A recent experiment is establishing the value of reading, and reading literary fiction in particular.

David Comer Kidd and Emanuele Castano of the New School of Social Research conducted an experiment in which distinct groups were asked to read literary fiction, popular fiction, and nonfiction. Afterwards, each group was given tests to measure their “theory of mind”—the ability to perceive others as having emotional states as distinct from one’s own, an important factor in empathy and social functioning.

Readers of literary fiction did much better than readers of popular fiction and nonfiction. Our affinity for genre fiction is well documented at The Stake, so this is disappointing news in some respects—however, there’s not a whole lot of information offered about what literary, popular, and nonfiction titles Kidd and Castano had their subjects use. For literary titles, they looked to recent finalists for major literary awards; but for popular titles, they looked to bestseller lists, which are not always a reliable guide to quality in any category. I can’t help but wonder what would have happened had they compared the literary award winners to genre award winners—recent finalists for the Hugo or Edgar Award, for instance.

Regardless, the study’s finding that reading fiction fosters theory of mind should be encouraging to readers—and it’s further finding that “literary quality of the fiction is the determining factor” should be a call to arms for writers and readers of all categories to create and support books that are intellectually stimulating, emotionally resonant, and deeply empathetic.