What Are Some of the Ways That Stories Affect Us?

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Why did we leave it for last? I think part of it comes from The methodological approach that social psychologists use. Because stories themselves have often been seen as something that's in the domain of the humanity So literature these other kinds of fields. There was maybe a sense that oh, that's sort of not a scientific kind of thing That's not our playground to play in which when you think about it hard doesn't make a lot of sense.

In this episode we discuss the power of narratives to affect our beliefs and behaviors with Melanie C. Green, a psychologist who studies the persuasive power of fiction.

According to Nielsen, the TV ratings company, the average person in the United States watches about 34 hours of television a week. That’s 73 days a year. Over the course of a lifetime, the average American can expect to spend a full decade lost in the trance spell that only powerful narratives can cast over the human mind.

What is the power of all the stories we consume through television? What about movies and books and comics and video games and everything else? How does it affect our beliefs and behaviors?

We discuss all of that and more with Melanie C. Green who is a social psychologist who developed the transportation into a narrative worlds theory that helps explain total story immersion and how it translates into influence over our real-world behaviors. Green is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. You can find her on Twitter using the handle @NarrProf or her website.

After the interview I eat some chocolate orange cherry cookies sent in by Elliot Jones and then discuss how photographs can either enhance or dampen your memory depending on how you use them.

Patreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart