Storytellers: Hackers and Drug Dealers
»A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.« – William Styron
Comparison of experiences - this is one of the most effective and interesting aspects of how stories unfold their power. When we listen to a story, we automatically draw on our previous experiences and check whether we have had the same experience ourselves that we hear in the story.
If this is not the case, good stories can trigger another effect that psychologists call proxy learning. Since we ideally identify with the main character of a story or the narrator himself, we go through the events of the story together with him or her. On our behalf, the hero or heroine of the story goes through the challenges or adventures of the story. We learn together with the protagonists as if we were actually experiencing the situation ourselves.
Neuroscientists and psychologists can provide concrete evidence of this "experience". Véronique Boulenger, psychologist and linguist at the University of Lyon, proves in her cognitive study that sentences describing an action or movement - such as "Pablo kicks the ball" - are processed in the brain in the same way as if the listener were kicking the ball himself.
Uri Hasson, neuroscientist at Princeton University, calls this effect "brain coupling". According to his detailed analysis of brain scans of narrators and listeners, during the presentation of a story a "coupling" between the brain of the sender and that of the receiver takes place. The same brain areas are activated in the listener's brain as in the narrators.
This can even have the effect that the listener perceives a story so intensely that he or she believes it to be his or her own memory of an actual event. Julia Shaw, criminal psychologist at London's South Bank University, drew attention to the dangers that this effect can cause.
Caution: Memory Hacking
"I hack your memory," says Shaw, and she actually manages to smuggle fake memories into other people's brains with the help of stories. In just three or four sessions, Shaw makes her test subjects know that they had been aggressive towards classmates during their school days or that they had stolen something as teenagers and their parents had to call the police. Everything is fictitious, but "hacked and implanted" by the criminal psychologist. Shaw's method has a success rate of up to 70 percent - see her book "The Memory Illusion"."A memory is a network of brain cells," Shaw writes. "This network, which spans various regions of the brain, is constantly updated. Its function is important for us and helps us, for example, to learn new things and find solutions to problems. But the network can also be manipulated. Every time you tell a story, you change your own memory of it. (...) Sometimes new details are added, little pieces of information that you may have heard from someone else. (...) Pictures and stories are internalized very quickly," says Shaw.
A single speech or presentation will not succeed in overwriting the audience's memory in the long term, and yet the mechanisms of brain coupling and experience matching prove what a powerful tool storytelling can be in the hands of speakers. (…)
On Drugs with Storytelling
But stories do not only work in the brain. They work in the whole body. And it's no exaggeration to say that stories drug our bodies. Three of these "drugs" are particularly interesting because they provide- Attention,
- Pleasure and
- Trust.
Thanks to Paul J. Zak, neuroeconomist and director of the Center for Neuroeconomic Studies at Claremont Graduate University, we know how stories affect our entire body. In his studies, Zak had test subjects draw blood before and after the reception of a story, demonstrating an increase in three hormones and neurotransmitters that have a crucial influence on how a story, and especially the information within the story, is perceived. One of these hormones is cortisol - known as the stress hormone. Cortisol is a steroid hormone that puts us on alert, stimulates the metabolism and sharpens our attention. If we perceive possible or actual potential dangers in our environment, an increased cortisol output ensures that we are more attentive and focused. This also applies when we only hear about a danger or warning. Good stories, which usually begin with a problem or conflict in which the hero and main character of the story is seemingly hopelessly involved, trigger precisely this reaction. (…)
With pleasure
But the stress is then quickly at an end, because it is balanced by another hormone, rather a neurotransmitter, which is demonstrably released in the body through stories: Dopamine, known as the happiness hormone.This hormone release is the reason why literary scholar Jonathan Gottschall claims that people are addicted to stories. Dopamine is a messenger substance that supports communication between nerve cells. But what is most interesting is its psychotropic effect: dopamine has a positive effect on the human psyche, it is stimulating and motivating. A release of dopamine triggers joyful states in us. Dopamine thus has a protective and stimulating effect on our nerve cells, a positive effect on our memory, our learning behaviour and our conscious thinking. There are many reasons why we release dopamine when we read and listen to stories: Stories stimulate and motivate - in different ways: A good story stimulates us through the way it is told and presented (aesthetics), through the story world into which the story invites us (immersion), and through the sympathy and empathy we feel for the hero (identification). With the result: dopamine is released.
The hero, representing us, goes through adventures, difficulties and challenges. He or she faces unsolvable tasks, but in the end the problem is solved and mastered: dopamine is released (reward effect).
We'll read the story again. Because anticipation alone can trigger dopamine. We read a familiar story over and over again, even though we know the end. We look forward to reliving over and over again the same feelings that the story evokes. The anticipation that dopamine will be released already has the effect of releasing dopamine (Doppler effect). Yes, stories have been proven to be addictive. And good speakers who work with storytelling take advantage of this. (…)
Complete confidence
The hormone cocktail that stories give to our brain and body is ultimately rounded off by a third hormone, and this one is a real gem: Oxytocin - known as the cuddling hormone.Oxytocin reduces stress and anxiety, dampens aggression and makes us more empathetic. Oxytocin has a prosocial effect and promotes social interaction, is crucial for mother-child bonding and strengthens the bond between couples. "Without Oxytocin in the head and body, there is no falling in love, no tenderness, perhaps even no fidelity, instead irreconcilable bickering. Above all, however, one of the most important motors of human togetherness was missing: trust," writes journalist Rafaela von Bredow in her article about an experiment that economists Ernst Fehr, Michael Kosfeld and Paul Zak dared to conduct together with clinical psychologist and oxytocin expert Markus Heinrichs of the University of Zurich. The scientists wanted to find out whether oxytocin changes the behaviour of investors, whether the hormone has a demonstrable influence on their risk assessment and economic behaviour.
To this end, they administered oxytocin to 194 test persons by means of a nasal spray, with the comparison group inhaling only one placebo substance. Subsequently, all participants were invited to take part in an economic simulation. The test persons were given a defined amount of money, which they could entrust to a trustee to increase the amount. The more trust everyone had in the trustee principle, the higher the chances of winning. However, there was also the risk of losing all their assets to the trustee. Would increasing the level of oxytocin increase investor confidence?
Indeed - Fehr, Kosfeld, Zak and Heinrichs were able to prove that oxytocin acts like a "fabric softener for the brain". At least that was the title of Rafaela von Bredow's report on the economists' experiment. All the test persons who inhaled oxytocin trusted their environment to a large extent and in some cases put large sums of money at risk, far higher and more risky than the test persons in the "placebo group". Oxytocin strengthens our empathy and compassion, but also our trust in other people.
Shouldn't you use this effect as a speaker? All you have to do is spread nasal sprays filled with Oxytocin in the audience and ask the listeners to take a deep pinch before the speech begins.
Or you can tell a story.
Photo by Nicole Y-C on Unsplash
