Improving and Affirming Our Personal Stories Can Make Us Happier, Healthier, and More Successful

Human beings are motivated to do many different things – which is both a blessing and a curse. Consider Maslow’s classic theory of human motivation. In the 1950s, Maslow suggested that people first fill their physiological needs and then move on to psychological needs.  This means you won’t worry as much as usual about your safety if you are starving.  Likewise, you won’t work very hard to build close connections to other people until you have filled both your belly and your needs for safety and security. The list of basic needs keeps growing.  In fact, recent research by Doug Kenrick and colleagues suggests that there are several basic needs that not even Maslow acknowledged. 

One problem with being motivated to do many different things is that some of the things we want right now get in the way of other things we want down the road.  Eating lots of ice cream fills a basic physiological need to consume delicious food.  But it does little to promote a healthy body weight.  Further, even when we know we want something, self-doubt and self-sabotage sometimes get the better of us. The singer Jackson Browne seems to have understood very well how hard it can be to create a better future for ourselves. As Browne put it, “while the future’s there for anyone to change, still you know it seems, it would be easier sometimes to change the past.” Can psychologists offer us any good advice about how to change our futures for the better?

Tim Wilson probably can. In his 2011 book, Redirect, Wilson offers readers a great deal of advice about how to create lasting changes.   Wilson offers many tips for getting what you want out of life.  I’ll just summarize just a couple. 

First and foremost, a thread that runs throughout Wilson’s book is the idea that the stories we tell ourselves are very important.  Unfortunately, these stories can sometimes be self-defeating.  For example, many college students believe that anyone who ever struggles academically – or who feels out of place in college – may not belong in college. In a 1982 study, Wilson and his colleagues identified a group of struggling college freshmen.  These were students that, as Wilson put it “were at risk of blaming themselves and thinking they weren't ‘college material.’” 

Half the students were just followed over time – as a control group.  The other half got a simple message.  They learned that a lot of students struggle in their first year of college. They further learned that struggling students merely need to adjust to college and improve their study skills. The experimenters reinforced this message with videos of real college students who reported having had exactly this “it will get better if I keep trying” experience.  This simple intervention had a lasting effect, increasing the future GPAs of the students who were invited to see their setbacks in college in a new light. 

More recently, studies have focused on the personal stories middle schoolers tell themselves over the course of a school year.  These studies show that reinforcing a student’s positive personal stories helps at-risk students perform better in school.  In two large studies of White and Latino middle schoolers, David Sherman and his colleagues had some of the students write about things they deeply valued.  At 4 or 5 key points in the school year, the students selected and wrote about three things they personally valued (chosen from a list of 11 popular values). As an example, a student might be given time in class to write about why she deeply valued being funny, artistic, and religious. (Other students did a very similar writing activity that focused on things they did not deeply value.)

In both studies, Latino middle schoolers who did the self-affirmation exercise – that allowed them to write about what they deeply valued – ended the school year with better grades than Latino students who did the control writing activity.  Among White students, who were generally at lower risk for academic problems, the values affirmation had no effect. Note that this simple and enjoyable exercise did not require any extra tutors, any new computers, or any parental assistance or reminders. Having at-risk students spend a total of about an hour doing something pleasant over the course of a school year increased their GPAs by about a third of a letter grade.  That’s a truly remarkable academic return on investment.     

There are many other ways to help people edit or reinforce their personal stories in constructive ways.  For example, Jamie Pennebaker and his colleagues have asked college students to write about painful or traumatic experiences for about 15 minutes per night – typically for four nights.  This simple exercise allows most people to tell a new story about the painful event and gain a better understanding of it. In addition to improving emotional well-being, this simple writing activity has beneficial effects on people’s physical health.  That’s obviously another great return on investment.

Finally, As Tim Wilson notes, people often construct new stories about themselves when they engage in new behavior. This means that merely getting people to begin doing something they wish to do regularly (as Wilson puts it, “do good, be good”) can help people rewrite their personal stories.  (“Just getting on the track and walking a mile makes me think I can stick to an exercise program after all.”)  There is no magic bullet for making constructive changes to our lives.  But Wilson’s research – and his careful look at the modern research of many others – offers us reason to believe that getting what we want may be within our grasp after all.  In all of us, Wilson argues, there is a little engine that could.      

Note: If you wish to learn more about James Pennebaker’s writing activity and how you can use it in constructive ways in your own life, check out his user-friendly web site: https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/psychology/faculty/pennebak#writing-health


For Further Reading:

Pennebaker, J.W. (2004). Writing to heal: A guided journal for recovering from trauma and emotional upheaval.  Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Press.

Sherman, D. K., Hartson K. A., Binning K. R., Purdie-Vaughns V., Garcia J., Taborsky-Barba S., et al. (2013). Deflecting the trajectory and changing the narrative: How self-affirmation affects academic performance and motivation under identity threat. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 104, 591-618.

Wilson, T. D. (2011). Redirect: The surprising new science of psychological change. New York: Little, Brown. (Paperback version published 2014 with additional chapter).


About the Author

Brett Pelham is a social psychologist who studies the self and social cognition.  He is also an associate editor for Character & Context.

Can Being a Good Storyteller Lead to Love?

By Melanie Green

Everyone loves a good story, but can a good story lead to love?

Storytelling is a fundamental form of communication, and research has demonstrated the power of narratives to change minds and influence behavior.

For example, personal narratives are often used in advertising and health campaigns, and have led to an increase in cancer screenings. Even novels have led to societal change; Upton Sinclair’s fictional “The Jungle” prompted reforms in the meat-packing industry.

But as psychologists and experts in narrative persuasion, we wondered: how might stories influence the course of a romantic relationship?

We conducted three studies to determine whether storytelling ability was advantageous in attracting short-term or long-term romantic partners.

We found that being able to tell a good tale does matter – especially for one gender.

 

Commanding a crowd

In the first of our three studies, undergraduates were asked to evaluate a potential romantic partner by looking at a picture of an individual of the opposite gender. They also received information about the individual’s storytelling ability, along with brief, neutral biographical information, such as the person’s hometown and the fact that he or she liked spaghetti.

There were four groups of participants in the study. Participants were either told that the individual in the picture was a good storyteller, moderate storyteller or poor storyteller. (Those in the control condition were given no information about storytelling ability.)

For example, in the “good storytelling” condition, participants read that the person “often tells really good stories at parties, partly due to an interesting variety of word choice.”

After reading these descriptions, participants rated the person’s physical attractiveness, as well as how attractive the person seemed for a date, a long-term relationship and as a friend.

Somewhat surprisingly, results from the first study showed storytelling skill does not result in across-the-board increases in attraction.

Instead, we found that men who are effective storytellers appear to have an advantage in attracting long-term mates. In contrast, a woman who was described as telling good stories was not better liked by men, and the man who told good stories was not better-liked for a short-term relationship.

In the second study, participants were provided with an actual story allegedly told by the potential mate. Half the participants read an effectively told story, and the other half received an ineffectively told story. We used a one-page humorous account of a father playing a game on a seesaw with his two sons, written in an informal, conversational style. Compared to the good story, the poor story used unimaginative vocabulary, used irrelevant details and added filler questions, such as “Oh wait, is that the way it happened? Yeah, I think so.”

The same pattern of results emerged: women rated good male storytellers as more attractive than poor storytellers as a long-term partner, and whether the story told by the female storyteller was good or poor didn’t matter to men.

We wanted to better understand why the gender difference existed, so we conducted a third study that was similar to the first study, but also included questions related to social status.

Items included: “To what extent do you think this person would…be popular, be admired, be a good leader, and be an inspiration for others to excel?”

Again, when it came to a potential long-term dating partner, women found good storytellers more attractive than poor storytellers. Storytelling ability had no effect on male participants. Importantly, women perceived men who were good storytellers as higher status: more likely to be a leader or be admired.

 

Evolutionary explanations

The gender differences in these findings can be interpreted in light of evolutionary approaches to understanding mate selection.

Theories in this field have highlighted the different evolutionary concerns of men versus women for passing on their genes. When it comes to reproduction, the theory goes, men are more likely to “invest widely,” while women are likely to “invest wisely.”

Specifically, when it comes to having children, men can provide a more minimal parental investment (even just a single sexual encounter), whereas women’s investment includes months of pregnancy and potentially nursing an infant.

According to this belief, men may devote more effort to short-term mating or relationships than women, focusing on fertility cues like age and physical attractiveness. Meanwhile, women try to identify a mate who can provide resources to any offspring.

Given that women are likely to value a “good dad” or provider more in long-term relationships, our findings suggest that male storytelling ability may suggest resource-gaining prowess to women – especially if good storytellers can gain higher social status.

Researchers haven’t yet tested whether or not good storytellers are actually able to attain higher social status or leadership positions. At the very least – based on our third study – the perception seems to exist that someone who can command the crowd with a compelling story is more likely to garner higher status in the group.

Evolutionary theorists have also attempted to explain the function of storytelling in social groups, and how it might be tied to status.

For example, according to the “stories as explanatory tools hypothesis,” in ancient societies, those who were best able to explain (what were considered) supernatural phenomena might have risen to positions of power. Another theory argues that humans gained significant survival benefits through their ability to think flexibly, and that storytelling is a form of cognitive play that can train the mind in this way.

In the end, stories matter: not just for entertainment, not just for learning about the world, but for building relationships. The sizzle of mutual physical attraction might be all that is needed for a successful first date. But for long-term relationships, people often look for something more. And for some, an engrossing conversation that lasts for hours or a gripping story that brings someone’s past to life could lead to love.


Melanie Green, Associate Professor of Communication, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York and John Donahue, Professor of Psychology, Columbus College of Art & Design

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Brains Are Sold by Stories

From the buzziest TV shows and blockbuster movies to the viral clips that show up on your grandma's phone, our society is flooded with information in the form of moving images. It's no wonder that marketers, from the Mad Men era to the TikTok age, have been trying to serve people ads on screens big and small.

How to make killer videos that capture the hearts and minds of consumers may sound like Advertising 101, but given that people still regularly (and impatiently) reach for the "Skip Ad" button and big-budget marketing campaigns still flop every now and then (remember Nationwide's "Dead Kid" ad?), no one has completely cracked the code on video ads. To help marketers get savvier about making persuasive content, what if we look literally under the hood—inside consumers' heads?

Indeed, that's what many researchers like me are trying to do. In a growing field commonly called "consumer neuroscience" or "neuromarketing," we leverage brain science to unlock puzzles like this.

From Brain Scanning to Mind Reading

My colleagues and I collected brain data from volunteers in the Netherlands and the U.S. who watched TV ads while their heads were being scanned in an MRI machine. Our question was simple: Could we predict how much a consumer likes an ad based on how their brain reacts during the viewing? If so, what is it that the brain is actually doing?

Recently, a statistical technique called "machine learning" has made it possible for computers to churn through the record of neuroscience research to build algorithms that can "decode" brain images. These tools are essentially A.I. bots that can read your brain and deduce the mental processes you're experiencing. We deployed one of those state-of-the-art decoders to tease out what psychological processes occur when people watch ads that they end up liking.

Love at First Sight, or at Least Like Within a Few Seconds

We found that many psychological processes happen even within the first 3-5 seconds when people watch an ad that they end up liking. These include perception, memory, and emotion. That means if we observe strong brain activity associated with these processes just as you start watching the ad, we can already predict you are more likely to like it in the end. First impressions matter, and successful ads are ones that can captivate viewers in the first few seconds.

Tugging Emotional Strings Works—to a Limit

Although we found that emotional brain processes matter when watching ads, they had a limit. When we compare emotion-related brain activity across the entire span of an ad, its predictive effect diminishes towards the end. In other words, strong feelings at the start of the ad might be a good sign, but any emotional response by the time the ad concludes matters less in terms of shaping people's preferences. At the same time, a range of more rational processes like deliberation, impulse control, and analytical thinking turned out to be potent negative indicators of liking at the final moments. So, whereas emotions at the beginning kindle sparks of liking, rational thinking can extinguish them as the ad concludes.

Storytelling is King

Above all, the strongest and most consistent brain signals for best-liked ads are associated with a psychological process called "mentalizing," which is the ability to decipher the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of others. It's what makes human beings social, allowing them to interact and coordinate based on subtle cues. Mentalizing is also key to story comprehension. Why does the princess kiss the frog? And what is the deal with that Jake guy from some insurance company?

Our data show that successful ads are those that can kick the brain's mentalizing function into high gear, especially in the latter part of the ad. But whereas great movies and TV series engage people's love of narrative over many hours, beloved ads can do it within a fraction of a minute. This echoes existing consumer research showing that a compelling and meaningful story is important not only for engendering positive feelings, but also for leveraging them to shift opinions.

As an example of the kinds of ads that would tickle brains in just the right way, consider this year's top-rated Super Bowl ad: a spot for dog food. Images of a young girl and her puppy spark positive emotions in the earliest moments of the ad. But perhaps more importantly, the commercial also tells a poignant story of growth for the pet owner, earning the ad the popular vote.

Our findings not only have clear implications for advertisers and marketers but also hint at how information spreads in society. Communicators often package their messages in compelling tales for good reason. People's love for narratives seems hardwired in the brain.


For Further Reading

Chan, H.-Y., Boksem, M. A. S., Venkatraman, V., Dietvorst, R. C., Scholz, C., Vo, K., Falk, E. B., & Smidts, A. (in press). Neural signals of video advertisement liking: Insights into psychological processes and their temporal dynamics. Journal of Marketing Research. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437231194319

Baek, E. C., Scholz, C., & Falk, E. B. (2020). The neuroscience of persuasion and information propagation: The key role of the mentalizing system. In K. Floyd & R. Weber (Eds.), The Handbook of Communication Science and Biology (pp. 122-133). New York: Routledge.


Hang-Yee Chan is a Lecturer at King's Business School, King's College London. His research interests lie in the intersection between the consumer's brain, behavior, and the market.

How Stories Can Change the World

We are a storytelling species. Every culture has storytelling traditions, and many groups—be they cultural, religious, national, or otherwise—use stories, parables, and folktales to convey their messages, values, and beliefs, and to foster a sense of connection and identity across generations. Children love to hear a good story. Parents, grandparents, and teachers tell stories to children not only to entertain, but also to teach them about their culture and the world.

Of course, stories are also used to mobilize people to war, oppress, and exclude. They argue their side of the conflict, and often use harsh language to refer to their enemies (like vermin or lice).

Can stories help address some of the most important societal problems, such as poverty, mass violence, extremism, gender-based violence, and climate change?

The answer is yes!

Civil society organizations are increasingly using stories as a tool to impact social change, such as to reduce gender-based violence, to reduce HIV transmission, and to promote reconciliation in the aftermath of violence. For instance, in South Africa, a TV series and a radio drama, Soul City, led to shifts in knowledge around domestic violence and what people can do to stop it; it also shifted the public perception that domestic violence was a private affair, facilitating more community action to prevent it.

In the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda, the radio drama Musekeweya depicts how two villages turned violent toward each other, and then how they reconciled. This drama increased cooperative behaviors, intergroup trust, and perceptions about the acceptability of interacting with members of the outgroup.

In my work, I have examined the impact of storytelling to address intergroup conflict and violent extremism. These stories are serial fictional dramas delivered through radio or TV, often depicting a conflict between two or more fictional groups or villages. They tackle the roots of the conflict, the role of different characters in the story, the factors and behaviors that influence escalations, and behaviors that contribute to reconciliation between groups.

How and why do stories change people's attitudes and behaviors? My research and that of others show a number of positive impacts.

  • Through the portrayal of different characters, stories provide different perspectives and understanding of people on both sides of the conflict.
  • People can identify with story role models and enact similar actions in their community.
  • Stories can help people make sense of their reality, or see their reality in a new light.
  • Stories can validate people's experiences, and give voice to their perspectives.
  • Stories raise awareness about important issues, starting community discussions that can lead to community action for social change.  

In my most recent research, I examined the effect of a six-month serial drama that aimed at tackling attitudes and behaviors related to violent extremism in the Sahel province of Burkina Faso. Here, there has been a significant rise in extremist violence over the past few years. The drama's goals were to denounce and reduce support for violent extremism and to raise awareness about the importance of police–community collaboration for fighting violent extremism, as well as about issues that prevent collaboration. 

Working with the non-governmental organization, Equal Access International, which produced the drama, and with funding from the United States Agency of International Development, we carried out an ambitious experimental study. The drama tells the story of a fictional town, which has become the target of attacks by an armed group. The armed group takes advantage of poverty and unemployment to lure youth into their ranks. The show also addresses mistrust between the police and the community, and reveals how this mistrust can be detrimental to protecting the community from violence. Lastly, the drama highlights the actions of two brave characters who work tirelessly to fight corruption in their town, speak up and hold leaders accountable for their actions, and work with businesses and local government to create employment opportunities for the youth. 

We randomly selected 132 villages in one of the Sahel provinces in Burkina Faso to take part in the study, with 22 people in each of 66 villages listening to recorded episodes of the radio drama and 66 villages not receiving the opportunity to listen to the drama. Participants in the listening group were invited to hear the drama together every week for 12 weeks. At the end, all participants from the 132 villages were interviewed individually.

We found some interesting results. Participants who listened to the drama showed lower justification of violent extremism, compared to the group who didn't. They were also more likely to report violent extremism as a priority issue needing to be addressed by the government. Importantly, they reported more willingness to collaborate with the police to curb violent extremism in their communities, and they also were more likely to believe that they had the ability to make a positive impact on their community.  

Our work shows that storytelling could be one possible avenue to promote reconciliation and address conflict peacefully. Using storytelling through mass media could be especially effective because mass media tends to reach a very high proportion of the population.

Research will continue, but it appears to be pretty simple: stories matter.


For Further Reading

Bilali, R. (2022). Fighting violent extremism with narrative intervention. Evidence from a field experiment in West Africa. Psychological Science, 33(2),184-195. Doi: 10.1177/09567976211031895

Bilali, R., & Staub, E. (2016). Interventions in real world settings. Using media to overcome
prejudice and promote intergroup reconciliation in Central Africa. In C. Sibley, & F. Barlow (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of the psychology of prejudice (pp. 607- 631). Cambridge University Press. Doi: 10.1017/9781316161579.027


Rezarta Bilali is Associate Professor of Psychology and Social Intervention in the Department of Applied Psychology at New York University, Steinhardt School of Culture, Human Development and Education. She studies the social psychology of intergroup conflict, historical narratives of violence, intergroup reconciliation, and media interventions in various conflict settings.

Why Is Storytelling an Important Skill as a Grad Student Researcher and How Do You Do It?

Being able to communicate your scientific discoveries both inside and outside your academic field is arguably as important as making the discovery. However, it is not easy to convert your lengthy research into an interesting narrative and impactful pitch.

This is especially true for PhD students who spend over four years on research projects that can be quite intricate and detailed. Because we know so much about our own research, all the details seem important, and it gets difficult to decide which details we want to leave out. This is something I have struggled with, and my advisor would always ask me how I would explain it to my grandmother. The idea here is that it's great to know the technicalities of your research, but communicating it in a way that is easily understood by anyone without a background in your specific field is an important skill to hone.

In academia, you will find several opportunities to communicate your research through writing, but verbally communicating your research is usually not a high-stakes requirement. In these situations, it becomes difficult to tell a story and deliver a captivating elevator pitch. If you've already done the work and dedicated so much effort into your research, it can be disheartening to lose an audience because of an unpolished or drab pitch. Below, I highlight some strategies that can potentially help you tell an impactful story about your research.

Narrow down your strategy

Before you begin preparing your pitch, you would need to identify the purpose of your pitch: is it to inform others or to sell your research? Information-type pitches would need you to simplify complex theoretical and methodological components of your research. Selling your ideas or research would involve identifying and explaining an existing problem and communicating how your research would provide a solution and create a call for action.

Working on "the Hook"

Your opening sentence is the most important sentence. It's meant to hook the audience. Spend time coming up with a hook that captures your audience's attention (check other resources below).

Share a cohesive and focused narrative

This one is very hard to do given that your research has several different theoretical and methodological explanations. However, to make it a good story, you would need to provide a unidirectional, focused narrative. Here, you should focus less on explaining the problem and more on how your research will address the problem.

Design your story

It is difficult for an audience to spontaneously understand how your research would be applied in the real world. We often talk about how our research addresses an existing knowledge gap in the field and although this might be very interesting to people who have worked for several years in your field, a larger audience would find it hard to see its relevance. So instead, you should include examples of real-world impact such as its social and political impact.

Practice, Practice, Practice

To get the timing, tone, delivery, and words right you would need to practice your pitch several times. When you start, practice in front of the mirror or by recording yourself. But nothing can substitute storytelling or pitching your research to a live audience. Their expressions of awe, interest, curiosity, confusion, or disinterest can be excellent cues for you to understand which parts of your pitch are great and which need more work. Make revisions to your story immediately after, based on the feedback (both verbal and nonverbal) that you receive, and the closer you will be to perfecting your final delivery!

More resources: