LITERARY FICTION AND EMPATHY

After reading the article, I would almost like to be a psychology major now. My main response was what is the difference between popular fiction and literary fiction?  I googled "literary fiction vs popular fiction" (I think "googled" should be a real verb), and this site compares them very clearly.  Now I know that literary fiction focuses more on the characters than the plot unlike popular fiction, which emphasizes the opposite.  For this reason, I definitely see how literary fiction can help you to understand others.   Reading characters that are deep, round, and realistically written can be almost the same as meeting a person and learning what makes them do what they do with the personality that they have.  The play Hamlet allows the audience to dive into the main character Hamlet's innermost thoughts and motives with every soliloquy that he completes during the play.  Without these soliloquies, the audience wouldn't be able to know Hamlet's plans, regrets, or motives as well by the end of the play, and therefore, the audience may feel slightly indifferent towards his death in the end if they never got to know the character enough to sympathize with him.