How Literature Can Help Us Develop Empathy: Beth Ann Fennelly (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of Beth Ann Fennelly’s talk titled “How Literature Can Help Us Develop Empathy” at TEDxUniversityofMississippi conference.

In this TEDx talk, poet and prose writer Beth Ann Fennelly explores the declining interest in humanities majors, focusing on literature, and connects this trend to a broader decrease in empathy among college students. She presents compelling evidence from literary neuroscience to argue that reading fiction enhances our ability to empathize with others by putting us in the shoes of diverse characters and situations.

Fennelly highlights studies showing that regular readers can better interpret emotions and social cues, effectively debunking stereotypes of bookworms as socially inept. The talk includes engaging experiments demonstrating how literature can influence our emotional intelligence and social awareness. Fennelly also discusses how literature can reduce biases and improve attitudes towards marginalized groups, citing studies involving novels and the Harry Potter series.

She passionately advocates for the role of literature in fostering a more harmonious world, suggesting it as a tool for policymakers to gain insight into the lives of those affected by their decisions. Ultimately, Fennelly’s talk is a persuasive call to rediscover the joy and social value of reading literature.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

Greetings from an evangelist for a declining field, the study of literature. English majors, like all humanities majors, are on the wane. Until 2011, one-third of the degrees granted from liberal arts colleges went to the humanities. Now, just one-quarter do. At research universities during the same time period, degrees in the humanities fell from 17 to 11 percent. What accounts for this? Probably practicalities. 2011 graduates were choosing their majors in 2008, the recession.

Given the absurd cost of a college degree, who can blame students for choosing more vocational majors? I, too, have college tuition woes. My husband and I have a freshman in college with two younger children approaching the starting block. I, too, have heard the old joke. Question: What’s the difference between an English major and a park bench? Answer: A park bench can support a family of four. So, I get why English majors would be on the decline.

The Decline of Empathy

But you want to know what else is on the wane? Empathy. A study of over 15,000 college students found that today’s students are 40 percent less empathetic than those in the past. Today’s students are 40 percent less likely to identify with statements like, “I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective.” They are 40 percent less likely to identify with, “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.”

What’s the connection? Well, I’ve spent the past two decades in the classroom reading with readers. And what I passionately believe, and what the emerging field of literary neuroscience is beginning to prove, is that reading literature makes us more empathetic. Are we sympathetic or frustrated with Hamlet when he delays avenging his father’s death? When Jane Eyre learns Mr. Rochester is already married, do we urge her to flee Thornfield or to stay?

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The Power of Reading

What we’re doing when we’re thinking through a protagonist’s actions is we’re judging them against what we would do in the same situation or what we have done in the past. We practice making decisions that have consequences, which is to say, we practice adulting. The mind reading we do when thinking through a character educates our emotional intelligence. And this was proven in a study called the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test.”

This study took participants and gave them photographs cropped to reveal only a subject’s eyes, and then gave them four options to choose what emotion that person was feeling. Now, we’re actually going to try that here today, and I’m going to ask for a show of hands. And the rules are like this: Everyone has to vote for one of the four options, and anyone who’s caught not voting will be invited on stage to do interpretive dance. “Okay, are you ready? What is this man feeling? Raise your hand for terrified. Raise your hand for upset. Raise your hand for arrogant. Raise your hand for annoyed. This man is upset.”

The Impact of Literature on Empathy

We’re going to try one more now that you’ve got the hang of it. Look at his eyes. What is this man feeling? Everyone has to vote. “Raise your hand for joking. Raise your hand for insisting. Raise your hand for amused. Raise your hand for relaxed. This man is insisting.” If you got both of those right, raise your hand and keep it raised for a second. Everybody turn to look at those people. Statistically speaking, it’s likely they are better readers than you are.

Regular readers score higher on the reading the mind in the eyes test because it’s theorized reading allows us practice taking on another person’s perspective. It’s funny, but we have this stereotype of the bookworm as this paste-eating, socially awkward loner, but reading improves our social awareness. Reading literature helps us read the room. Well, one of my favorite authors is Jane Austen.

The Neuroscience of Reading

And in one of my favorite studies, students were given Jane Austen to read, but not just any Jane Austen. They read her in an fMRI machine, which detects blood flow change to depict a change in brain activity. So paying attention to the areas of the brain that engage and coordinate when we read gives us a clue to what’s happening when we’re reading. In this test, when the students were reading in the fMRI machine, Natalie Phillips, lead author of the study, hypothesized that they’d have increased blood flow to the areas of their brain responsible for language processing. And they did.

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What she couldn’t predict is that they’d have increased global blood flow with blood flowing to areas of the brain that had nothing to do with language processing. Say you’re reading a book in which a character is running through the woods.

Well, you would expect the temporal lobe, the language processing center of the brain, to light up. And it does. But so does the frontal lobe’s motor cortex, the area of the brain responsible for coordinating the body’s movements. And it lights up in the same way it would as if you were actually running.

Literature and Empathy

Say you’re reading a book in which the protagonist smells lavender or vanilla or coffee. Again, you would expect the temporal lobe to light up. And it does. But so does the olfactory bulb. And it lights up in the same way it would as if you were actually smelling those scents. This doesn’t happen with fact-based nonfiction. It doesn’t happen with movie reviews, political journalism, IKEA bookcase assembly manuals. That manual might result in a cool bookcase. But if you want to light up your brain like fireworks on the Fourth of July, stock that bookcase with Jane Austen.

Reading and Social Change

Is it all in our heads? Is there any practical application for the increased brain connectivity that reading induces? What if I told you that thinking through a protagonist’s actions could make you less racist? This is what Dan Johnson proved in a study that looks at how reading affects bias. He used the novel “Saffron Dreams,” a novel written from the point of view of a Muslim American woman. And he divided the study participants up into two groups. The first group was given a 3,000-word excerpt of “Saffron Dreams” in which this Muslim American woman was the object of racial prejudice.

The second group got a 500-word synopsis of that excerpt. So this synopsis maintained all the facts, but it left out all the sensory imagery and metaphors and rich interior life of the character, the stuff that really makes a novel come alive. Afterwards, the study participants were presented with faces of ambiguous Arab Caucasians. Some of those faces appeared angry.

And the study participants were asked to identify the race of the people in the photograph. Those who’d read that shorter 500-word synopsis were disproportionately likely to characterize the angry faces as Arab. This racial bias was absent among those who’d read the lush, transporting excerpts.

The Power of Stories in Shaping Attitudes

Children, too, can improve their opinions about stigmatized groups through reading. And this was proven in a study that used “Harry Potter.” This was done in Italy, where immigrants are a stigmatized group. So the children were divided into two groups. The control group read the passage in which Harry gets his wand.

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And the other group read a passage in which shockingly blonde, pure-blood Draco Malfoy is rude to Hermione, and he calls her a filthy little mudblood. One week later, the children’s attitudes were assessed, and those who’d read the passage dealing with racial prejudice had improved attitudes towards immigrants.

Again, I think of the students who come to visit me in my office in the English department, wanting maybe to be an English major, but wanting to be successful. Well, if what they mean by successful is the highest guaranteed starting salary, maybe I do need to point them to the slightly bigger and more robust columns of business administration. But if what they’re talking about is helping to create a more harmonious world, pull up a chair.

The Joy of Reading

Some people play fantasy football. I like to play fantasy fiction seminar. And my draft picks are those most in need of the enhanced brain connectivity that reading induces, namely world leaders and policymakers. Imagine if, before initiating aggressive military action, that leader had to read a novel from the point of view of an enemy combatant. Imagine if, before slashing social services, that legislator had to inhabit the interior life of a welfare queen. Imagine if, before setting a prison sentence or immigration policy, that politician had to pass my midterm.

I’ve been talking about the way reading educates us emotionally, cognitively, and spiritually, but I want to end with what it does for us hedonistically. Don’t just read because it’s good for you. Read because it’s good. It tastes good to suck a novel’s sweet juice. And reading not only helps us feel, it helps us feel better. Reading makes us less lonely. We can find our own stories in books. James Baldwin wrote, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, and then you read. And then you read.”

We could start today. We could go home and turn off the phone and turn on a book. We could lose ourselves, which is to say, find ourselves and find everybody else while we’re at it. And I’ll let you in on a little secret, but don’t tell the incoming students. You don’t even need to be an English major. But if you happen to be considering it, you know where to find me. My office in the English department or maybe outside on a park bench. You know, the kind that can support a family of four or just one English major. Thank you very much.