“People talk about escapism as if it's a bad thing... Once you've escaped, once you come back, the world is not the same as when you left it. You come back to it with skills, weapons, knowledge you didn't have before. Then you are better equipped to deal with your current reality.�
“one study showed that small children (age 4-6) who were exposed to a large number of children’s books and films had a significantly stronger ability to read the mental and emotional states of other people.�
“The sight of an innocent person suffering without possibility of reward or compensation motivated people to devalue the attractiveness of the victim in order to bring about a more appropriate fit between her fate and her character.�
“it appears that ‘curling up with a good book’ may do more than provide relaxation and entertainment. Reading narrative fiction allows one to learn about our social world and as a result fosters empathic growth and prosocial behaviour.”
“Most importantly, we found the assumed relationship between watching fiction on television and the belief in a just world. The frequent viewing of narratives, containing a just world that often includes the triumph of good over evil, goes hand in hand with the feeling of living in a just world.�
“the real form of ‘Escapism’ nowadays is the compulsive need to constantly be engaged in living an electronic life of fact-finding, problem-solving, video game playing, and personal chit-chat.”
Empathy is biased; we are more prone to feel empathy for attractive people and for those who look like us or share our ethnic or national background. And empathy is narrow; it connects us to particular individuals, real or imagined, but is insensitive to numerical differences and statistical data.