The last few years has seen a great deal of concern around the prevalence of misinformation in public debate, with a range of actors deploying emotive storytelling to distort the discourse.

A recent study from Northwestern University highlights just how powerful this approach can be, with the researchers reminding us just how important stories can be in bridging emotional connections and persuade people to follow a particular course of action.

“Stories persuade, at least in part, by disrupting the ability to evaluate facts, rather than just biasing a person to think positively,” the researchers explain.

Persuasive storytelling

It’s widely known that stories are highly persuasive, but the researchers wanted to explore why that is.  Do stories help the listener focus on the positive aspects of the message, or do they instead disrupt our ability to process complex information?

The researchers put stories to the test by asking several hundred adults evaluate a number of facts about a fictitious mobile phone company.  Half of the volunteers were only given facts about the phone, but the other half read a story about the phone with facts embedded in it.

The analysis revealed that when the facts were somewhat weak, the use of storytelling was more persuasive than presenting facts on their own.  The opposite tended to occur when the facts were strong.  It’s an outcome that suggests that stories seem to dilute our ability to process information.

These findings were replicated in a second study that required volunteers to read about a flu medicine.  Once again, facts were either presented on their own or embedded within a story.  As before, the use of stories appeared to undermine the persuasiveness of strong facts, with weak facts supported by the use of compelling stories.

“Knowing that stories may provide the most persuasive benefit to those with the least compelling arguments could be important given concerns about ‘fake news.'” the authors conclude. “But this does not mean a story is indicative of weak facts. Rather, when you feel especially compelled by a great story you might want to give more thought and consideration to the facts to determine how good they are.”