16 Matching Annotations
  1. Sep 2016
  2. www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
    Reading literary fiction improves empathy, study finds
    5
    1. andreventurrr 22 Sep 2016
      "In Great Expectations, Pip is embarrassed by Joe, because he's crude and Pip is on the way up. Reading it, you ask yourself, what is it like to be Pip and what's it like to be Joe? Would I behave better than Pip in his situation? It's the spaces which emerge between the two characters where empathy occurs."

      I guess this could explain the earlier quote, about how the incompleteness of one character help us understand the others. This incompleteness would be this space in between that makes us consider what is it like to be either of the characters.

    2. andreventurrr 22 Sep 2016
      "the same psychological processes are used to navigate fiction and real relationships. Fiction is not just a simulator of a social experience, it is a social experience."

      This explains better how reading fiction is actually helping us become more empathetic. Our brain is working the same way we would work if we were communicating with real people.

    3. andreventurrr 22 Sep 2016
      "What great writers do is to turn you into the writer. In literary fiction, the incompleteness of the characters turns your mind to trying to understand the minds of others," said Kidd.

      I would like this to be further explained. What does it mean that the incompleteness of a character will help me understand the others?

    4. andreventurrr 22 Sep 2016
      In a series of five experiments, 1,000 participants were randomly assigned texts to read, either extracts of popular fiction such as bestseller Danielle Steel's The Sins of the Mother and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, or more literary texts, such as Orange-winner The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht, Don DeLillo's "The Runner", from his collection The Angel Esmeralda, or work by Anton Chekhov.

      This is a more complete article than the one we read before. It gives us examples of the types of readings they used to conduct the study.

    5. andreventurrr 22 Sep 2016
      have proved that reading literary fiction enhances the ability to detect and understand other people's emotions, a crucial skill in navigating complex social relationships.

      This backups what we read on the other article. It makes sense, since the authors are immersing us in the character's thoughts and points of view constantly. We are able to get insights of different ways of thinking and feeling we hadn't experienced before.

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    URL

    theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/oct/08/literary-fiction-improves-empathy-study
  3. thesocietypages.org thesocietypages.org
    What Becomes of Empathy? - Cyborgology
    6
    1. andreventurrr 06 Sep 2016

      Pros- helps with social justice efforts

          - helps improve outcomes for suffering people who are distant from us

      Cons - if people believe in race, which is a social definition not an actual biological thing, some people will stay empathetic to people of their same "race".

            - empathy might not translate to an actual action for somebody else 
      - empathy could even translate to indifference or disgust for somebody else 
     - empathy is biased and can lead to misunderstandings
    2. andreventurrr 06 Sep 2016
      “empathy is partial; we feel greater empathy for those who are similar to ourselves,”

      Its easier to relate to someone when you think "this easily could've been me."

    3. andreventurrr 06 Sep 2016
      Indeed, we might be more focused on ending Western military adventurism if we viewed all people as equally worthy of our attention and protection.

      The news just decide to cover certain types of people, certain types of events when in reality, bigger massacres are happening daily in other countries.

    4. andreventurrr 06 Sep 2016
      This same “empathy gap” has also been used to describe the relatively low level of public attention paid to the recent terror attack in Istanbul, compared with the dramatic outpouring of emotion in the West devoted to last year’s attacks in Paris.

      Not every unfortunate event in the world gets as much attention as a few that we are able to see and hear about. I'm from El Salvador, massive shootings and murders happen, unfortunately, all the time over there but you don't hear about them all the time, if at all. Why some news get more coverage than others?

    5. andreventurrr 06 Sep 2016
      if Westerners don’t care about the stability of the Middle East or the refugee crisis, we need to close the empathy gap and make the peoples of other regions of the world more familiar, more relatable.”

      I believe this makes sense. Sometimes people are too distant to the issue and news become more about profit and less personal and relatable than anything else. We just become shocked sometimes, but then again, it becomes another news story like any other.

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    URL

    thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2016/07/20/what-becomes-of-empathy/
  4. www.ibtimes.co.uk www.ibtimes.co.uk
    Reading books and watching films makes you kinder in real life
    5
    1. andreventurrr 06 Sep 2016
      This suggests that fictional characters enable readers to imagine what it might be like to be in other people's situations, even if they are from a different sex, ethnic origin or nationality.

      Authors in non fiction stories give the reader so many details about what the character is going through that it makes it easier to relate to them.

    2. andreventurrr 06 Sep 2016
      Fiction can augment and help us understand our social experience."

      This makes sense, since when we are reading or watching fiction, we are able to better understand feelings. We know the back story because the author is telling us why characters act and feel the way they do at the moment. When interacting with real people we are able to catch those clues that we’ve previously learned from fiction, and understand the person better.

    4. andreventurrr 06 Sep 2016
      Oatley finds that the most important effect that literature has on people is stimulating a social world which prompts empathy

      This is extremely interesting to read. I’ve always thought that the most important thing you could get out of reading, generally speaking, is more knowledge and it increases your vocabulary. Basically makes you more intelligent or smarter, but never considered more empathetic.

    5. andreventurrr 06 Sep 2016
      This is because readers identify and sympathise with the emotions and ideas of the characters, a skill which they can then reproduce in real life.

      I believe this is true. I’m watching a new show on Netflix and I can identify myself with the main character. The way she thinks, makes decisions, relates with family and friends reminds me of myself and the way I act sometimes.

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    URL

    ibtimes.co.uk/reading-books-watching-films-makes-you-kinder-real-life-1571434