The Books That Change How We See the World: Why Do Stories Matter?

Last updated: October 18, 2026

Why are stories important? Stories help us make sense of experience, imagine other lives, explore questions that facts alone cannot settle and connect with each other through shared narratives. Research on whether reading fiction makes people more empathetic is more mixed than headlines suggest, but the role of stories in culture, community and individual lives is hard to overstate.

Key takeaways

• Stories let us experience perspectives we could never live ourselves.
• Fiction can explore emotion, morality and possibility in ways data cannot.
• Research on reading and empathy is promising but mixed, so claims should be careful.
• Shared stories build communities, from book clubs to online fandoms.
• A diverse range of stories gives a fuller picture of the world.

How do stories build perspective?

Fiction lets readers spend time inside another person's thoughts, choices and circumstances. A novel can take you into a different century, culture, job or body. Literary scholar Suzanne Keen's work explores how readers feel empathy for fictional characters, while cautioning that this does not automatically lead to kinder actions in real life (Keen, 2007).

What does the research actually say?

In 2013, a widely reported study in Science found that reading short passages of literary fiction improved performance on tests of theory of mind, the ability to understand others' mental states (Kidd & Castano, 2013). A later replication attempt involving 792 participants did not find that short-term effect, though it did find that people with more lifetime exposure to fiction tended to score higher on those tests (Panero et al., 2016). That is a correlation, which could mean reading builds social understanding, or that people with strong social understanding are drawn to fiction, or both.

The honest summary: there is reason to think fiction and social understanding are connected, but reading does not reliably produce a specific outcome in everyone.

What can fiction explore that facts alone may not?

• Inner life: what it feels like to be someone, not just what they did.
• Moral complexity: situations without clear right answers.
• Possibility: futures, alternate histories and worlds that do not exist.
• Emotion over time: how grief, love or fear change across a life.
• Meaning: why events matter to the people they happen to.

Aristotle argued in the Poetics that poetry is more philosophical than history, because history describes what happened while poetry describes what may happen (Aristotle, ca. 335 B.C.E./2008). Stories let us think about the possible, not just the actual.

How do books shape communities?

Stories bring people together: book clubs, classrooms, fandoms, online reading communities. Researchers studying fans and readers have shown how audiences build social worlds around stories they love, discussing, reinterpreting and creating new work (Jenkins, 1992). A shared story gives people a common language. See online book communities.

Why does literary diversity matter?

When the stories available to readers come from a narrow range of voices, readers get a narrow view of the world. Rudine Sims Bishop described books as mirrors and windows, letting readers see themselves and others (Bishop, 1990). A wide range of stories, from different backgrounds, places and experiences, gives readers both. See why representation in fiction matters.

Why does this matter to writers?

Every story adds to the larger conversation. Writers who tell specific, honest stories, whatever their genre, give readers something to recognize, learn from and share. At Cihaiyura, our editorial team works with writers to help their stories reach readers as clearly and powerfully as possible. Book a free consultation to talk about yours.

References

Aristotle. (2008). Poetics (S. H. Butcher, Trans.). Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1974 (Original work published ca. 335 B.C.E.)

Bishop, R. S. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom, 6(3), ix–xi.

Jenkins, H. (1992). Textual poachers: Television fans and participatory culture. Routledge.

Keen, S. (2007). Empathy and the novel. Oxford University Press.

Kidd, D. C., & Castano, E. (2013). Reading literary fiction improves theory of mind. Science, 342(6156), 377–380. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1239918

Panero, M. E., Weisberg, D. S., Black, J., Goldstein, T. R., Barnes, J. L., Brownell, H., & Winner, E. (2016). Does reading a single passage of literary fiction really improve theory of mind? An attempt at replication. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111(5), e46–e54. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000064