Okay, I'm awake. Maybe I am lucky and no one saw the first several versions of this response that I made on my phone from my hammock. What it should have said was something more like:
I am skeptical of anything that relies a lot on self-reporting, and cautious in embracing any headlines making x>y statements because a study established a correlation in something, even without the data being self-reported. This should have been at the front of the post, because it is the first thing I think, and I tend to lean way away from this kind of thing for that reason, until more information is available... and maybe even then, heh.
That said, it doesn't really seem that strange or surprising - more something to pick up and wave the confirmation bias flag about, you know? "I always suspected this to be true!" PnP gaming in particular seems an intrinsically social activity, so the idea that "people who hang out in their social groups, fantasizing about other worlds together may have or develop social bonding skills" doesn't seem that weird. If someone is coming from a background that considers anyone playing PnP games as socially inept freaks that stare at you on the subway then yeah, I can see how that might be news. If you are a gamer coming from that background, I can see how you might put it on a tshirt and say "in your @#%$ face... I mean, I can see where you were coming from."
I personally developed what empathy I do have mostly through roleplaying, but a) I'm not sure that's saying much and b) my social roleplaying experience is limited to the internet, which is itself a place where a lot of people get mired in fantasy and role swapping without the official "game" status, heh. I considered in the previous version of this post if DMed or otherwise managed scenarious could be a difference, because even the most inexperienced player, basically playing as themselves in a different world, is forced to imagine what they would do "if" when circumstances are out of their control. It was pretty much just a sleep thought without anything but "seems reasonable" to back it up, though, and in five minutes I or someone else might be like, "on the other hand..." 
