Reading Feelings: Does Reading Fiction Improve Children's Empathy and Pro-social skills?

阅读感受：阅读小说是否可以提高孩子的同理心和亲社会技能？

• 批准号: ES/W001462/1
• 负责人: Jane Oakhill
• 金额: $ 63.95万
• 依托单位: University of Sussex
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FW001462%2F1
• 关键词: Reading; Feelings; Does; Fiction; Improve

The ability to empathise with others - to share, understand, and experience concern for other people's emotional experiences - is arguably one of the most important skills in a cohesive society. It provides the underpinnings for prosocial behaviour and can also help in the promotion of social justice. Recent research has shown that, in adults, empathy can be influenced by one important activity: reading fiction. However, few studies have focused on reading and empathy in childhood, which will be the focus of the proposed programme of work.In adult populations, there has been substantial interest in the benefits of reading fiction and, in particular literary fiction, in increasing empathy. Recent studies have shown that adults who are avid readers of literary fiction (but not other genres) perform better on tests of empathy. The effects of short-term interventions are more controversial, but most studies show small but reliable increases in empathy. These experimental studies suggest that reading fiction is causally related to empathic response, and some authors suggest that immersion in literature can have long-lasting effects on how readers think about themselves and how they respond to others (i.e., their prosocial behaviour). Comparable studies have not been conducted with children. Our aim is to use both longitudinal and experimental (training) studies to evaluate the effects of reading fiction on empathy in childhood.Empathy is considered to have three components: emotional/affective empathy, where a person resonates with someone else's feelings; cognitive empathy or perspective taking, where a person applies reason to work out how someone else feels; and prosocial motivation (sometimes identified with 'intention to comfort'). A further issue is whether the motivation or intention leads to action (prosocial behaviour). These three aspects of empathy are empirically separable, but they are not always clearly differentiated in the literature. Thus, a novel contribution of the proposed work is to consider the three aspects of empathy, and the relation of each to reading. Another question we will address is how cognitive empathy is related to theory of mind.We will also explore another factor known to influence empathic response to text in adults: the reader's ability to become engaged with, or transported by, text: termed transportability. Fiction, in particular, requires readers to actively engage whilst reading and to become absorbed in the text. A greater tendency to become transported can help the reader experience the emotions and perspective of the characters more intensely. Transportability, and its relation to reading experience and empathy, has not been explored in children. We propose to measure children's propensity to become transported into a narrative when reading, and to explore how this propensity influences the relation between reading and empathic response.Another novel aspect of the current proposal is our plan to explore causal relations in the reverse direction: from empathy to reading comprehension. It has been suggested that increased empathy leads to better understanding of characters' mental states and (perhaps through increased amount of and enjoyment of reading) can improve reading comprehension. This hypothesis is largely unexplored, but we will address it in our longitudinal study.The proposed research has substantial potential for impact. Recently in the UK there has been increased interest in the relation between reading and empathy in children. The not-for-profit organisation, EmpathyLab, is attracting considerable attention for its work with authors and publishers, using books and stories in schools as a vehicle for fostering empathy and positive social relationships. Our links with EmpathyLab will provide opportunities to disseminate our findings (at their annual Empathy Day events), and also to translate findings from the grant into impacts in schools.

与他人同情的能力 - 分享，理解和体验对他人情感经历的关注 - 可以说是一个凝聚力社会中最重要的技能之一。它为亲社会行为提供了基础，也可以帮助促进社会正义。最近的研究表明，在成年人中，同理心可能会受到一项重要活动的影响：阅读小说。但是，很少有研究重点是童年的阅读和同理心，这将是拟议的工作计划的重点。在成年人的人群中，人们对阅读小说，尤其是文学小说的益处引起了极大的兴趣。最近的研究表明，是文学小说（但没有其他类型）狂热读者的成年人在同理心测试中表现更好。短期干预措施的影响更具争议性，但大多数研究表明，同理心的增加，但可靠地增加。这些实验研究表明，阅读小说与移情反应有因果关系，一些作者表明，沉浸在文学中会对读者如何看待自己以及他们对他人的反应（即他们的亲社会行为）产生长期影响。尚未对儿童进行可比的研究。我们的目的是使用纵向和实验性（培训）研究来评估阅读小说对童年同理心的影响。同情被认为具有三个组成部分：情感/情感同理心，一个人与他人的感受产生共鸣；认知的同理心或观点，一个人利用理由来弄清别人的感觉；和亲社会动机（有时以“安慰意图”而被确定）。另一个问题是动机或意图是否导致行动（亲社会行为）。同理心的这三个方面在经验上是可以分开的，但在文献中并不总是明确区分。因此，拟议的工作的新贡献是考虑同理心的三个方面以及每一种与阅读的关系。我们将要解决的另一个问题是认知同理心如何与心理理论有关。我们还将探索已知的另一个因素，这些因素会影响成年人中对文本的同理心反应：读者与文本相关或运输的能力：称为“可运输能力”。特别是小说，要求读者在阅读时积极参与并吸收文本。更大的趋势可以帮助读者更加强烈地体验角色的情感和观点。运输能力及其与阅读经验和同理心的关系尚未在儿童中探索。我们建议衡量儿童在阅读时被运输到叙事中的倾向，并探索这种倾向如何影响阅读和移情反应之间的关系。当前建议的另一个新方面是我们计划在反向方向上探索因果关系：从同理心到阅读理解。有人提出，增加的同理心能够更好地理解角色的心理状态，并且（也许通过增加阅读量）可以改善阅读理解。该假设在很大程度上没有探索，但我们将在纵向研究中解决该假设。拟议的研究具有巨大的影响潜力。最近，在英国，对儿童的阅读与移情之间的关系增加了兴趣。非营利组织阵容组织对与作者和出版商的合作引起了极大的关注，使用学校和故事作为促进同情和积极的社会关系的工具。我们与阵亡法的联系将提供机会传播我们的发现（在他们的年度移情日活动中），并将赠款的发现转化为学校的影响。