Capital Empathy 11 chapterpdf (original) (raw)
Related papers
Reading other minds: Effects of literature on empathy
Scientific Study of Literature, 2013
The potential of literature to increase empathy was investigated in an experiment. Participants (N = 100, 69 women) completed a package of questionnaires that measured lifelong exposure to fiction and nonfiction, personality traits, and affective and cognitive empathy. They read either an essay or a short story that were equivalent in length and complexity, were tested again for cognitive and affective empathy, and were finally given a non-self-report measure of empathy. Participants who read a short story who were also low in Openness experienced significant increases in self-reported cognitive empathy (p .05). No increases in affective empathy were found. Participants who were frequent fiction-readers had higher scores on the non-self-report measure of empathy. Our results suggest a role for fictional literature in facilitating development of empathy.
Empathy and Literature, 2024
There is a long tradition in philosophy and literary theory defending the view that engagement with literature promotes readers' empathy. Until the last century, few of the empirical claims adduced in that tradition were investigated experimentally. Recent work in psychology and neuropsychology has now shed new light on the interplay of empathy and literature. This article surveys the experimental findings, addressing three central questions: What is it to read empathically? Does reading make us more empathic? What characteristics of literature, if any, affect readers' empathy? While experimental studies have delivered no conclusive answers to these questions, it has exposed their psychological complexity and constructed a more nuanced picture of the diverse ways in which literature interacts with our empathic capacities.
Fiction as a Means to Understanding the Dynamics of Empathy
Educare - vetenskapliga skrifter
The current study investigated whether the reflective reading of fiction can provide an experiential definition of empathy to supplement more traditional concept analyses. A secondary aim was to look at the rates of absorption (loss of time and space) relative to the rate of reported empathic engagement. Based on earlier studies on reading fiction as an engagement in a social simulation, it was predicted that because fiction is a controlled experience, reading and talking about fiction could provide a forum in which to examine actual experiences of empathy elicitation in relation to an evolving situation. A survey was conducted with 210 student participants over a three-year period. The results show that the empathetic response to narrative is affected in a variety of ways by the presence or absence of an initial sense of affinity and by cognitive input over time, that is, the changing perception of characters and the situations with which they are confronted. Adept readers are more...
Revista Brasileira de Literatura Comparada, 2021
Abstract: Can literature promote identification with the suffering of others and an empathetic connection between readers and fictional characters? Can this sentiment of sympathy translate into social solidarity and have political consequences? In this interview, professor and historian Lynn Hunt discusses the interplay between literature and human rights and reflects on our relationship to history, the fragility of democracy, and the self and society duality.
The link between fiction and empathy as a trait of moral character: A pedagogical legend?
In T. Harrison and D. I. Walker (eds.) The Theory and Practice of Virtue Education. London: Routledge., 2018
The idea that reading and reflecting on fiction, particularly works that engage the reader imaginatively in the struggles and suffering of strangers, is conducive to the development of ethical capacities such as empathy and moral perception has the trappings an educational legend (a widespread, persistent belief about learning, generally indifferent to evidence). Often repeated but with few detractors, the hypothesis has been used to support ideas to make novel-reading a requirement of curricula and an essential ingredient in training lawyers and judges. Pinker (2011) advances the emergence of novel-reading as an explanatory factor in the decline of violence in the West. Medical educators have seen a way to promote empathy in medical students and it is the premise of a criminal rehabilitation program introduced in US and UK prisons. Taking inspiration from Willingham’s (2012) framework for critically assessing the application of cognitive psychology to educational practice, we consider these hypotheses. Considering Baillargeon’s (2013) concept of a pedagogical legend, we develop a set of general criteria for evaluating whether a claim about the effectiveness of a particular educational practice constitutes a pedagogical legend in Baillargeon’s sense. Then we seek maximal clarity about the hypothesized link between reading novels and the ability to empathize, invoked by so many to justify maintaining, increasing or reintroducing humanities content in higher education and various professional fields, concentrating on Nussbaum’s (1995, 1998, 2001) influential accounts. Returning to the evaluation criteria set out initially, we provide an assessment of the limited direct evidence from literature. While this evidence may not be extensive, it is sufficient for educators to accept that the development of empathy from reading fiction is not just a pedagogical legend.
One of the primary objections to the ‘simulation model’ of engagement with fiction is that it does not allow for genuine emotional response on the part of readers. In this paper, I argue that empathy, whether with real people or with fictional characters, involves simulation, and that empathy can produce genuine as well as simulated emotions. Empathy is common to our experiences both in friendship and in engagements with fiction, and empathetic experiences are deeply connected in complex ways to some of the strongest emotions that we can have. I develop an account of empathy and argue that it applies to relations both with fictional characters as well as to relations with real people. I then show that though empathy involves imagined beliefs and emotions, it can nonetheless, through ‘spillover’, lead to genuine emotion. Hence, we need not abandon the simulation model out of fear that it will rob us of real emotions.
Journal literary theory, 2018
Fictional heroes have long attracted the attention and emotions of their audiences and readers. Moreover, such sustained attention or emotional involvement has often taken the form of identification, even empathy. This essay suggests that since 9/11, however, a new cycle of heroism has emerged that has taken its place, namely the hybrid hero (cf. Van Tourhout 2017; 2018). Hybrid heroes have become increasingly popular during the post 9/11 period, offering escapism and reassurance to audiences in difficult times in which clear-cut divisions between good and bad, between right and wrong came under pressure. These characters challenge audiences and creators on moral and narrative levels because of their fluid symbiosis of heroic and villainous features. We find some well-known examples in contemporary TV-series such as Breaking Bad, House of Cards, etc. Hybrid heroes are looking for ways to arouse audiences and are aiming at the complicity of the audience. The most striking example of this complicit nature can be seen in the TV-series House of Cards when Frank Underwood addresses the audience by staring into the camera. Traditional psychological and aesthetic theories on empathy are challenged by the phenomenon of the hybrid hero because empathy is generally conceived in prosocial terms, with most of the current research being geared toward a positive notion of empathy (cf. Johnson 2012; Bal/Veltkamp 2013; Koopman/Hakemulder 2015). Additionally, there has been a prevalent confusion between sympathy and empathy that has impacted our understanding of the perception of such heroes (cf. Jolliffe/ Farrington 2006). In fact, one of the reasons for the predominantly positive connotation of empathy in the study of literary reception is that empathy has been narrowly defined as »sympathy and concern for unfortunate others« (Bal/Veltkamp 2013, 2). The distinction between empathy and sympathy is