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Reading Literary Fiction Is Associated With a More Complex Worldview by Nicholas Buttrick; Erin C. Westgate; Shigehiro Oishi is a scholarly article available to read on EtoBox.

What is Reading Literary Fiction Is Associated With a More Complex Worldview about?

What are the effects of reading fiction? We propose that literary fiction alters views of the world through its presentation of difference—different minds, different contexts, and different situations—grounding a belief that the social world is complex. Across four studies, two nationally representative and one preregistered (total n = 5,176), we find that the reading of literary fiction in early life is associated with a more complex worldview in Americans: increased attributional complexity, increased psychological richness, decreased belief that contemporary inequalities are legitimate, and decreased belief that people are essentially only one way. By contrast, early-life reading of narrative fiction that presents more standardized plots and characters, such as romance novels, predict holding a less complex worldview.

Author

Nicholas Buttrick; Erin C. Westgate; Shigehiro Oishi

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Published

2022

Language

EN