If you follow the advice below, chances are, your son will turn into the kind of man you want him to be, wrote WomensDay.com May 11, in a story about parenting advice for mothers:

Encourage him to read novels. Ongoing studies at York University [by psychology Professor Raymond Mar and colleagues in the Faculty of Health] show that people who read more fiction than nonfiction score higher on empathy tests.

Why?

Researchers theorize that the parts of the brain we use to understand how fictional characters feel are the same ones we use to figure out how real people feel. And the more we use those parts of our brain, the stronger our ability to understand others.

See YFile for more coverage of Mar's research.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile – York University’s daily e-bulletin.