Do Short Stories Really Make You a Better Person?

It’s no secret that the more you engage with media, the more likely you are to absorb its values, whether or not those values align with yours. And it’s also no secret that stories have a powerful way of teaching us lessons about life—even if we don’t realize it at first.

A recent study from Scientific American found that when you compare TV shows to short stories, you find many more morals in the latter. This means that when you watch a show like Grey’s Anatomy or The Big Bang Theory, you might be absorbing some of their values without even realizing it. The same goes for reading a book like Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland: Out of the House and Onto the Earth.

So how can short stories help us change our beliefs and behaviors?

First off, they teach us how others have lived through their experiences—something that makes it easier to accept other people as they are. Second, they give us permission to see things differently than they appear on the surface—and this can help us grow as individuals by challenging our thinking processes and forcing us into uncomfortable situations where we can make mistakes or learn something new everyday.