Albert Wendland: A Literary Analysis

Imagine having a fight with your friend. You can't just read about the same exact fighting a book! You need to figure out how to work your way through the situation in the real world. You can't do that in books you need to put yourself out there. On the one hand people say that reading literary fiction can help improve empathy. Albert Wendland from the for better social skills, scientists recommend a little Chekhov article says that "Reading sensitive and lengthy explorations of people's lives, that kind of fiction is literally putting yourself into the characters shoes," (3). On the other though it can't because you need to experience these things yourself so you can grow, you can't do this by a book because you could be feeling something …show more content…
According to the article For better social skills, scientists recommended a little chekhov, they used "Amazon's mechanical Turk service, where people sign up to earn money through small jobs." In other words, social psychologists believe that using Amazon is a good way to find people empathy levels. In other words, anyone could be using this test just to make quick and easy money, This could be anyone answering the questions randomly. Further more, they could not determine their empathy levels to begin with, and that is enough to throw the test results into a completely different result. This is because someone can have greater empathy skills to start off with then another person. Clearly this shows that their studies are invalid. Since the test that they used were rendered useless because almost anyone can be using it, they have almost no other tests to back up their findings. This ruins their argument …show more content…
“Maybe fiction is a way of dealing with ones own self, maybe, someones own needs, wants, and, desires” (3). This quote from for better social skills, scientists recommend a little Chekhov states clearly that regular fiction includes more self building overall. Books only show you what it can be like, real life experiences help you discover who you are which is essential for connecting with others. If you don't know your personality than you can't find things to connect with other people.This clearly shows that literary fiction is not the best way to improve empathy and social skills because you need to find yourself first, and the only way to do that is by real world experience. The educational video also states that you need failure to