Testing Correlates of Lifetime Exposure to Print Fiction Following a Multi-Method Approach: Evidence From Young and Older Readers

Abstract

Two pre-registered studies investigated associations of lifetime exposure to fiction, applying a battery of self-report, explicit and implicit indicators. Study 1 ( N = 150 university students) tested the relationships between exposure to fiction and social and moral cognitive abilities in a lab setting, using a correlational design. Results failed to reveal evidence for enhanced social or moral cognition with increasing lifetime exposure to narrative fiction. Study 2 followed a cross-sectional design and compared 50–80 year-old fiction experts ( N = 66), non-fiction experts ( N = 53), and infrequent readers ( N = 77) regarding social cognition, general knowledge, imaginability, and creativity in an online setting. Fiction experts outperformed the remaining groups regarding creativity, but not regarding social cognition or imaginability. In addition, both fiction and non-fiction experts demonstrated higher general knowledge than infrequent readers. Taken together, the present results do not support theories postulating benefits of narrative fiction for social cognition, but suggest that reading fiction may be associated with a specific gain in creativity, and that print (fiction or non-fiction) exposure has a general enhancement effect on world knowledge.

Cognitive effects and correlates of reading fiction: Two preregistered multilevel meta-analyses.

“…Sample sizes of individual studies varied between n = 33 (Stansfield & Bunce, 2014) and n = 4,775 (Lenhart et al, 2023), IQR (104.00, 262.80). Mean ages ranged from 8.67 (Arnold et al, 2019) to 59.29 years (Wimmer & Ferguson, 2023; Wimmer, Currie, et al, 2021), IQR (19.64, 31.98). Regarding participant gender, the percentage of female volunteers varied between 39.68% (Allen et al, 1992) and 100% (Diekman et al, 2000; Study 1), IQR (55.62%, 76.85%).…”

Testing the validity of a self-report scale, author recognition test, and book counting as measures of lifetime exposure to print fiction

“…This study utilised a correlational design and was authorised by the Research Ethics Committee of the School of Psychology at the University of Kent before study commencement. The sample overlaps with the one reported in Study 2 within Wimmer et al (2021). Wimmer et al (2021) investigated relations of the ART-G subscales with empathy, theory of mind, general world knowledge, and imaginative skills.…”

“…The sample overlaps with the one reported in Study 2 within Wimmer et al (2021). Wimmer et al (2021) investigated relations of the ART-G subscales with empathy, theory of mind, general world knowledge, and imaginative skills. As distinct from the present study, Wimmer et al (2021) did not include self-report measures of fiction reading or book counting.…”

“…Finally, they provided their demographics and were debriefed in written form and remunerated. Participants also completed other tasks reported in Wimmer et al ( 2021 ). The entire study took approximately 90 min per participant.…”

“…This can suggest disingenuous responding to test items, seeWimmer et al (2021). 2 N = 13 participants did not complete the self-report scale on frequency of fiction reading, so the sample size for this measure was N = 293 participants.…”