The Science of Story Telling

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This is sort of the a sequel to your previous book, which was all the positive aspects of story tellingw here's the dark side. But before we get into all that, why don't you give us a little bit of background. How does one undertake the scientific study of stories, and how did you personally get into that? Well, it goes back probably close to 30 years. And so my whole career, at least the early part of his career, was about sort of attack king this old superstition that there was something about story telling orr literature or art that was so spooky and so mushythat it essentially made it science proof. We were always told that everything we

Humans are storytelling animals. Stories are what make our societies possible. Countless books celebrate their virtues. But Jonathan Gottschall, an expert on the science of stories, argues that there is a dark side to storytelling we can no longer ignore. Storytelling, the very tradition that built human civilization, may be the thing that destroys it.

In The Story Paradox, Gottschall explores how a broad consortium of psychologists, communications specialists, neuroscientists, and literary quants are using the scientific method to study how stories affect our brains.

In this conversation based on his new book, Gottschall reveals why our biggest asset has become our greatest threat, and what, if anything, can be done. It is a call to stop asking, “How we can change the world through stories?” and start asking, “How can we save the world from stories?”