Is leisure-time reading related to empathy and social skills in 8- to 10-year-old children?

There is growing interest in the effects of reading on empathy and prosocial behaviour but not enough is known about the associations among these variables in children. In a study undertaken at a single time point, we examined children's leisure reading and self-reported prosocial behaviour, and whether the relation between them was mediated by affective or cognitive empathy or by theory of mind. We tested 113 English-speaking children aged 8-10 years from a UK primary school. Analyses showed that reading and prosocial behaviour are related, and that the relation was partly explained by variance shared with empathy, particularly affective rather than cognitive empathy. Future work focusing on causal aspects of these relations should provide further guidance on the practical implications of these results.