Read Better Books To Be a Better Person

00_NOP writes "Researchers from the New School for Social Research in New York have demonstrated that if you read quality literary fiction you become a better person, in the sense that you are more likely to empathize with others [paper abstract]. Presumably we can all think of books that have changed the way we feel about the world — so this is, in a sense, a scientific confirmation of something fairly intuitive."

Nonsense.

[ornil]

It's a deeply flawed study. Basically, it's cherry-picking with a vengeance. There's a good discussion at Language Log: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=7715 [upenn.edu]

Re:And this is news?

[timeOday]

Read the article, it was a randomized study in which people were assigned to read specified books selected beforehand by the experimenters.

Re:Nonsense.

[Samantha Wright]

For what it's worth, that was thrown on later by media uptake; the authors simply talk about theory of mind [wikipedia.org]. It is safe to assume Ayn Rand has a very small chance of fostering this in someone.

Some do, some don't

[Dr. Winston O'Boogie]

The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't. -- Ernest Rutherford