Empathy with Fictional Stories: Reconsideration of the Fantasy Scale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index

Abstract

The present research compared empathy for real people with empathy for fictional characters. 95 university students (53 men, 42 women) ages 18-22 years (M = 19.5, SD = 1.9) completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and the Fictional IRI. The IRI is a widely used measure of human empathy, and the Fictional IRI contains items from the original IRI that have been modified to investigate empathy for fictional characters. Empathy for characters in fictional stories was found to correlate statistically significantly with empathy for real people on all but a few factors. The results of the present study indicate that empathy for real people and empathy for fictional characters are similar, suggesting that the Fantasy subscale of the IRI, which is limited to fictional stories, should be reconsidered.

The Wonder of Empathy: Using Palacio’s Novel to Teach Perspective Taking

“…Even though prior readers were a small subsample (15/67 participants), students who had read Wonder previously had significantly higher Fantasy Scale scores in both the first and second empathy inventories. The Fantasy Scale may be a measure of how much one enjoys fiction (Nomura & Akai, 2012). The simplest explanation is that those who had read Wonder independently were more voracious and enthusiastic readers than their classmates.…”

From Storybooks to Novels: A Retrospective Approach Linking Print Exposure in Childhood to Adolescence

“…The accolades associated with leisure reading are impressive, including gains in spelling, vocabulary, verbal fluency, and cultural knowledge (Cunningham and Stanovich, 2001). Reading fiction specifically, correlates with increases in language skills (Mar and Rain, 2015), empathy (Nomura and Akai, 2012), and interpersonal sensitivity (Fong et al, 2013). Yet sadly, the reading habits of adolescents have been steadily declining (Twenge et al, 2019).…”

The role of empathy in preparing teachers to tackle bullying

“…As with PT, the scale appears to be in the role taking category, however it is complicated as all questions relating to FS are regarding fictional characters (Davis, 1996). However, research from Nomura & Akai (2012) finds that empathy for real people and empathy for fictional characters is similar, suggesting that FS is similar to PT.…”