Study Proves You're A Better Person If You Read Harry Potter

It's science! According to a scientific study, if your childhood or young adulthood involved reading the Harry Potter series, it made you a better and more tolerant person. 

In a paper called 'The Greatest Magic of Harry Potter: Reducing Prejudice', Italian psychologists have revealed that readers of J.K. Rowling's mystical series were less likely to be racist or discriminatory to other people.

Three different experiments were conducted with the subjects of the study, all aiming to determine if the books improved attitudes towards minority or persecuted groups including immigrants, homosexuals and refugees.

In the end, the psychologists found that those who had read the book(s) seemed more accepting of less advantaged people, as they made associations between those real-life groups them and characters from Harry Potter. Wow!

Here's an excerpt from the study:

"Results from one experimental intervention with elementary school children and from two cross-sectional studies with high school and university students (in Italy and United Kingdom) supported our main hypothesis. Identification with the main character (i.e., Harry Potter) and disidentification from the negative character (i.e., Voldemort) moderated the effect. Perspective taking emerged as the process allowing attitude improvement."

Yaaasss, who's re-reading Harry Potter this weekend!? THROWBAAACK to the trailer of the very first HP movie to get you in the mood: