Expanding Empathy

I find it odd that people who like to read are so often pigeonholed (by fellow bibliophiles as much as non-readers) as being antisocial, solitary, and awkward. Not to say it isn’t true in some cases, but the idea that readers don’t know how to deal with reality or connect with other humans is flawed, in my opinion.

If anything, I think it's possible that readers may possess an even greater capacity for empathy and understanding the world around them, simply because books require the exercise of this ability.

We often spout the proverb that empathy is “walking in another person’s shoes,” but nowhere is that more possible than when reading. Reading is perhaps as close as one can get to knowing the inner workings of another individual’s mental processes. It’s different from other forms of communication, such as video or even talking to someone in person, because reading practically invites the reader to personally identify with the narrator or protagonist.

This phenomenon extends beyond nonfiction accounts to fictional worlds that help us make sense of the real one around us. That’s certainly how I’ve felt in my own experience—there have been many times when I have been in a situation and thought, “So-and-so is reacting just like this book character in such-and-such a chapter.”

So, in addition to the “academic” benefits of reading such as promoting our vocabulary or providing factual information, books allow us to insert ourselves into foreign conditions: historical events, far-off cultures, dangerous situations, and individual personalities completely different from our own.

There is plenty of evidence that reading helps expand a person’s capacity for empathy, and widens their perspective on events. Several studies reported findings like how reading activates parts of the brain associated with feelings of compassion. A simple web search results in millions of articles on the subject, ranging from news columns to scholarly articles…and now this blog post.