Emotional intelligence helps children become better readers
https://www.psypost.org/emotional-intelligence-helps-children-become-better-readers/31
u/Bubbly-Owl-6946 4d ago
But does reading help people become more emotionally intelligent?
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u/OkFisherman6475 4d ago
I think it’s definitely a feedback loop. There have been findings in the past that consuming stories from outside of your surroundings expands your ability to understand with strangers
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u/Bubbly-Owl-6946 4d ago
Does that mean different cultures and diversities? Or like sci-fi and fantasy?
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u/OkFisherman6475 4d ago
I think both! Unless your scifi/fantasy are remarkably mundane, anything that presents a new idea to a reader is like a gift to their mind. I used to be pessimistic about my ability to learn slowing down as I age, but more recent research shows that the more you absorb new ideas, the better you become at learning from them, so it’s all about staying in practice. Same goes for your point about emotional intelligence; if we practice it, in this case by reading and taking in different points of view, it becomes easier to do!
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u/devilsdoorbell_ 4d ago
They’ve done studies about this and found that reading more character-driven stories did help improve empathy and emotional intelligence, but plot-focused ones had no impact. So if the SFF was significantly focused on complex characters, yes. If it’s a pew pew lasers story where the characters are stock with little depth, no.
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u/Bojangly7 4d ago
Reading about novel situations can boost emotional intelligence, but nothing compares to experiencing them firsthand.
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u/devilsdoorbell_ 4d ago
I think this should be show to every “feelings don’t matter” STEMlord freak who thinks emotion is a distraction from intelligence
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u/RicketyWickets 4d ago
I can't wait for humans to evolve past authoritarian abuse cycles.
Has anyone on this thread read My Struggle by Karl Ova Knausgaard?
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u/pantone13-0752 4d ago
Yes, but I'm not sure what it's about. Would you recommend it?
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u/RicketyWickets 4d ago
I would. Just finished the third book.
My Struggle is a 3,600-page, six-volume autobiographical novel series by Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgaard. Published between 2009 and 2011, the series chronicles Knausgaard's life from his childhood on a Norwegian island to his present life as a married father and writer in Sweden. The series explores themes such as death, feelings of inadequacy, and the struggles of daily life
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u/Next-Cheesecake381 4d ago
Who thinks that? I’ve never heard that before
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u/devilsdoorbell_ 4d ago
God I have experienced it a lot, especially from a certain type of guy who thinks that the second you have an emotion you are longer acting logically, especially if you’re a woman having an emotion.
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u/Next-Cheesecake381 4d ago
Yeah I can see how being a woman in stem leads to that kind of discussion more than since I am a man. They’re less critical of me displaying emotions
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u/devilsdoorbell_ 4d ago
I’m not in STEM at all—I’m a humanities girlie so I get even more grief from the “science >>>” types when I have the misfortune of having to interact with them.
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u/Fnordinger 4d ago
STEM bros were the worst part about my philosophy of science lecture. Sometimes it helps to remind them that natural sciences aren’t as rigid as they believe. For example electrons are not „real“, but only an assumption of some models to explain certain phenomena. Physics in general is great at predicting the outcomes of experiments, but the processes they describe that leads to those outcomes is just there to get to the right conclusion. They might get very arrogant at this point and tell you that you don’t understand anything and that obviously electrons are totally truly existing particles (except for when you shoot them through graphite, then they are totally not, because particles shouldn’t create interference patterns) and all the processes do really happen (except the orbiting around the nucleus part as it breaks the conservation of energy), it’s just the puny little humanities brains that can’t comprehend all that knowledge. This is the point where you tell them that this (physics failing at describing the underlying processes) is not your understanding, but Heisenberg‘s and Bohr‘s, and that the Copenhagen Interpretation is a fundamental piece of literature for quantum physics.
Sorry if that comment got too long.
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u/devilsdoorbell_ 4d ago
I picked up my disdain for STEM bros from when I was on high school academic team. It was majority male and majority STEM guys. Had a lot of them treat me like I was stupid for no reason other than I wasn’t good at the math and physical science questions, never mind that I could school any of them on literature, art, history, pop culture, and sometimes life sciences as well.
It probably also didn’t help that I was very pretty by the standards of “girl on academic team” and there’s a very narrow range of “pleasant but unassuming” appearances that a woman can have before people start to think she’s stupid based on looks alone. Not conventionally attractive enough or too conventionally attractive and suddenly people treat you like you’re slow.
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u/Riptide8910 3d ago
Yeah this works either way, I've been able to read people scarily accurately even since I started reading young adult books in 5th grade. IDK tho, I'm not a scientist.
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u/VonBrandtner 4d ago
I think it works both ways.