The Relationship Between Lifetime Book Reading and Empathy in Adolescents: Examining Transportability as a Moderator

Reading narrative literature is discussed as an influencing factor on the development of social-cognitive skills. Transportability, which is the tendency to immerse into narrative worlds, has been proposed as a moderator within this relationship, with high-transportable individuals being assumed to profit more from narratives. The current study examines (a) whether a relationship exists between different dimensions of empathy and narrative reading in an adolescent sample, (b) whether this relationship remains intact when gender, age, IQ, trait openness to experiences, and real-life social network are statistically controlled, and (c) whether transportability moderates the relationship between narrative reading and empathy. The sample included 282 German adolescents (Grades 9-10, age 13-18 years) who completed questionnaires and an IQ test. Results revealed significant relationships between different dimensions of empathy (empathic concern, perspective taking, personal distress, and fantasy) and narrative reading. However, after including the control variables in the model, the relationships-except for fantasy-were no longer significant. Only for empathic concern, transportability emerged as a moderator but in an unexpected direction, showing a closer relationship between reading and empathic concern for low-transportable students. Finally, our results indicated that transportability might be better conceptualized as a mediator between narrative reading and empathy.