Literature Review

This section provides a comprehensive theoretical foundation for the present study by reviewing empirical and conceptual work at the intersection of social cognition, literary fiction, and psychological functioning. It begins by tracing the evolution of mental-state attribution research, from early conceptualisations of Theory of Mind (ToM) to more nuanced, multidimensional constructs such as mentalisation and empathy. These processes are examined as both cognitive and affective capacities that underlie interpersonal understanding. The review then presents key theoretical models (Theory-Theory, Simulation Theory, and Dual-Process frameworks) that explain how individuals understand others’ mental states, and considers how these processes may be activated and modulated through engagement with narrative fiction. Special emphasis is placed on literary fiction’s unique stylistic and psychological features, including foregrounding, character complexity, and defamiliarisation, which are posited to elicit deep empathic and reflective engagement. Short- and long-term empirical studies on fiction’s effects are critically evaluated, including work on moderators such as narrative transportation, reader traits, and emotional salience. Finally, the section examines emerging evidence from other narrative media, such as film and video games, and outlines the rationale for the current study’s focus on empathy, mentalisation, anxiety, and existential concerns in a Turkish university sample.

2.1. From Attribution of Mental States to Mentalisation and Empathy

Early work on mindreading treated the attribution of beliefs and desires as a largely intellectual exercise, but subsequent attachment-based research demonstrated that the same capacity is fundamentally affective and relational. Fonagy and Target (1997) showed that infants internalise an understanding of mind not through abstract inference but through caregivers’ emotionally attuned mirroring of their inner states. This process, termed reflective functioning, is the developmental engine that transforms simple mental-state attribution into full mentalisation, providing the scaffolding for later empathic concern and prosocial behaviour (Fonagy, et al., 1991; Fonagy et al., 2002).

With the foundational work of Premack and Woodruff (1978), who asked the now-famous question, “does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?”, ToM became a formal field of research within psychology. This question marked the start of decades of research into how humans, particularly children, come to understand that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions different from their own. The development of ToM was most notably studied through false-belief tasks (Wimmer & Perner, 1983). Usually demonstrated through the “Sally–Anne” scenario, this task evaluates a child’s capacity to understand that another person could have a belief different from either reality or the child’s own knowledge (Wimmer & Perner, 1983). Along the course of normal development, children succeed at this task around the age of four, marking the first strong evidence of ToM acquisition (Wellman, et al., 2001).

Throughout the late 1980s and the 1990s, research broadened the conceptualisation of ToM beyond the grasp of false beliefs to include the comprehension of deceit, irony, sarcasm, metaphor, and other forms of non-literal communication (Happé, 1993). Subsequent studies have underlined that ToM is not a monolithic faculty but a constellation of processes that operate either explicitly (that is, consciously and with effort) or implicitly, automatically and without reflection (Apperly & Butterfill, 2009). Moreover, evidence indicates that cognitive elements of ToM (inferring beliefs, intentions, and knowledge) and affective elements (understanding or sharing emotions) follow partially separate developmental timelines from preschool through adolescence (Peterson & Wellman, 2019) and rely on partly distinct neural networks (Frith & Frith, 2012; Shamay-Tsoory, 2011).

Today, ToM is recognised as a multifaceted construct shaped by developmental, cultural, and environmental factors, combining biological predispositions with social learning (Schaafsma et al., 2015). While it remains a cornerstone of social-cognition research, scholars increasingly emphasise the need for broader frameworks that incorporate not only cognitive inference but also emotional and relational sensitivity. One such framework is mentalisation, which builds on and extends ToM by stressing the capacity to reflect on one’s own and others’ mental states within emotionally meaningful contexts.

Mentalisation emerges in early attachment relationships and continues to develop across the lifespan, moving along the implicit-to-explicit continuum described by Lieberman (2007) as it progresses from preverbal caregiver–infant exchanges to sophisticated self–other reflections in adulthood. Mentalisation operates at both conscious and pre-reflective levels, integrating what Lieberman (2007) terms explicit and implicit processes. In infancy, caregivers’ accurate mirroring of the child’s internal states fosters implicit mentalising: the baby comes to “feel felt” and begins to expect that mental states govern behaviour (Fonagy et al., 1991). During the preschool years, secure attachment predicts mastery of false-belief tasks, marking the transition to explicit recognition that others can hold perspectives different from one’s own (Fonagy et al., 1997). Middle childhood and adolescence bring further differentiation, as children refine the ability to toggle between self- and other-focused viewpoints and to integrate cognitive (beliefs, intentions) with affective (emotions) components of social understanding (Dumontheil et al., 2010; Sebastian et al., 2012). In adulthood, mentalisation is shaped continuously by new relational contexts (e.g. romantic partnerships, parenthood, and professional roles) while remaining sensitive to stress that can “down-shift” functioning to earlier, more automatic modes (Fonagy & Luyten, 2009). Thus the capacity first cultivated within parent–infant attachment is elaborated, reorganised, and sometimes compromised throughout the lifespan, reflecting both ongoing neural maturation and the quality of later interpersonal experiences (Fonagy & Bateman, 2019).

Mentalisation plays a central role in enabling individuals to navigate the complexities of social life by making sense of their own and others’ internal experiences, a capacity indexed empirically by reflective functioning (RF). Acquired in infancy through caregivers’ attuned mirroring, high parental RF predicts secure attachment and fosters children’s early ToM success, setting the trajectory for adaptive emotion regulation and prosocial behaviour in later development (Fonagy et al., 1991; Fonagy et al., 1997). Across childhood and adolescence, growing RF supports increasingly sophisticated perspective-taking, negotiation of peer conflict, and academic engagement, while in adulthood it underpins self-soothing under stress, empathic attunement in intimate relationships, and flexible shifts between rapid, implicit readings of social cues and slower, explicit reflection when automatic assumptions fail (Fonagy & Luyten, 2009). Deficits or imbalances in RF constitute a transdiagnostic vulnerability: under high affective load, some individuals “hyper-mentalise” (over-interpret yet misconstrue others’ motives), whereas others collapse into non-mentalising modes characterised by impulsive action or concrete thinking, which are patterns observed in borderline personality disorder, trauma-related disorders, and certain externalising pathways (Allen et al., 2008; Fonagy & Bateman, 2019). Thus, RF functions as a developmental bridge linking early attachment quality to life-span outcomes in self-regulation, relationship quality, and mental health.

Mental state attribution and reasoning not only underpins everyday social interactions but also fuels creative engagement with stories: readers continuously track characters’ motives, infer hidden intentions, and predict outcomes (Mar & Oatley, 2008; Oatley, 1999). Evidence shows that this capacity is context-sensitive: education, cultural background, anxiety, and even brief exposure to narrative fiction can modulate performance on empathy and ToM tasks (Kidd & Castano, 2013; Mar et al., 2006). For example, reading literary fiction, which is rich in complex, ambiguously motivated characters, has been found to increase subsequent scores on mental-state attribution and empathy measures, presumably because such texts demand intensive perspective-taking (Dodell-Feder & Tamir, 2018; Kidd & Castano, 2013; Mar et al., 2006). Although most studies frame these effects in ToM or empathy terms, the present thesis interprets them within the broader construct of mentalisation, which encompasses not only making correct inferences about others’ mental states, but also emotional insight, self-reflection, and relational context (Fonagy & Bateman, 2019).

2.1.3. Mentalisation in Relation to Self–Other Understanding and Empathy

Mentalisation integrates two complementary capacities (self-related mentalisation and other-related mentalisation) that together provide the cognitive architecture of mental state attribution. Self-related mentalisation refers to recognising and regulating one’s own thoughts and feelings, a prerequisite for reflective self-control and affect regulation; other-related mentalisation involves inferring the beliefs, intentions, and emotions of those around us, allowing accurate prosocial responsiveness, which together provide the cognitive architecture of mental state attribution, supported by evidence for distinct neural system for self- and other-related social cognition (Amodio & Frith, 2006).

Empathy itself comprises two partially dissociable components: an affective facet involving automatic emotional resonance with others and a cognitive facet entailing deliberate perspective-taking (Decety & Jackson, 2004). When these capacities operate in tandem, they generate the double helix of empathy: affective attunement grounded in an internal sense of “what it feels like,” and cognitive perspective-taking that appreciates “how it must be for you” (Shamay-Tsoory, 2011). Mentalisation is most strongly tied to the cognitive aspect of empathy; higher self-related and other-related mentalisation scores predict better performance on perspective-taking tasks and elevated scores on cognitive-empathy subscales of multidimensional empathy inventories (Mazza et al., 2014). At the same time, balanced self-related mentalisation tempers affective sharing, preventing emotional contagion from overwhelming self-boundaries and thereby sustaining pro-social concern (Fonagy & Bateman, 2019).

Longitudinal attachment studies support this dual-facet model. High parental reflective functioning, the capacity to discuss attachment experiences in mental-state terms, predicts balanced growth of children’s self-related and other-related mentalisation and, in turn, higher cognitive-empathy scores in middle childhood (Ensink & Mayes, 2010; Fonagy et al., 1997). Conversely, disrupted attachment or low caregiver RF is associated with asymmetric profiles: some children over-read others while remaining unaware of their own affect, whereas others show the opposite pattern (Sharp et al., 2011). These findings indicate that both implicit, pre-reflective attunement and explicit, conscious perspective-taking must be integrated early for empathy to flourish across development (Fonagy, et al., 2002).

Balanced development of self-related and other-related mentalisation is linked to favourable social outcomes throughout life, including cooperative problem-solving, relationship satisfaction, and resilience under stress (Allen et al., 2008). By contrast, an imbalance invites difficulty. Individuals who over-focus on others’ minds can become hyper-mentalising (i.e. over-interpreting motives and generating inaccurate, often paranoid, social narratives). Those who under-represent their own inner states may drift into alexithymia, struggling to label feelings and to draw on them for decision-making. Both patterns are observed trans-diagnostically, from externalising trajectories to personality pathology, and illustrate Luyten and colleagues’ (2020) contention that psychological wellbeing depends on flexible movement along the self–other axis of mentalisation.

Crucially, mentalisation remains open to experiential refinement. Engagement with literary fiction, for instance, exposes readers to richly layered characters whose motives must be inferred from subtle cues; even brief exposure has been shown to boost performance on empathy and ToM tasks (Dodell-Feder & Tamir, 2018; Kidd & Castano, 2013). Such findings highlight the plasticity of the system: social learning, cultural practices (Mar et al., 2006), and targeted mentalisation-based interventions (Luyten et al., 2020) can strengthen both poles of mentalisation, fostering a more integrated empathic stance that supports adaptive functioning across diverse relational contexts.

An understanding of how individuals represent and interpret others’ mental states is central to both empathy and mentalisation. This section reviews three major theoretical models of social cognition: Theory-Theory, Simulation Theory, and dual-process models, and considers their relevance to narrative fiction and its potential role in supporting social-cognitive functions.

2.2.1. Theory-Theory and Its Relevance to Mentalisation

Although originally developed in the context of ToM research, Theory-Theory can provide a framework for understanding others’ mental states (Gopnik & Wellman, 1992; Perner, 1993). While Theory-Theory accounts for and is supported by developmental milestones, it has received criticism for underestimating the intuitive and emotional aspects of social cognition (Gallese & Goldman, 1998). The assumption that individuals act as researchers who do conscious hypothesis-testing rather than relying on automatic processes has been challenged especially by Simulation Theory researchers (Goldman, 2006; Gordon, 1986). From Theory-Theory theory’s perspective, exposure to narrative fiction may serve as a source of data through the characters’ differing mental states, and a playground for observation and hypothesis-testing which helps individuals refine their theories (Mar & Oatley, 2008).

Seen through the lens of mentalisation, Theory-Theory captures only one pole of the process: the explicit, rule-guided reasoning we deploy when we consciously interpret behaviour. Mentalisation frameworks extend this by adding an implicit, emotion-laden mode that relies on embodied simulation and intuitive “felt sense” understanding (Fonagy et al., 2002). Thus, while Theory-Theory frameworks explain how readers consciously analyse plots and motives in literary fiction, mentalisation literature highlights how those same stories evoke immersive identification that trains automatic perspective-taking (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2008; Ryan, 2001). Integrating Theory-Theory into a broader mentalisation model therefore preserves its strengths in accounting for reflective, cognitively effortful mindreading, while situating it alongside complementary intuitive and affective processes essential for real-world social understanding. The limitations that Theory-Theory faces in capturing these automatic, experiential aspects of mind-reading naturally lead to the alternative account offered by Simulation Theory, which is addressed in the following section.

2.2.2. Simulation Theory and Narrative Fiction

Simulation Theory offers an alternative view to Theory-Theory by suggesting that people do not navigate their social worlds like scientists consciously testing hypotheses and forming theories, that instead they use their own minds as simulators, enacting what others might be thinking or feeling by putting themselves in their shoes (Goldman, 2006). In other words, individuals replicate others’ mental states within their cognitive and affective systems. Within the mentalisation framework, this simulation route corresponds to the implicit, experiential pole that complements the explicit, theory-driven reasoning emphasised by Theory-Theory (Fonagy et al., 2002).

The origins of Simulation Theory can be traced back to philosophical discussions on imagination and empathy (Gordon, 1986), which later gained traction in cognitive science through the discovery of mirror neurons, neurons which activate both when taking an action and observing another taking the same action (Gallese & Goldman, 1998). The existence of these neurons in monkeys and humans alike provided strong biological evidence for the perspective that simulation plays a significant role in social cognition (Gallese & Goldman, 1998). As for emotive responses, when an individual sees someone else smile, frown, or exhibit distress, they involuntarily simulate these emotions by activating related neural system, which allows them to “feel into” the other personal, forming a grasp of the other’s internal mental state without engaging in explicit reasoning (Gallese, 2001). This is especially crucial with regards to affective empathy, the ability to resonate emotionally with others, while still being important for cognitive empathy, helping individuals construct an understanding of what others may be experiencing (Goldman & Sripada, 2005).

From this theory’s perspective, exposure to fiction may facilitate individuals to mentally simulate the emotional and cognitive experiences of the characters, often without conscious effort on their part. Fiction, then, becomes a means for simulation, where readers enact the mental states of the various characters present (Mar & Oatley, 2008; Oatley, 1999). This helps explain why fiction, despite being detached from real events, can have empathic and mentalising effects, since being factual is not a precondition to engaging readers emotionally or cognitively. Instead, what matters is the psychological realism and the richness of mental states in the work of fiction. To this end, narrative transportation has been found to be an important factor, as the more the reader is absorbed in a story, the more impactful the simulation (Green & Brock, 2000). Consequently, Simulation Theory highlights the automatic, emotion-laden side of mentalisation that is exercised every time a reader or viewer is “transported” into a narrative world.

As for the critics of Simulation Theory, they argue that simulation theory cannot account for the entirety of social cognition, as there are situations in which individuals understand others’ mental states without necessarily sharing their emotions or thoughts, and that simulation can be undesirable in some situations as it may lead to egocentric biases (Apperly, 2012).

2.2.3. Dual-Process Models of Automatic and Reflective Mentalisation

The valid criticism for both Theory-Theory and Simulation Theory has given rise to dual-process models, which argue they operate together with different functions. Dual process models propose that Simulation Theory explains the automatic, intuitive system of social cognition, while Theory-Theory accounts for the conscious and effortful side of social cognition (Apperly & Butterfill, 2009). This division maps neatly onto the implicit–explicit spectrum of mentalisation described by Lieberman (2007) and elaborated by Fonagy and Luyten (2009).

For instance, upon observing an individual frown, individuals may automatically simulate their experience without making use of explicit reasoning (Gallese & Goldman, 1998; Goldman, 2006). Such automatic resonance aligns with what Fonagy and colleagues term “pre-reflective” mentalising (Fonagy et al., 2002). However, when faced with more complex or ambiguous situations, individuals may use their previous knowledge, beliefs about such situations, and abstract, deliberate reasoning to analyse what others think or intend (Apperly, 2012). This deliberate system is often employed when the intuitive system fails, such as when interpreting irony, sarcasm, deceit, or encountering individuals who behave in ways that are outside of social norms (Apperly, 2012).

Evidence for this duality comes from the study of Onishi and Baillargeon (2005), in which infants as young as 15 months display signs of implicit mentalising (2005), well before they are able to pass explicit false-belief tasks. Furthermore, narrative fiction may in fact engage both systems. As Oatley (1999) and Mar and Oatley (2008) suggest, literary fiction often evokes emotions through simulation of the characters’ mental states, and deliberate perspective-taking and abstract reasoning through complex characters and plotlines. This dual engagement helps explain why fiction, despite its fictional status, can enhance empathy and mentalisation: psychological realism and mental-state richness, rather than factual accuracy, determine its social-cognitive impact.

Social-cognitive outcomes such as mentalisation and empathy, together with affective domains like anxiety and meaning-making, vary systematically with demographic factors. Sex differences are well documented: women score higher than men on self-reported empathy (McDonald & Kanske, 2023) and trait anxiety (McLean & Anderson, 2009), yet show only a small or inconsistent advantage in ToM performance (McDonald & Kanske, 2023; Greenberg et al., 2023). Age effects emerge as cognitive empathy and ToM peak in early adulthood, whereas emotional empathy remains stable across adulthood (Grühn et al., 2008). Education and intellectually enriching activities (e.g., extensive reading, higher academic attainment) are positively associated with perspective-taking (Mar & Oatley, 2008) and, in large epidemiological studies, predict lower odds of generalised anxiety (Bjelland et al., 2008).

Socio-economic factors likewise shape these capacities. Financial hardship reliably elevates anxiety and psychological distress (Richardson et al., 2017), and socio-economic status modulates social cognition: lower-income individuals show different patterns of empathic accuracy and perspective-taking than their higher-income peers, indicating that resource context influences mentalisation (Kraus, Côté, & Keltner, 2010). Finally, students and early-career adults (typical of the 18-to-30 age range) exhibit elevated trait and state anxiety (about 40 per cent screening above clinical cut-offs, with women significantly more likely than men to do so) yet remain highly malleable in socio-cognitive development (Ahmed et al., 2023; Luyten et al., 2020). These demographic trends underscore the need to control for individual differences in narrative-based social-cognition research.

2.3. Narrative, Fiction, and the Transformative Power of Literary Fiction

Like a triplet of nested Russian dolls, narrative contains fiction, which in turn encompasses literary fiction (Koopman & Hakemulder, 2015). According to Bruner (1990), what sets narratives apart from logical discourse is that the former deal with specific accounts of human experience, while the latter deals with generalisable truths. Narratives are universal in human culture and at the centre of human communication and social interaction, serving as tools for sharing knowledge, values, and emotions. Recent research suggests that exposure to narratives triggers a simulation-like process in the mind, allowing individuals to rehearse social experiences and derive meaning from them (Mar & Oatley, 2008; Oatley, 1999).

Fiction involves characters, events, and worlds that do not necessarily correspond to reality, while maintaining coherence and plausibility within an imagined setting (Oatley, 1999; Ryan, 1980). Readers treat plausibility as a separate dimension from factual truth; even when they know a story is fictional, perceived realism strongly predicts narrative engagement (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2008). According to the poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge, engaging with fiction requires a “willing suspension of disbelief” (Coleridge, 1817/2008; Oatley, 1999), accepting the narrative as real within the story’s context. Not merely a means for entertainment, fiction offers opportunities for perspective-taking and emotional simulation (Mar et al., 2006).

Literary fiction represents a distinctive form within fictional narratives. Though some argue that literary fiction arises from genre conventions and culturally shaped canons (Pavel, 2003), according to Miall (1999), its distinguishing qualities include foregrounding, defamiliarisation, and potential modification of personal meaning. Foregrounding, as detailed by Miall and Kuiken (1999), refers to unique stylistic and narrative features, such as deviations from everyday language, unusual metaphors, and complex plot structures. These features lead to defamiliarisation, a cognitive and emotional effect that prompts readers to re-evaluate familiar concepts or emotions through new, unfamiliar lenses, ultimately transforming the reader’s feelings or beliefs.

Koopman & Hakemulder (2015) tackle a fundamental issue in the field: the inclination in research on the psychological impact of literature to confuse narrativity (story structure), fictionality (referential status), and literariness (stylistic foregrounding). This concern echoes past criticisms by Hakemulder (2000) and Mar and Oatley (2008), who cautioned against treating narrative exposure as a monolithic phenomenon. Koopman & Hakemulder (2015) build a more exact framework for analysing which textual dimensions (i.e. plot architecture, fictional status, or stylistic deviation) drive empathy and reflection related outcomes by separating these constructs. They argue that, rather than narrative structure alone, literariness, characterised by foregrounding, ambiguity, and stylistic complexity, may be especially potent in eliciting perspective-taking and reflective processing. This point is crucial for the present study, which asks whether exposure to literary fiction predicts gains in mentalisation and empathy as complementary capacities (see also Dixon et al., 1993; Miall & Kuiken, 2002).

Through the fundamental processes of role-taking and defamiliarisation, Koopman & Hakemulder suggest that literary reading activates psychological change. Role-taking aligns with simulation-based Theory-of-Mind accounts in which readers internally recreate others’ mental states (Gallese & Goldman, 1998; Mar & Oatley, 2008; Oatley, 1999). Defamiliarisation, a term from Shklovsky (1917/1965), empirically studied by Miall & Kuiken (1994, 2002), describes how stylistic foregrounding and linguistic deviation slow reading and deepen processing. While defamiliarisation can spur metacognition and ethical self-reflection, role-taking promotes cognitive empathy and social reasoning. Because literary fiction combines complex characters with unconventional stylistic choices, it can uniquely engage both empathy and reflective (explicit) and pre-reflective (implicit) mentalising (Hakemulder, 2000; Miall, 2006).

2.3.1. Short-Term Experimental Evidence

Kidd and Castano (2013) conducted a series of studies showing that exposure to literary fiction, but not popular fiction or nonfiction, enhances mind-reading. In five experiments, participants who read short literary excerpts outperformed those in popular-fiction, nonfiction, or no-reading conditions on affective (Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test [RMET]; Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy 2 – Adult Faces [DANVA2–AF]) and cognitive (false-belief, Yogi) ToM tasks; lifetime print exposure to fiction, indexed by the Author Recognition Test (ART), also predicted RMET scores (Kidd & Castano, 2013). Using an expanded ART that distinguished literary, genre, and nonfiction authors, they found that only familiarity with literary fiction correlated positively with RMET, whereas genre and nonfiction did not; this relation held after controlling for Interpersonal Reactivity Index subscales such as Empathic Concern and Personal Distress (Kidd & Castano, 2017). Three preregistered replications retained the original methodology and again showed that literary fiction, but not genre fiction, familiarity predicted RMET scores, with highly exposed readers rating popular-fiction characters as flatter, suggesting long-term literary reading sharpens sensitivity to character complexity (Kidd & Castano, 2018). Although later multi-lab efforts report smaller or null effects, the overall pattern supports the view that stylistic and psychological depth selectively strengthen the Online Simulation and Perspective-Taking facets of empathy central to mentalisation. These findings laid important groundwork for exploring how the features of literary fiction bring about such effects. One proposed mechanism is foregrounding, the stylistic defamiliarisation that may enhance both aesthetic and emotional processing.

In 2016, Koopman conducted a controlled experiment to investigate how foregrounding might affect affective responses, empathy, and reflection. Participants (N = 142), comprising parents as well as students, were randomly assigned to read one of three versions of the same literary work: (1) the original text high in phonetic, semantic, and grammatical foregrounding, (2) a version without imagery (semantic foregrounding removed), and (3) a version without any foregrounding at all. Foregrounding was linked to more complex emotional reactions including ambivalence and aesthetic appreciation and found to dramatically increase perceived stylistic originality. Even after controlling for variables including trait empathy, personal experience with grief, sex, and literary exposure, quantitative results revealed that only the original version significantly raised empathic understanding for real-world others. Although the original condition had initially greater general emotional response and empathic distress, these effects vanished once SES variables were accounted for. For the readers of the original version, though foregrounding had no significant effect on reflection, the qualitative analysis showed that they were more likely to report ambivalent emotional states and general reflections on human suffering and resilience. Koopman (2016) concludes that, especially when stylistic complexity aligns with emotional themes, literariness can actively deepen affective and empathic engagement.

While Koopman emphasised style at the narrative level, other studies have examined whether specific linguistic devices, such as metaphors, may influence ToM more directly. Bowes and Katz (2015) investigated whether processing metaphorical language improves ToM. Participants completed the RMET after reading or writing literal or metaphorical sentences in three different experiments. Participants exposed to metaphor performed better than those in the literal condition in each of the three experiments. This effect was seen not only when metaphors were presented as part of text (Experiment 1), but also when the participants created imaginary contexts for the metaphors (Experiment 2). and even when the participants read metaphors in isolation (Experiment 3). The authors suggest that as metaphors force the reader to think about the speaker’s intention, a process strongly tied to ToM, metaphoric language can enhance affective ToM capacity in the short-term by eliciting social-cognitive inferences.

Other researchers have emphasised the role of individual differences. In 2013, Djikic and colleagues looked at whether reading literary fiction as opposed to nonfiction essays leads to increase in empathy. In their study, participants were randomly assigned to read either a literary short story or a nonfiction essay matched for length and literary quality, before and after which they completed cognitive and affective empathy measures (Davis, 1980, 1983), and the RMET (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001). Although no general effect of text type was found, participants low in Openness showed increased cognitive empathy after reading fiction, whereas people low in Openness did not. Another finding was that higher lifetime exposure to fiction, as measured by ART, predicted improved performance on the RMET test across both conditions. These results confirm that fictional stories can improve social cognition, particularly in those who might be less naturally inclined to perspective-taking, and that the cumulative effects of exposure to literary fiction on ToM develop over time.

Finally, two experimental studies by Bal and Veltkamp (2013) tested the hypothesis whether reading fiction increases empathy and whether emotional transportation mediated this effect. Participants were randomly assigned to read either a fictional narrative (excerpt from Saramago’s Blindness or a Sherlock Holmes story), or a nonfiction news article. Empathy was assessed at baseline, immediately after reading, and one week later. Their results revealed that reading fiction increased empathy only for readers who had a high degree of narrative transportation into the story. On the other hand, fiction readers who experienced low transportation showed a decline in empathy over time. Furthermore, the empathic gains among highly transported fiction readers became more evident following a one-week delay, indicating that the psychological impact of fiction may develop gradually. This delayed effect supports earlier research demonstrating fiction simulates complex social experiences and affects social cognition over time (Mar et al., 2006). No relationship was observed for the nonfiction condition regarding empathy. Hence, the authors provide experimental evidence for the causal influence of fiction in promoting empathy, particularly in emotionally invested readers over time.

2.3.2. Long-Term Exposure Evidence

Castano and colleagues (2020) investigated whether long-term exposure to literary as opposed to popular fiction predicts differences in social cognition in three areas: attributional complexity, egocentric bias, and interpersonal accuracy. The authors discovered that reading literary fiction was positively correlated with more sophisticated causal reasoning about other people (attributional complexity), improved performance on affective ToM tasks (RMET), and increased accuracy in estimating the beliefs and attitudes of others. They did this by using a modified ART that distinguished between authors of literary and popular fiction. These findings support earlier findings that the psychological depth and structural ambiguity of literary fiction foster reflective and socially attuned cognition (Kidd & Castano, 2013; Mar & Oatley, 2008). On the other hand, exposure to popular fiction was unrelated to both RMET performance and interpersonal accuracy and negatively correlated with attributional complexity, indicating that it may reinforce simplistic views of human behaviour. After controlling for gender and education, the link between literary fiction and reduced egocentric bias was significant The findings suggest that popular fiction does not seem to provide the same cognitive or empathic affordances as literary fiction, which seems to promote nuanced, accurate, and less self-centred social reasoning (Castano et al., 2020).

Expanding earlier studies linking general fiction exposure to social-cognitive skills, Fong and colleagues (2013) looked at whether various genres of fiction are differently correlated with interpersonal sensitivity. The authors studied the effects of lifetime print exposure to Domestic Fiction, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy, and Suspense/Thriller genres using the revised Author Recognition Test (ART-R). They found that performance on the RMET was positively correlated with overall fiction exposure while nonfiction exposure was not. Where genres were concerned, only Romance fiction consistently predicted higher interpersonal sensitivity when controlling for personality traits (Big Five), sex, English fluency, and other genre exposures, with the Suspense/Thriller and Domestic Fiction genres showing weaker, less robust associations. Interpersonal sensitivity was unrelated to reading science fiction or fantasy. These results imply that genres stressing interpersonal relationships and emotional complexity may offer richer simulations of social experience, hence improving readers’ affective ToM (Mar & Oatley, 2008; Zunshine, 2006).

Finally, Appel and Richter (2007) studied whether fiction narratives could modify readers’ real-world beliefs, even in the case when they included false information. Participants read a short story that included subtle accurate or inaccurate information about the world, and their beliefs were assessed either immediately after reading or two weeks later. Their findings were that not only their beliefs were influenced, but that the effect of the inaccurate information in the text increased over time, a phenomenon known as the absolute sleeper effect. The results highlight the persuasive potential of fiction in the long-term.

2.3.3. Moderators and Mechanisms

This section surveys theoretical and empirical models explaining how literary fiction exerts its effects on social cognition. These include mechanisms of embodied simulation, stylistic complexity, emotional immersion, and motivational alignment. Each pathway may differentially influence affective and cognitive empathy, self-mentalisation and other-mentalisation, and broader existential reflection.

Gallese (2001) puts forward the Shared Manifold Hypothesis, arguing that there are three levels to embodied simulation which is at the core of empathy: subpersonal (the mirror neuron system, whereby observing someone else’s behaviours, feelings, or emotions triggers the same brain regions in the observer as if they were experiencing these themselves), functional (the ability to take on the other’s perspective as if it were one’s own), and phenomenological (the sense of similarity between self and other). Importantly, this model views empathy as a pre-reflective, embodied understanding of others that facilitates goal attribution and emotion recognition rather than as a detach process of inference. By establishing simulation as the main mechanism for social cognition and interpersonal resonance, Gallese (2001) provides a convincing neurocognitive substitute for theory-theory explanations.

A complementary model is Castano’s (2024) “less-is-more” hypothesis, suggesting that fiction improves emotion recognition not by means of frequent use of emotional words, but by means of inviting readers to infer emotions from indirect cues, training their inferential and simulated social cognition. Based on correlational and experimental data (e.g., Kidd & Castano, 2013; Schwering et al., 2021), Castano (2024) argues that literary fiction, with its complex syntax, implicit emotion language, and concrete descriptions helps to develop emotional awareness and ToM. This contrasts with popular fiction, which offers less chance for inference and embodied simulation by using simpler syntax and more explicit emotional labels. Based on this, Castano argues literary fiction’s tendency to “show but not tell” elicits deeper mentalising, drawing on corpus evidence of linguistic (Castano et al., 2023) and on work linking familiarity with literary authors to higher emotion recognition scores (Castano, 2024; Schwering et al., 2021). Developmental work (e.g., Peskin & Astington, 2004) supports this assertion by demonstrating that emotionally implicit stories may better train ToM even in children and extends it to adult readers by linking literary style to cognitive engagement.

Among the most original contributions of Koopman and Hakemulder (2015) is their conception of “stillness,” a condition of cognitive openness and slowed processing made possible by literary engagement. Conceptually derived from Martel’s (2009) contemplative view of literature and developed empirically by Koopman and Hakemulder (2015), who relate “stillness” to aesthetic distance and reflection (Kuiken et al., 2004; Miall, 2006). Stillness, in contrast with transportation which emotionally immerses the reader, gives space to the reader to be reflective in an engaged but not absorbed manner. Koopman and Hakemulder (2015) contend that this reflective stillness might be what helps readers to face existential concerns and ambiguity. Within the framework of the present study, this model presents a convincing explanation of how literary fiction might influence not only ToM and empathy but also existential issues, which remain underexplored in most empirical research on reading. Koopman and Hakemulder (2015) argue that literary fiction, through round characters and foregrounded stylistic features which lead to defamiliarisation (Miall & Kuiken, 1994), encourages reflective engagement through aesthetic distance (Cupchik, 1998), which together give rise to stillness, a contemplative state that enables deeper self-understanding and other-understanding. They distinguish between cognitive and affective empathy, trait vs. state empathy, and narrative vs. real-world empathy, emphasizing that literary fiction uniquely fosters narrative empathy and reflective thinking through this interplay of narrativity, fictionality, and literariness. Although empirical evidence is still developing, they suggest that reader engagement, prior reading experience, and emotional transportation moderate these effects. Their model helps to explain why studies like that of Johnson (2012) and Bal and Veltkamp (2013) revealed empathy increases only among participants who demonstrated high transportation. The authors emphasise the difference between affective and cognitive empathy, referring to evidence from the study of Shamay-Tsoory and colleagues (2009) who found the two types of empathy rely on different neural systems.

Bal and colleagues (2011) in their conceptual analysis article propose a conceptual framework explaining how fictional narrative exposure influences behaviour through the processes of transportation and transformation. The authors differentiate between long-term cognitive and behavioural changes, such as creativity, interpersonal behaviour, and empathy, from short-term affective benefits, such as detachment from work stress. Building upon Oatley’s transportation-transformation model, they argue that fictional narratives expose readers to emotionally compelling and cognitively dissonant viewpoints, which through introspection challenges their mental schemas and leads to behavioural changes. They identify key moderators as frame of reference, identification with characters, and perceived realism. Though the work is theoretical, preliminary empirical research by Bal and Veltkamp (2011) supports their assertions that over time emotional transportation and transformative reflection after reading fiction can increase empathy.

Appel and Richter (2010) investigated how readers’ emotional disposition affects the persuasiveness of fictional stories. In two experiments, they tested whether need for affect, the tendency to approach or avoid emotional experiences, predicts narrative transportation, which in turn predicts belief change. Participants in the first experiment read either a fictional story including a psychiatric patient who commits a violent crime, or a control story on an unrelated topic. The emotionally intense story led to increased belief in the dangerousness of psychiatric patients, but only among participants high in need for affect who also reported high transportation. In the second experiment, the subject was organ donation for both conditions, though the first story had high emotional content whereas the second had low emotional content. Again, only the highly affect-motivated and transported readers showed belief change, but crucially, only after reading the high-emotion version. In both experiments, belief change only happened among participants high in need for affect who also reported high transportation into the story. These findings imply that emotional motivation impacts not only the degree of readers’ engagement with a story but also their internalisation of its implied worldview.

Djikic and Oatley (2014) show how literary fiction causes self-change through a process called indirect communication. Based on previous experimental data (e.g., Djikic et al., 2009; Djikic et al., 2013), they argue that literary fiction serves as a simulation of selves interacting in the social world, allowing readers to experience other mental and emotional configurations without any instructions. Literary fiction, they suggest, causes temporary personality fluctuations, especially when the story moves readers emotionally, and that these fluctuations might be precursors for more permanent transformation. Most importantly, these changes are unique to each reader and not determined by authorly intent, unfolding in ways moulded by personal resonance and emotional response. Rather than providing answers, fiction presents the reader with questions and ambiguity, which create a cognitive and emotional environment where they may step outside of their usual personality structures and imagine alternative aspects of their selves. Through literary fiction’s use of metaphor, foregrounding, and defamiliarisation, fiction engages readers in indirect communication which encourages interpretation and self-reflection (Miall & Kuiken, 2002; Zunshine, 2006).

Finally, Coplan (2004) argues that readers connect with fictional characters primarily through empathy. She shows that readers frequently take on the spatial-temporal and emotional viewpoints of protagonists, encoding events from the character’s point of view, by drawing on empirical research from text processing and narrative comprehension (e.g. Gernsbacher et al., 1992; Rinck & Bower, 2000). Coplan (2004) makes an important distinction between empathy, emotional contagion, and sympathy, emphasising that empathy requires perspective taking and self-other differentiation simultaneously to imagine the thoughts and feelings of characters while remaining conscious of one’s own thoughts and feelings. Opposing the view that readers usually feel for rather than as characters Coplan (2004) argues that empathy can accommodate emotional congruence and divergence in knowledge, preference, and identity at the same time, that is, they can both feel for a character, while also feeling like them, both of which could be different, even opposing emotions (e.g. feeling happy for a villain’s demise while also empathising with their despair and sadness, imagining what it must be like to be in their shoes). Her account reinforces the view that literary fiction promotes social understanding by allowing readers to imagine themselves in another person’s subjective world, which is a mechanism central to ToM.

Taken together, these models offer a multi-layered understanding of how literary fiction may influence the full range of mentalisation and empathy processes from implicit resonance and emotional tracking to explicit reflection and existential self-inquiry. Mechanisms such as embodied simulation and emotional inference foster affective empathy and other-mentalisation, while stylistic foregrounding, narrative ambiguity, and aesthetic distance support self-mentalisation, Perspective-Taking, and engagement with existential concerns. These processes are not uniformly activated, but depend on readers’ motivational traits, prior experience, and emotional transportation, highlighting the complex, moderated nature of fiction’s psychological effects.

2.3.4. Beyond Print

While literary fiction remains the focus of most research on narrative and social cognition, recent studies suggest that other narrative media, such as television, video games, and film, may similarly engage mentalising processes when they exhibit sufficient psychological depth and narrative complexity. If this is the case, the mechanisms through which fiction affects empathy and mentalisation may be medium-independent, hinging instead on features like character depth and interpretive demand.

Black and Barnes (2015), drawing from previous research linking literary fiction exposure and ToM capacities, investigated whether award-winning television dramas had similar effects. Participants were randomly assigned to view either an award-winning TV drama or a documentary matched in quality and production value. After viewing, participants’ affective ToM by was evaluated through RMET. Even after controlling for prior fiction exposure and sex, those who watched fictional dramas scored higher on RMET. In a second experiment, a control group viewing nothing scored the lowest on RMET. As award winning drama has a similar impact to literary fiction on affective ToM, the authors argue that rather than the medium of the content being consumed, it is the narrative complexity and character depth that facilitates mentalising.

Extending fiction exposure and social cognition search into the domain of film, Castano investigated whether art films, likened to literary fiction, enhance ToM more than Hollywood films, which are likened to popular fiction (2021). In a randomised experiment participants watched the first 20 minutes of either an art film or a Hollywood film and then completed two ToM measures: RMET for affective ToM and the Moral Judgment Task (MJS) for cognitive ToM. Viewers of art films outperformed those who viewed Hollywood films on both measures. Mediation analyses revealed that this effect was mediated by participants’ perceptions of the character’s complexity and unpredictability, supporting the idea that cognitively demanding characters prompt greater mentalising. Castano argues that, as with literary fiction, art films foster ToM by withholding schematic cues and demanding interpretive effort, as opposed to the formulaic storytelling typical of Hollywood cinema, starring stereotypical characters. This study strengthens the claim that narrative complexity and psychological depth, rather than medium, are key to cultivating social-cognitive skills.

Narrative-driven video games represent an even more interactive form of storytelling. Bormann and Greitemeyer (2015) investigated whether video games could facilitate similar effects on immersion, psychological need satisfaction, and affective ToM. In the two conditions out of three, the participants played a narrative-driven game, with the narrative group receiving instructions to focus on the narrative, and the second group to focus on the technical and gameplay aspects (hence avoiding the narrative). In the third condition, they played a simple platforming game with almost no narrative elements. Those in the narrative condition who actively interacted with the in-game story showed notably higher immersion, more satisfaction of autonomy and relatedness needs, and better affective ToM performance (Bormann & Greitemeyer, 2015), measured with RMET. Using video games in their methodology gave the authors the chance to test whether narrative processing, rather than mere exposure, drives these effects, which was found to be the case, and that literary fiction’s ability to enhance ToM is not unique to the medium.

These findings collectively underscore that the mentalising effects observed in literary fiction are not exclusive to the printed word. Rather, they extend across media that maintain literariness through psychological complexity, narrative ambiguity, and character depth. Whether conveyed through books, screens, or controllers, it is narrative richness, and not format, that emerges as the key driver of enhanced empathy, perspective-taking, and mentalisation.

2.4. Aim of the Study

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between exposure to literary fiction and empathy (cognitive and affective), mentalisation, anxiety (trait and state), and existential concerns within an 18- to 30-year-old university student or graduate population. Prior studies regarding the subject were dominantly conducted in Europe and Northern America, comprising Western literary works.

This study innovatively employs the literary canon titled 100 Temel Eser (100 Essential Works) published by the Turkish Ministry of National Education (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı [MEB]; T.C. Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı, 2005) list as an ecologically valid proxy for engagement with literary fiction.

Furthermore, this study seeks to explore a broad network of variables that may interact by distinctly measuring cognitive empathy, affective empathy, and mentalisation separately, which will allow a more nuanced understanding of literary fiction’s effects on social cognition. The inclusion of anxiety in both its state and trait forms, which are known to interfere with interpretation of mental states (Washburn et al., 2016), as well as existential concerns, which feature as prominent themes found in literary works (Yalom, 1980) will allow the study of potential moderators.

2.4.1. Empathy-Focused Research Questions and Hypotheses

RQ1. Does exposure to literary fiction predict higher empathy scores?

H1. Literary fiction exposure will be positively associated with both cognitive and affective empathy.

RQ2. Is anxiety (state or trait) negatively associated with empathy?

H2a. State anxiety will be negatively associated with empathy.

H2b. Trait anxiety will be negatively associated with empathy.

RQ3. Do anxiety and existential concerns moderate the relationship between literary fiction exposure and empathy?

H3. Anxiety and existential concerns will moderate the effect of literary fiction exposure on empathy.

2.4.2. Mentalisation-Focused Research Questions and Hypotheses

RQ4. Does exposure to literary fiction predict higher mentalisation scores?

H4. Literary fiction exposure will be positively associated with mentalisation.

RQ5. Is anxiety (state or trait) negatively associated with mentalisation?

H5a. State anxiety will be negatively associated with mentalisation.

H5b. Trait anxiety will be negatively associated with mentalisation.

RQ6. Do anxiety and existential concerns moderate the relationship between literary fiction exposure and mentalisation?

H6. Anxiety and existential concerns will moderate the effect of literary fiction exposure on mentalisation.