Does Writing Promote Social Cognition? The Role of Fictionality and Social Content.

Prior research suggests that reading and viewing fiction (compared with expository nonfiction) may enhance social cognition. The purpose of this research was threefold: we tested whether this effect (here operationalized as persons vs, objects) extended to writing, we contrasted the effect of fictionality (real vs. imaginary) versus social content, and we delved into mechanism by examining the degree to which any effects found were mediated by the linguistic content of the writings that participants produced. Results confirmed that writing about persons versus objects has a similar effect as reading or viewing. At the same time, we found no effect of fictionality. Importantly, the person/object manipulation had a direct effect on both social and nonsocial language in the writings produced, with person-focused texts relying more on emotional language and object-focused texts containing more analytical and causal language. Writing about persons had an indirect effect on social cognition via emotional content, which did not depend on fictionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]