Reading engagement

This contribution focuses on three reader characteristics that potentially influence the ways in which men and women become engaged during reading: a reader’s gender, empathy and ability to critically and constructively perceive reality. These traits (in addition to biological sex) were assessed as part of an experimental reading study, and subsequently used to predict the variation in engagement during reading. Eighty-eight readers (50% female) took part in the study and read one of four narratives randomly assigned to them. Reader traits and reading engagement were assessed by questionnaire. Regression analyses showed that the relationship between biological sex and reading engagement is considerably more complex than mostly assumed: contrary to expectation, gender did not impact reading engagement in significant ways. In line with the hypothesis, however, higher levels of empathy, of critical thinking about mediated contents, and of constructively adopting narrative contents to one’s own life, significantly related to higher degrees of the reading engagement of men and women. Biological sex turned out to be significant for reading engagement only in combination with the other reader traits.