Does reading fiction build empathy?

Numbers match the citations in the article. A working link isn't proof that a page supports a claim; check the quoted passage and date.

1. 1

   Teaching empathy through fiction reading

   KTH Publication Database DiVA (KTH Royal Institute of Technology) (Vrazalic et al.)Published Jan 1, 2026Checked Oct 3, 2026

   “The study was conducted as a systematic literature review including peer-reviewed articles and doctoral dissertations. Literature searches were carried out in the databases ERIC (EBSCO) as well as Swepub and were complemented by a manual search. The selected studies were compared and analyzed with a focus on their methods, definitions of empathy, and main findings. From this analysis, three main findings emerged. The results indicate that fiction can provide good opportunities for students to develop empathy, but that this development does not occur automatically. Furthermore, the results show that the teacher's work has a significant impact on whether reading fiction leads to deeper understanding, reflection, and empathy. Finally, the studies show that the research differs in terms of both methods, how empathy is defined, and which factors are considered to influence the development of empathy. In addition, text difficulty was identified as an important factor as texts that are too complex may reduce students' emotional involvement and perspective taking.”

2. 2

   How Does Fiction Reading Influence Empathy? An Experimental Investigation on the Role of Emotional Transportation

   PLoS ONE (Bal & Veltkamp)Published Jan 30, 2013Checked Oct 3, 2026

   “The current study investigated whether fiction experiences change empathy of the reader. Based on transportation theory, it was predicted that when people read fiction, and they are emotionally transported into the story, they become more empathic. Two experiments showed that empathy was influenced over a period of one week for people who read a fictional story, but only when they were emotionally transported into the story. No transportation led to lower empathy in both studies, while study 1 showed that high transportation led to higher empathy among fiction readers. These effects were not found for people in the control condition where people read non-fiction. The study showed that fiction influences empathy of the reader, but only under the condition of low or high emotional transportation into the story.”

3. 3

   Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind

   Science (Kidd & Castano)Published Oct 3, 2013Checked Oct 3, 2026

   “Understanding others' mental states is a crucial skill that enables the complex social relationships that characterize human societies. Yet little research has investigated what fosters this skill, which is known as Theory of Mind (ToM), in adults. We present five experiments showing that reading literary fiction led to better performance on tests of affective ToM (experiments 1 to 5) and cognitive ToM (experiments 4 and 5) compared with reading nonfiction (experiments 1), popular fiction (experiments 2 to 5), or nothing at all (experiments 2 and 5). Specifically, these results show that reading literary fiction temporarily enhances ToM. More broadly, they suggest that ToM may be influenced by engagement with works of art.”

4. 4

   Reading Literary Fiction and Theory of Mind: Three Preregistered Replications and Extensions of Kidd and Castano (2013)

   Social Psychological and Personality Science (Kidd & Castano)Published Jun 20, 2018Checked Oct 3, 2026

   “Scholars from diverse disciplines have proposed that reading fiction improves intersubjective capacities. Experiments have yielded mixed evidence that reading literary fiction improves performance on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, a test of Theory of Mind. Three preregistered experiments revealed mixed results. Applying the “small telescopes” method developed by Simonsohn revealed two uninformative failures to replicate and one successful replication. On a measure of the importance of intentions to moral judgments, results were more mixed, with one significant effect in the expected direction, one nonsignificant effect, and one significant effect in the unexpected direction. In addition, two experiments yielded support for the exploratory but preregistered hypothesis that characters in popular fiction are perceived as more predictable and stereotypic than those in literary fiction. These findings help clarify the sociocognitive effects of reading literary fiction and refine questions for future research.”

5. 5

   Is reading fiction associated with a higher mind-reading ability? Two conceptual replication studies in Japan.

   PloS one (Takahashi et al.)Published Jun 22, 2023Checked Oct 4, 2026

   “Recently, experimental studies have shown that brief exposure to fiction enhances RMET performance. Nevertheless, these studies have been conducted only in Western countries, and few published studies have investigated these relationships in Asian countries. This research aims to address this gap. Study 1, which involved 338 Japanese undergraduates, conceptually replicated the previously reported correlations between fiction reading and fantasy and RMET scores (after statistically controlling for the effect of outliers). However, Study 2, which involved 304 Japanese undergraduates, failed to replicate the causal relationship. Participants read an excerpt either from literary fiction or from nonfiction, or engaged in a calculation task, before completing the RMET. Brief exposure to literary fiction did not increase the RMET score. In sum, this study replicated the associations of fiction reading with fantasy and RMET scores in Japan, but failed to replicate the causal relationship.”

6. 6

   The Effect of Reading a Short Passage of Literary Fiction on Theory of Mind: A Replication of Kidd and Castano (2013)

   Collabra Psychology (Kuijk et al.)Published Jan 1, 2018Checked Oct 3, 2026

   “However, when we entered Kidd and Castano’s results in a p-curve analysis, it turned out that the evidential value of their findings is low. It is good practice to back up a p-curve analysis of a single paper with an adequately powered direct replication of at least one of the studies in the p-curve analysis. Therefore, we conducted a direct replication of the literary fiction condition and the popular fiction condition from Kidd and Castano’s Experiment 5 to scrutinize the effect of reading literary fiction on ToM. The results of this replication were largely consistent with Kidd and Castano’s original findings. Furthermore, we conducted a small-scale meta-analysis on the findings of the present study, those of Kidd and Castano and those reported in other published direct replications. The meta-analytic effect of reading literary fiction on ToM was small and non-significant but there was considerable heterogeneity between the included studies. The results of the present study and of the small-scale meta-analysis are discussed in the light of reading-times exclusion criteria as well as reliability and validity of ToM measures.”

7. 7

   The effects of reading and watching fiction on the development of social cognition: a systematic review

   Dementia & Neuropsychologia (Rezende & Shigaeff)Published Jan 1, 2023Checked Oct 3, 2026

   “Social cognition is an umbrella term used to address the set of neurocognitive processes involved in effective social interaction, such as Theory of Mind and empathy, and is important for understanding of others' intentions and actions and decision making. Narratives can serve as tools for learning social norms and understanding other people, as they involve mental simulations of social interactions. This review aimed to gather the results of current studies on the effects of reading and watching fiction movies on the development of social cognition. We included 16 publications, all of which were empirical studies. The results showed that, depending on individual factors, as well as on the specifics of the intervention, both reading and watching movies seem to influence the processes of development of social cognition, especially if associated with concomitant or subsequent activities, such as discussions. More research is needed to understand the specific details of this relationship.”

8. 8

   The relationship between reading and empathy: An integrative literature review

   Psicologia - Teoria e Prática (Roza & Guimarães)Published Jan 1, 2022Checked Oct 3, 2026

   “This study seeks to know the main investigations on the relationship between reading fiction texts and empathy in children and adolescents.Through an integrative review of the scientific literature from the Scientific Electronic Library Online (Scielo), Education Resources Information Center (Eric), and PsycInfo databases between 2009 and 2020, 21 articles were analyzed in detail, showing a predominance of intervention studies, followed by case and correlational studies.The research samples are predominantly made up of students, although some also include the perception of teachers, parents, and guardians.Different aspects of the relationship between reading and empathy were identified, both studies that emphasize the contribution of reading to the development of empathy and studies that show the contribution of empathy to initial learning and the development of reading comprehension were observed.Most of the research was conducted in the North American context, pointing out a gap in the Brazilian scenario.”

9. 9

   Literacy predicts performance on a second-order false-belief task.

   PloS one (Gedik et al.)Published Sep 2, 2026Checked Oct 4, 2026

   “The development of false-belief understanding is shaped by a range of factors, including language skills, education, reading experience, and cognitive abilities. Illiterate speakers often show substantial variability in language skills and cognitive abilities. In this study, we investigated the impact of nonverbal IQ, inhibitory control, and reading fluency on false-belief understanding in adult native Turkish speakers, comparing literate and illiterate participants. We found considerable individual differences in false-belief performance across both groups, as well as in the cognitive measures. Strikingly, reading fluency (assessed via a 1-minute timed word-reading task) emerged as the most significant predictor of false-belief performance, accounting for 49% of the variance. We propose that literacy acquisition may support the development of false-belief reasoning by enhancing language skills, cognitive control, metalinguistic awareness, and perspective-taking through engagement with written narratives. These findings carry broader implications for psychology, linguistics, and adult education.”

10. 10

    Teaching cognitive and affective empathy in medicine: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

    Medical education online (Ngo et al.)Published May 6, 2025Checked Oct 4, 2026

    “Thirty-six studies, consisting of 3,833 participants, met the inclusion criteria. Data were analysed using random-effects pairwise meta-analysis.ResultsEmpathy interventions have moderate effect sizes on both CE [d = .50 (95% CI = .30, .70)] and AE [d = .46 (95% CI = .30, .62)]. Heterogeneity of effects was evident for both analyses. The effectiveness of interventions on AE was moderated by measurement type. Intervention effectiveness was not significantly moderated by other intervention and study characteristics for either type of empathy.ConclusionsThere is evidence of key differences, and similarities, in how CE and AE is taught to medical students and professionals; however, the small number and high level of heterogeneity in studies makes this difficult to confirm. Research in this field will benefit from investigators standardizing teaching and research methods across studies.”

11. 11

    Empathy training in healthcare: an umbrella review.

    BMC medical education (Edwards et al.)Published Nov 24, 2025Checked Oct 4, 2026

    “Across 42 reviews, 71% conclude that empathy training is associated with positive outcomes for students, staff, providers, or patients. Empathy training appears to be effective for all health-related professions, including both students and practicing healthcare workers. Training that encourages active participation (e.g., experiential learning, reflective exercises) is generally associated with better outcomes compared to more passive methods. Training that integrates self-reflection and incorporates patients into the training also appears more impactful. Learner engagement and training methods significantly influence empathy training outcomes. There is a need to standardize empathy assessment tools and increase long-term follow-up to assess sustainability of outcomes.”