It's GOOD to read fiction--

The current issue of Psychology Today has a thoughtful article about the benefits of reading in "Novel Delights: Reading Books Can Help You Read Minds." In an article is based on research in the new Journal of Research in Personality, reading fiction is identified as a genuinely social process. That is, "frequent readers of narrative fiction scored highter on tests of empathy and social acumen than did readers of expository nonfiction." And as one psychology doctoral candidate says later, the stories push the reader empathize with characters different from oneself and would lead to better understand "the many kinds of people we come across in the real world."

Now, how would mysteries figure in such research? One psychologist in the article acknowledges mysteries and romanaces tend to boost empathy and social savvy. And, it is agrued that a social aspect of fiction causes us to "read minds" and to guess what a character is thinking or feeling. That conclusion comes from English professor and author of Why We Read Fiction, Lisa Zunshine, who notes while reading whodunits a reader would suspect all characters of lying. Here's a pix of Zunshine from Google.

Finally, University of Toronto psychology professor Keith Oatley says that fiction offers a safe release of emotions. "You know that this whole set of events in contained and you can get up and or you can put your book down." For instance, he says, in a thriller a reader can feel a hero's grief and anxiety without experiencing threats to the family or the fear of running from a murderer.