Can reading books make you a better person?
[2023-04-19 16:15:14]
Reading a good novel can be a strong personal experience, because letters, scenes and plots evoke our thoughts, sometimes even our minds. Last year, psychologists quantified these subjective events and found ways to understand how they affect our thinking.
We know that the more you read, the more your words' ability increases, including their vocabulary. This is not surprising. However, there is increasing evidence that reading our literary novels expands our thinking and enhances our ability to sympathize with others. In other words, a good book can make you a better person.
Professor at the University of Toronto, Keith Oatley, announced a new commentary on novels and mental health research at this month's Cognitive Trends. "A literary novel is particularly effective, a novel whose role is the center of the place." Science. For example, Mrs. Dalloway of Virginia Woolf asked us to think about a turbulent day in the life of an unsatisfied upper class social housewife. Tony Morrison's "Song of Solomon" leads us through changes in the relationship and identity of African Americans who grew up in the mid-20th century.
More than a decade ago, graduate students at Otley Labs began a series of experiments to see if they could read the novels and help them understand each other. They and others have found that novels, especially stories novels, directly improve social skills such as reducing prejudice and improving the ability to understand beliefs, desires, intentions of other people. Brain scan experiments later supported these findings and showed clear images and narratives on how to activate the memory and emotional center of the hippocampus, brain.
Otley believes this will strengthen compassion for the ability to simulate the social world of the novel. If you are immersed in a story that involves complex characters and unfamiliar environments, like simulation, we absorb and apply new perspectives and emotions. We experience a sense that we are someone else
Importantly, literary novels help us understand others' human rights, Oatley said, improving our sympathy for those who may never visit the world and they are me It seems to be different from ours. For example, Mohsin Hamid's "Reluctant Fundamentalists" sent a life of Pakistanians who live in the U.S. who eventually gave up this life. Ann Patchett's "Bel Canto" (a personal favorite of the writer) found us in the South American birthday party, a Japanese translator and a young terrorist fell in love with hostage negotiations
AutoRay states that social simulation may be different if different types of novels are different. Like Jojo Moyes's "Me Before You", romance leads us to understand how people choose partners. On the other hand, the mystery story includes navigating yourself and enemy relationships, like the criminal writer P. D.'s work. James or horror writer Ruth Renderle said Otley
But please do not worry unless you are a big reader. After watching TV programs such as "West Wing" and "Good Wife" and video games where viewers participate in the story, they show a better sympathy.
"Fiction is not just about killing time," Otory said. "It has a social impact on how we live each other and how we understand each other."
Reading a book makes you a better person - even a more considerate person, a smarter person, or even a happier person, this is a contemporary cliche. The research certainly pulled many benefits from good books. But does the reading change people who want improvement, or can they help juvenile offenders who are not inclined to spontaneous quest for souls? A Virginia judge recently threw a book to his defendant - in fact, teenagers found a book they wrote in front of the historic Ashburn Color. Phrases and picture labels of "Brown Power" and "White Power". It is school. The teenager was sentenced by the judge Avelina Jacob and ordered to read 12 books in the calendar year
The focus of reading personal development books is not a bette