Though no one has proved causation—concretely proving Thing A happens because of Thing B is difficult in all research and most especially so when it comes to the social sciences, where human behavior is the subject—all signs do show that reading fiction, particularly literary fiction, correlates with people who have higher empathy than other people. (Correlation, unlike causation, means that though one thing may not lead to another, research has collected concrete data showing alignment between two facts or things.)

One study link not enough? Here’s another from the peer-reviewed journal Communications, explaining the results of a research study designed to explore the link between reading fiction and empathy. And here’s another paper in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS One on a study examining how fiction reading influences empathy.

Both these papers cite several other papers that report on other research that covers the subject, too. You can dig deeper into the data from there, if you’d like.

That we can see a correlation between the two—reading fiction, particularly literary fiction, and high levels of empathy—makes sense to me.

Novels and stories, especially ones that deeply plumb the interior worlds of the characters, dig into internal human conflict and how internal states drive actions and reactions. Literary fiction requires the reader to understand the characters’ motivations, rationale, and origins—even when these aspects aren’t pleasant and when the characters aren’t “likeable” or “relatable,” meaning that they have similarities of background or circumstances to the person reading the story.

Someone who reads fiction, especially literary in nature, must put themselves into the bodies and minds and backstories of someone often completely unlike them. Doing so will help anyone better understand—and feel empathy for—the other humans in this world with them.

Now, I read nonfiction and really enjoy it—so don’t take what I say next as a dismissal of nonfiction’s value and importance to the world and the individual.

Yet here’s this essay’s possibly balk-inducing statement: As the years pass, I’ve grown increasingly wary of people who tell me they never read fiction. Even if they say they do read nonfiction.

Why, you ask?

Whether because people with empathy read more fiction or because people who read more fiction exercise and therefore strengthen their empathy doesn’t affect my wariness. What does is my certainty that empathetic people are the people I want in my orbit. Empathetic people are where I want to spend my limited time and attention.

People without a lot of empathy? Not people I want to frequent.

And if studies show that people who read fiction, particularly literary fiction, have higher levels of empathy than people who do not, it validates my instinct that it’s a red flag when someone doesn’t read fiction—especially if they don’t read it at all.

Now, none of these studies say that people who read only nonfiction or who do not read at all don’t have empathy.

Of course they do.

All I’m saying is that people who don’t read fiction—with a little literary fiction in the mix—I take into my life with a little more caution. Their stated dislike or disinterest in fiction could indicate to me that the person’s a problem person.

Could be not.

Still. The caution flag’s a’wavin’.

And someone who loves to read fiction? Someone who reads literary fiction as part of that love for reading?

Conversely, my caution level decreases.

And, studies say, with reason.