Figure It Out. Stephen P. Anderson
forms might have lower evaluations of the class if the forms are completed with golf pencils rather than regular pencils. The fact that the taller candidate won 80% of the presidential election contests between 1904 and 1980 (Gillis, 1982) could be due partly to the fact that their heights biased people’s estimates of their positive qualities. Waiting in a long line to get tickets at the theater may bias people to then think that the cost of theater popcorn is not exorbitant. This is hardly an exhaustive list; clearly, there are many far-reaching applications and implications of these findings.15
Of course, our interest in all this is to show how we reason and think via associations—even with irrelevant associations. While there are worthwhile distinctions between anchoring bias, priming effects, decision framing, and other named effects, these distinctions seem to blur into each other, coalescing around this more fundamental idea of associations.
Let’s turn them to another form of associative thinking, also triggered through words and language, but one that is much more robust, developed, and explicit—that of narratives.
How Narratives Shape Associations
“Let me tell you a story ...”
Stories are perhaps the most powerful driver of human behaviors. From the inspiring vision cast by a U.S. President (“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”) to the deep, personal narratives we construct that govern our beliefs and behaviors, stories are potent things. In the midst of an otherwise boring speech, the speaker will begin to tell a story, and we can’t help but listen. If I start sharing details of my family vacation to London or begin gossiping about that coworker who tried to get me fired—I’ve got your attention. Quite literally. Our brains cannot help but devote attention to stories.
But why? What is it about stories that grabs our attention? From a neuroscience perspective, if all thoughts are simply a jumble of neurons firing and wiring together, what is it about narrative associations that is so much stronger, compared to other kinds of associations? Stories seem like a much more complicated, sustained web of associations. How does this fit with the “associated concepts” narrative we’re presenting? Figure this out, and you’ve unlocked one of the most potent tools for drawing people into a space where everyone is engaged in the process of understanding.
While investigations into the science of narrative are still at the early stages, there are at least three explanations for why stories are so powerful (none of which invalidates the others). The explanations are as follows:
• We need stories for survival.
• Stories captivate our brain in ways that facts do not.
• Stories are critical to forming social bonds.
Let’s look at each of these in more detail.
Explanation #1: We Need Stories for Survival
Stories are a safe way to explore the dangers that might kill us.
The most popular hypothesis is that stories are—from an evolutionary biology perspective—vital to survival. Before the written word, we used myths, stories, and fables to contain simple ideas and warnings that should keep us safe, whether from physical harm or straying from a moral path. And before oral stories, it was the accumulation of certain kinds of narrative associations that quite literally kept us alive. Lisa Cron, author of Wired for Story, suggests that “Story was more crucial to our evolution than our opposable thumbs because all opposable thumbs did is let us hang on. It was story that told us what to hang on to.”16
What stories let us do—in a safe way—is to step out of our present circumstances and explore possible outcomes. For ancient ancestors on the savanna, this might have been a physical survival story about what happens when we eat this red berry or ignore that rustling in the bushes. The ability to pass on this cause-and-effect knowledge would quite literally have meant the difference between life and death. In modern times, these same underlying narrative patterns are now hardwired into our subconscious, but they are more likely to influence the ability to navigate social situations. Do I see myself as a victim of circumstances, or the hero facing adversity? Is someone out to get me? Will that leader save or betray me? Whether we are aware of it or not, we all create these narratives to make sense of present circumstances and to project possible outcomes. The problem is when these primitive narratives (“us vs. them,” “I have to get tough,” “it’s a conspiracy”) are misdirected and lead to faulty conclusions.
THE RISK WITH STORIES
Exposing narratives has been the focus for many branches of psychology— helping patients recognize the beliefs and “scripts” that drive behaviors. Exercises to help people separate facts from feelings are used by counselors and coaches alike. Work in the field of behavioral economics has highlighted the differences between our natural inclination to make emotional decisions and our more recently evolved ability to think in rational terms. As much as we like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, our ability to reason is a relatively recent addition to the evolution of our brains. This ability to think rationally and project ourselves into the future or into the past sits atop a more powerful and primitive set of instincts and inclinations.
Biologically, this means we are an accumulation of stories, cognitive biases, and heuristics, which while helpful to make quick decisions, also makes it difficult to be objective and rational about things. To be clear, the completely rational person is a myth. Spock from Star Trek isn’t a reality. We need emotions to make decisions; otherwise, we become paralyzed by analysis. We need stories to navigate reality. These are the patterns and conceptual wrappers that give quick meaning to things as they unfold. But we also need to develop our ability to recognize these emotions, biases, heuristics, and beliefs, and see them for what they are—useful, albeit fictional, shortcuts for understanding. Someone might be out to get you fired; more likely, it’s all in your head. You might think you’ve failed at something, but a reality check with outside observers would prove otherwise. Simply recognizing that “story provides context for the facts,” and that you can spin many stories from the same set of facts, helps us to be more thoughtful about such things.
WHAT’S GREAT ABOUT STORIES
What’s great about stories, whether fictional or not, is how they inspire. By invoking a basic narrative, we are challenged to do more than we believe is possible, to work together for greater purpose, or to be the best version of ourselves. Want to change how someone thinks about something? You must first change how they feel about it. Stories change how people feel. This is as true of a compelling speech as it is a moving film. We’re certain there’s at least one fictional book that changed you in some way. Personally, I (Stephen) was inspired by the compassion shown to and by Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s book Les Misérables. And after reading Cory Doctorow’s book Little Brother, I was moved from being merely concerned about data privacy to actually taking efforts to protect and defend what are basic human rights. Compared to factual accounts, fictional stories have far more influence on changing attitudes and behaviors. It’s not just the explicit narrative so easily discussed. We also experience quiet, personal shifts in narrative: challenging one person to “assume good intent” where there is a conflict with another person, may be enough to change the underlying narrative, confront the source of negative feelings, and in so doing, open the doors for healing.
Whether for harm or for good, it’s important to recognize stories for what they are: ways to assess a situation, in order to predict possible outcomes. Through fiction, we can run through simulations of what might be, whether it’s fiction of our own invention or the fiction we pay to enjoy as entertainment. Stories are hardwired—biologically—to this deeper need for survival. So, this “stories as survival mechanism” is the popular “story” (see what we did there!), but is there more? Let’s delve a bit into the neuroscience behind narrative.