Leisure reading is associated with several important educational and cognitive benefits, and yet fewer and fewer young adults are reading in their free time. To better study what drives leisure reading in undergraduates, we developed the Predictors of Leisure Reading (PoLR) scale. The PoLR investigates key predictors of leisure reading, namely…

Individuals who read more tend to have stronger verbal skills than those who read less. Interestingly, what you read may make a difference. Past studies have found that reading narrative fiction, but not expository nonfiction, predicts verbal ability. Why this difference exists is not known. Here we investigate one possibility: whether fiction…

Although reading is known to be an important contributor to language abilities, it is not yet well established whether different text genres are uniquely associated with verbal abilities. We examined how exposure to narrative fiction and expository nonfiction predict language ability among university students. Exposure was measured both with…

Throughout adolescence, children begin to develop their life story: a coherent account of their experiences and selfhood. Although the nature of this development is still being uncovered, one promising direction for research is the examination of factors that could encourage life story development. Here the authors explore the idea that exposure…

Exposure to different forms of narrative media may influence children's development of theory-of-mind. Because engagement with fictional narratives provides one with information about the social world, and possibly draws upon theory-of-mind processes during comprehension, exposure to storybooks, movies, and television may influence theory-of-mind…