HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW COMMUNICATION

Why Your Brain Loves Good Storytelling

Paul J. Zak
OCTOBER 28, 2014

It is quiet and dark. The theater is hushed. James Bond skirts along the edge of a
building as his enemy takes aim. Here in the audience, heart rates increase and palms
sweat. I know this to be true because instead of enjoying the movie myself, I am
measuring the brain activity of a dozen viewers. For me, excitement has a different
source: I am watching an amazing neural ballet in which a story line changes the
activity of peoples brains.

Many business people have already discovered the power of storytelling in a practical
sense they have observed how compelling a well-constructed narrative can be. But
recent scientific work is putting a much finer point on just how stories change our
attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.

As social creatures, we depend on others for our survival and happiness. A decade ago,
my lab discovered that a neurochemical called oxytocin is a key its safe to approach
others signal in the brain. Oxytocin is produced when we are trusted or shown a
kindness, and it motivates cooperation with others. It does this by enhancing the
sense of empathy, our ability to experience others emotions. Empathy is important
for social creatures because it allows us to understand how others are likely to react
to a situation, including those with whom we work.

More recently my lab wondered if we could hack the oxytocin system to motivate
people to engage in cooperative behaviors. To do this, we tested if narratives shot on
video, rather than face-to-face interactions, would cause the brain to make oxytocin.
By taking blood draws before and after the narrative, we found that character-driven
stories do consistently cause oxytocin synthesis. Further, the amount of oxytocin
released by the brain predicted how much people were willing to help others; for
example, donating money to a charity associated with the narrative.

In subsequent studies we have been able to deepen our understanding of why stories
motivate voluntary cooperation. (This research was given a boost when, with funding
from the U.S. Department of Defense, we developed ways to measure oxytocin release
noninvasively at up to one thousand times per second.) We discovered that, in order
to motivate a desire to help others, a story must first sustain attention a scarce
resource in the brain by developing tension during the narrative. If the story is able
to create that tension then it is likely that attentive viewers/listeners will come to
share the emotions of the characters in it, and after it ends, likely to continue
mimicking the feelings and behaviors of those characters. This explains the feeling of
dominance you have after James Bond saves the world, and your motivation to work
out after watching the Spartans fight in 300.
These findings on the neurobiology of storytelling are relevant to business settings.
For example, my experiments show that character-driven stories with emotional
content result in a better understanding of the key points a speaker wishes to make
and enable better recall of these points weeks later. In terms of making impact, this
blows the standard PowerPoint presentation to bits. I advise business people to begin
every presentation with a compelling, human-scale story. Why should customers or a
person on the street care about the project you are proposing? How does it change the
world or improve lives? How will people feel when it is complete? These are the
components that make information persuasive and memorable.

My research has also shown that stories are useful inside organizations. We know that
people are substantially more motivated by their organizations transcendent purpose
(how it improves lives) than by its transactional purpose (how it sells goods and
services). Transcendent purpose is effectively communicated through stories for
example, by describing the pitiable situations of actual, named customers and how
their problems were solved by your efforts. Make your people empathize with the
pain the customer experiened and they will also feel the pleasure of its resolution all
the more if some heroics went in to reducing suffering or struggle, or producing joy.
Many of us know from Joseph Campbells work that enduring stories tend to share a
dramatic arc in which a character struggles and eventually finds heretofore unknown
abilities and uses these to triumph over adversity; my work shows that the brain is
highly attracted to this story style.

Finally, dont forget that your organization has its own story its founding myth. An
effective way to communicate transcendent purpose is by sharing that tale. What
passion led the founder(s) to risk health and wealth to start the enterprise? Why was
it so important, and what barriers had to be overcome? These are the stories that,
repeated over and over, stay core to the organizations DNA. They provide guidance
for daily decision-making as well as the motivation that comes with the conviction
that the organizations work must go on, and needs everyones full engagement to
make a difference in peoples lives.

When you want to motivate, persuade, or be remembered, start with a story of human
struggle and eventual triumph. It will capture peoples hearts by first attracting their
brains.
TBusiness Tool
THE IRRESISTIBLE POWER OF STORYTELLING AS A STRATEGIC BUSINESS TOOL
HARRISON MONRTH
MARCH 11, 2014

Its not often that you hear Budweiser and Shakespeare mentioned in the same breath.
But according to new research from Johns Hopkins University, the Bards deft
application of storytelling techniques featured prominently in the beer companys
Super Bowl commercial.

In Puppy Love, a perfectly adorable yellow lab becomes inseparable friends with a
Clydesdale. Sneaking out of his pen, the pup and the horse talk in the stables and
cavort on an idyllic farm until someone comes to adopt the dog. The distressed
puppy whines and places his paws against the window of the car set to take him to his
new home. All seems lost until the Clydesdale rallies the other horses to stop the
vehicle from leaving. Reunited, the two commence frolicking in the horse pasture and,
we assume, live happily ever after.

Forget the fact that Anheuser-Buschs 60-second spot (which cost north of $4 million)
aired close to the end of a lopsided championship game that was over before halftime.
The Budweiser ad scored top honors in USA Todays Ad Meter and Hulus Ad Zone for
being the most popular among viewers. How did it not get lost amid the tantalizing
displays of shiny vehicles, CGI tricks, and David Beckhams six pack?

The irresistible power of classic storytelling.

If Keith Quesenberry were a betting man, he would have cleaned up. The researcher at
Johns Hopkins predicted that the Budweiser spot would be a winner after conducting
a two-year analysis of 108 Super Bowl commercials. In a paper that will be published
in the Fall 2014 issue of The Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, Quesenberry
and research partner Michael Coolsen focused on brands use of specific strategies to
sell products, such as featuring cute animals or sexy celebrities. But they also coded
the commercials for plot development.

They found that, regardless of the content of the ad, the structure of that content
predicted its success. People are attracted to stories, Quesenberry tells me, because
were social creatures and we relate to other people.

Its no surprise. We humans have been communicating through stories for upwards of
20,000 years, back when our flat screens were cave walls.

Especially in the Super Bowl, those 30-second ads are almost like mini movies, he
says. Quesenberry found that the ads that told a more complete story using Freytags
Pyramid a dramatic structure that can be traced back to Aristotle were the most
popular.
Shakespeare had mastered this structure, arranging his plays in five acts to include an
exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and a dnouementor final outcome.
The Best Buds story also uses these elements to great effect. The more of the acts
each version of the ad had, the better it performed.

Storytelling evokes a strong neurological response. Neuroeconomist Paul Zaks

research indicates that our brains produce the stress hormone cortisol during the
tense moments in a story, which allows us to focus, while the cute factor of the
animals releases oxytocin, the feel-good chemical that promotes connection and
empathy. Other neurological research tells us that a happy ending to a story triggers
the limbic system, our brains reward center, to release dopamine which makes us feel
more hopeful and optimistic.

In one experiment after participants watched an emotionally charged movie about a

father and son, Zak asked study participants to donate money to a stranger. With both
oxytocin and cortisol in play, those who had the higher amounts of oxytocin
were much more likely to give money to someone theyd never met.

The implications for advertisers, whod also like to part people from their money, are
clear. But advertisers arent the only ones tapping into the trust-inducing power of
storytelling.

Strategic storytelling has also been enlisted to change attitudes and behaviors. Two
studies from the health care industry show its power: Penn State College of Medicine
researchers found that medical students attitudes about dementia patients, who are
perceived as difficult to treat, improved substantially after students participated in
storytelling exercises that made them more sympathetic to their patients conditions.
And a University of Massachusetts Medical School study found that a storytelling
approach has also been effective in convincing populations at risk for hypertension to
change their behavior and reduce their blood pressure.
The most successful storytellers often focus listeners minds on a single important
idea and they take no longer than a 30-second Superbowl spot to forge an emotional
connection.

Widely recognized as the leading trial lawyer of his time, Moe Levine often used the
whole man theory to successfully influence juries to empathize with his clients.

Seeking compensation for a client who had lost both arms in an accident, Levine
surprised the court and jury, who were accustomed to long closing arguments, by
painting a brief and emotionally devastating picture instead:

As you know, about an hour ago we broke for lunch. I saw the bailiff come and take
you all as a group to have lunch in the jury room. Then I saw the defense attorney, Mr.
Horowitz. He and his client decided to go to lunch together. The judge and court clerk
went to lunch. So, I turned to my client, Harold, and said Why dont you and I go to
lunch together? We went across the street to that little restaurant and had
lunch. (Significant pause.) Ladies and gentlemen, I just had lunch with my client. He
has no arms. He has to eat like a dog. Thank you very much.

Levine reportedly won one of the largest settlements in the history of the state of New
York.

Storytelling may seem like an old-fashioned tool, today and it is. Thats exactly what
makes it so powerful. Life happens in the narratives we tell one another. A story can
go where quantitative analysis is denied admission: our hearts. Data can persuade
people, but it doesnt inspire them to act; to do that, you need to wrap your vision in a
story that fires the imagination and stirs the soul.
The Science of Storytelling: What
Listening to a Story Does to Our
Brains
Nov 29, 2012 Last updated: Feb 1, 2016

In 1748, the British politician and aristocrat John Montagu, the

4th Earl of Sandwich, used a lot of his free time for playing cards. One of the problems he had was that

he greatly enjoyed eating a snack, whilst still keeping one hand free for the cards.

So he came up with the idea to eat beef between slices of toast, which would allow him to finally eat and

play cards at the same time. Eating his newly invented sandwich, the name for two slices of bread with

meat in between, became one of the most popular meal inventions in the western world.

Now you are very likely to never forget the story of who invented the sandwich. Or at least, much less

likely to do so than if it had been presented in bullet points or another purely information based form.

For over 27,000 years, since the first cave paintings were discovered, telling stories has been one of

our most fundamental communication methods.

Here is the science around storytelling and how we can use it to make better decisions every day:
How our brains become more active
when we tell stories
We all enjoy a good story, whether its a novel, a movie or simply something one of our friends is

explaining to us that theyve experienced. But why do we feel so much more engaged when we hear a

narrative about events?

Its quite simple. If we listen to a Powerpoint presentation with boring bullet points, certain parts in the

brain get activated. Scientists call these Brocas area and Wernickes area. Overall, it hits our language

processing parts in the brain, where we decode words into meaning. And thats it, nothing else happens.

When we are being told a story, though, things change dramatically, according to researchers in Spain.

Not only are the language processing parts in our brain activated, but any other area in our brain that

we would use when experiencing the events of the story are too.

If someone tells us about how delicious certain foods were, our sensory cortex lights up. If its about

motion, our motor cortex gets active:

Metaphors like The singer had a velvet voice and He had leathery hands roused the

sensory cortex. [] Then, the brains of participants were scanned as they read sentences like

John grasped the object and Pablo kicked the ball. The scans revealed activity in the motor

cortex, which coordinates the bodys movements.

A story can put your whole brain to work. And yet, it gets better:

When we tell stories to others that have helped us shape our thinking and way of life, we can have the

same effect on them too. The brains of the person telling a story and listening to it, can synchronize,

says Uri Hasson from Princeton:

When the woman spoke English, the volunteers understood her story, and their brains

synchronized. When she had activity in her insula, an emotional brain region, the listeners did

too. When her frontal cortex lit up, so did theirs. By simply telling a story, the woman could

plant ideas, thoughts and emotions into the listeners brains.

Anything youve experienced, you can get others to experience the same. Or at least, get their brain

areas active, too:

Evolution has wired our brains for
storytelling how to make use of it+

Now all this is interesting. We know that we can activate our brains better if we listen to stories. The still

unanswered question is: Why is that? Why does the format of a story, where events unfold one after the

other have such a profound impact on our learning?

The simple answer is this: We are wired that way. A story, if broken down into the simplest form is a

connection of cause and effect. And that is exactly how we think.

We think in narratives all day long, no matter if it is about buying groceries, whether we think about

work or our spouse at home. We make up (short) stories in our heads for every action and conversation.

In fact, Jeremy Hsu found:

Personal stories and gossip make up 65% of our conversations.

Now, whenever we hear a story, we want to relate it to one of our existing experiences. Thats why

metaphors work so well with us. Whilst we are busy searching for a similar experience in our brains, we

activate a part called insula, which helps us relate to that same experience of pain, joy, disgust or else.

The following graphic probably describes it best:

In a great experiment, John Bargh at Yale found the following:

Volunteers would meet one of the experimenters, believing that they would be starting the

experiment shortly. In reality, the experiment began when the experimenter, seemingly

struggling with an armful of folders, asks the volunteer to briefly hold their coffee. As the key

experimental manipulation, the coffee was either hot or iced. Subjects then read a description

of some individual, and those who had held the warmer cup tended to rate the individual as

having a warmer personality, with no change in ratings of other attributes.

We link up metaphors and literal happenings automatically. Everything in our brain is looking for the

cause and effect relationship of something weve previously experienced.

Lets dig into some hands on tips to make use of it:

3 awesome ways to use storytelling

in every day life
Make others come up with your idea: Exchange telling suggestions for telling

stories:

Do you know the feeling when a good friend tells you a story and then two weeks later, you mention the

same story to him, as if it were your idea? This is totally normaland one of the most powerful ways to

get people on board with your ideas and thoughts. According to Uri Hasson from Princeton, a story is

the only way to activate parts in the brain so that a listener turns the story into their own idea and

experience.

The next time you struggle with getting people on board with your projects and ideas, simply tell them a

story, where the outcome is that doing what you had in mind.

Write more persuasively bring in stories from yourself or an expert:

This is something that took me a long time to understand. If you start out writing, its only natural to

think I dont have a lot of experience with this, how can I make my post believable if I use personal

stories?The best way to get around this is by simply exchanging stories to those of experts. On this

blog, Ive asked for quotes from the top folks in the industry or simply found great passages they

had written online. Its a great way to add credibility and at the same time, tell a story.

The simple story is more successful than the complicated one:

When we think of stories, it is often easy to convince ourselves that they have to be complex and

detailed to be interesting. The truth is however, that the simpler a story, the more likely it will stick.

Using simple language as well as a low complexity is the best way to activate the brain regions that

make us truly relate to the situation and happenings in the story. This is a similar reason to why

multitasking is so hard for us.

Try to reduce the number adjectives or complicated nouns in a presentation or article and

exchange them with more simple, yet heartfelt language.

Quick last fact: Our brain learn to

ignore certain overused words and
phrases that used to make stories
awesome
Oh, and one last thing. Scientists, in the midst of researching the topic of storytelling, have

also discovered, that certain words and phrases have lost all storytelling power:

Some scientists have contended that figures of speech like a rough day are so familiar that

they are treated simply as words and no more.

This means that the frontal cortex (the area of your brain responsible to experience emotions) cant be

activated with these phrases. Its something that might be worth remembering when crafting your next

storyor even your next social media post. (Need a hand with perfecting your social media messages?

Buffers social media tools have analytics that can help!)

Storytelling is one of the most powerful techniques we have as humans to communicate and

motivate. What are your best tips for telling stories? Have you had similar experiences with telling

stories? Id love your thoughts on this topic in the comments.