Bookworms versus nerds: Exposure to fiction versus non-fiction, divergent associations with social ability, and the simulation of fictional social worlds

By Raymond A. Mar, Keith Oatley, Jacob B Hirsh, Jennifer dela Paz, Jordan B. Peterson. 2006

566 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Education, Literature and Literary Theory, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3ea4031b8ecc6d9e1a82feb33881f76a227c6cd7

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Education

In Literature and Literary Theory

In Sociology and Political Science

Citations in the corpus

On Being Moved by Art: How Reading Fiction Transforms the Self (2009, background): “( Machotka, 2006 ). Less frequent are examinations of what traits in the general”
The neural bases of social cognition and story comprehension. (2011, background): “Ferstl and colleagues (2008) conducted an ALE meta-analysis of text comprehension 2Exposure to expository nonfiction, controlling for narrative fiction, demonstrates the opposite relation (Mar et al. 2006).”
The Function of Fiction is the Abstraction and Simulation of Social Experience (2008, background): “We have recently shown, for example, that individuals who have been exposed to more fictional literature tend to exhibit better empathic abilities (Mar et al., 2006), and that this relation cannot be explained by individual differences in personality (Mar, 2007).”
Empathic reactions after reading: The role of genre, personal factors and affective responses (2015, background): “To some extent, they are also backed up by empirical evidence showing a relation between reading stories and scores on empathy measures (e.g., Mar et al., 2006, 2009; Kidd and Castano, 2013).”
Reading other minds: Effects of literature on empathy (2013, methodology): “Mar et al. (2006) revised this test to include 50 writers of fiction only, 50 writers of nonfiction only, and 40 foils.”
Transportation into a story increases empathy, prosocial behavior, and perceptual bias toward fearful expressions (2012, result): “In addition, one’s general tendency to get involved in fiction could also provide an alternative explanation of the results (Mar et al., 2006).”
The effects of reading material on social and non-social cognition (2015, methodology): “, 2001) has been used frequently as a measure of ToM in fiction research (e.g., Djikic et al., 2013; Fong et al., 2013; Kidd & Castano, 2013; Mar et al., 2006; Mar, Oatley, et al., 2009; Mar, Tackett, et al., 2009).”
Theory of Mind: a Hidden Factor in Reading Comprehension? (2018, background): “Mar et al. (2006) found that adults’ lifetime exposure to fiction positively predicted measures of ToM, empathy, and social ability, whereas non-fiction exposure was a negative predictor (see also Mar et al. 2009).”
Exploring the link between reading fiction and empathy: Ruling out individual differences and examining outcomes (2009, methodology): “Consistent with this idea, our group has shown that frequent readers of narrative fiction perform better on two different empathy tasks, whereas frequent readers of expository non-fiction perform worse (Mar et al., 2006).”
Effects of Literature on Empathy and Self-Reflection: A Theoretical-Empirical Framework (2015, unknown): “…studies demonstrated positive effects on various empathic measures, like role-taking ability, motivation for pro-social behavior and altruistic conduct (Adler/Foster 1997; Bilsky 1989; Djikic/Oatley/Moldoveanu 2013; Johnson 2012; 2013; Mar et al. 2006; Mar et al. 2009; Shapiro/Morrison/Boker 2004).”
The Extended Transportation-Imagery Model: A Meta-Analysis of the Antecedents and Consequences of Consumers' Narrative Transportation (2014, unknown): “That is, women are more likely to be readers (Mar et al. 2006) and therefore more likely to be familiar with a given story topic or genre (e.g., romance, Radway 1984).”
Effects of "literariness" on emotions and on empathy and reflection after reading (2016, methodology): “An adapted version of the Author Recognition Test (ART; see Mar et al., 2006; Stanovich & West, 1989; West, Stanovich and Mitchell, 1993) was used to measure one’s general exposure to literature.”
Different stories: How levels of familiarity with literary and genre fiction relate to mentalizing. (2017, methodology): “Research has revealed that familiarity with fiction authors, a good proxy measure of actual reading habits, correlates with scores on a test of ToM (Mar et al., 2006), and that this relation is not explained by individual differences in agreeableness or a dispositional tendency to imagine oneself…”
Stories and the Promotion of Social Cognition (2018, background): “As predicted, an empirical study found that lifetime exposure to narrative fiction predicts mentalizing abilities in adults (Mar et al., 2006).”