.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Discussion Question<\/h2>\n\n<p>Which do you think builds more empathy: reading a novel about a life very different from yours, or a long honest conversation with a real person who lives that life? Tell us what you think in the comments.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"convertkit-form wp-block-convertkit-form\" style=\"\"><script async data-uid=\"6491fb8269\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.kit.com\/6491fb8269\/index.js\" data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" data-no-defer=\"1\" data-no-optimize=\"1\" nowprocket><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n<h2>Share This<\/h2>\n\n<p><em>A 2026 review of 21 studies: reading fiction builds empathy a little, but only if you actually get lost in the story. Readers who weren&#8217;t pulled in got LESS empathic. https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/?p=117603<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p><em>Turns out the famous &#8220;a few pages of literary fiction makes you more empathetic&#8221; study didn&#8217;t hold up well when it was repeated. What does seem to work is more interesting. https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/?p=117603<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p><em>Best case I&#8217;ve read for putting the phone in another room while you read. Being carried into a story is the part that matters. https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/?p=117603<\/em><\/p>\n\n<h2>Questions People Ask About Reading Fiction and Empathy<\/h2>\n\n<h3>Does reading fiction increase empathy?<\/h3>\n<p>Reading fiction appears to increase empathy a little, but not for everyone and not every time. A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis in Frontiers in Psychology examined 21 studies and found a small but statistically reliable effect, strongest for perspective-taking (imagining how another person thinks). About half of the studies found a clear positive effect, about a quarter found effects only under certain conditions, and about a quarter found little or no effect.<\/p>\n\n<h3>What is narrative transportation in reading?<\/h3>\n<p>Narrative transportation is the psychological term for the feeling of being carried into a story so completely that a reader loses awareness of their surroundings. Research on fiction and empathy repeatedly finds that transportation is the key condition: readers who are absorbed in a story tend to show empathy gains, while readers who are not absorbed often do not. A 2013 study by Matthijs Bal and Martijn Veltkamp found that fiction readers who were not transported actually showed lower empathy one week later.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Can reading one short story make you more empathetic?<\/h3>\n<p>A single short story is unlikely to make a large or lasting difference to empathy. A widely reported 2013 study by David Kidd and Emanuele Castano suggested a brief reading of literary fiction improved emotion-reading skills, but a 2019 follow-up by the same researchers found small and inconsistent effects. A 2026 review in Frontiers in Psychology concluded that it is very unlikely a single reading session could have a large effect on empathy, and that larger, more careful studies since 2016 tend to find smaller effects.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Is fiction better than non-fiction for building empathy?<\/h3>\n<p>Fiction seems to have a particular advantage for building empathy because it asks readers to imagine the inner thoughts and feelings of characters. In the 2013 Bal and Veltkamp experiments, changes in empathy over one week appeared among fiction readers but not among readers of non-fiction. Researchers note that the effects are strongest when readers are absorbed in the story and are encouraged to think about what characters are thinking and feeling.<\/p>\n\n<h3>How can I build empathy through reading?<\/h3>\n<p>To build empathy through reading, choose stories that genuinely hold your attention, read without distractions such as a phone nearby, and pause to ask why a character makes the choices they do. Talking about a story with someone else and asking how a character might have felt also helps, because research finds reading builds empathy most when readers are invited to actively imagine other people&#8217;s minds. 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A 2026 review of 21 studies says yes, a little, but only when the story pulls you in. Here is what actually helps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[650,3715],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books-entertainment","category-personal-growth-and-life-skills"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117604,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117603\/revisions\/117604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}