The Psychology of Story

“Let me tell you a story.”

What happens to you when you hear these words?  I’m just guessing, but I imagine that something in you lets go, relaxes. You might sit back a little in your chair, let your guard down. But you also start paying attention, and here is where psychology and story overlap.

The psychology of story is about how stories help us focus our attention on the events of our lives.

Stories make intuitive sense to us. They help us grasp both the information and the emotional impact of a message, and they can do so almost effortlessly. This is the power of story.  We create stories to explain our experiences to ourselves and others. We do this so efficiently that we are often unaware that we are making stories about our lives.  We assume that our stories are our lives.

This is a critical distinction.  If we are unaware of the fact that we create the stories we tell about our lives, we are also unaware that we have the power and author-ity to change or retell them when they aren’t working. If we pay attention to our story-making ability, we have more control over how meaningful we find our experiences to be.

Recent research on brain function backs up this idea.  Scientists are discovering that our brains are story-making machines. We are constantly bombarded with so much information from all of our senses, trying to process all of it would be like trying to drink from a fire hose.  It just can’t be done.  Therefore, our brains must be selective about which bits of information we give our attention.  Our attention is a limited resource and perhaps the most valuable resource we have. Our brains must use complex strategies to determine what gets access to this resource and what does not.

And what is one of the key strategies used by the brain?  You guessed it:

Story

To make sense out of so much chaos, our brains construct narratives about what is going on around us, relying on past experiences and our expectations about what we think should happen.  The result is a subjective story we tell ourselves–our own personal narrative–which is one of many alternative stories we could tell about what is happening in our lives.  This is how a very talented, successful individual can honestly tell you that she feels her life was a waste, or how a young, underprivileged young man with few options can be positive or optimistic about his life.

Our emotional assessment about how good or bad our experiences have been are not based on our actual circumstances, but on the stories we tell ourselves about our circumstances.  Once we realize that the personal narrative is a somewhat arbitrary–one version out of many different alternative versions–we understand that we have a choice about how we explain our experiences to ourselves and to other people.  This means, therefore, that we also have a choice to re-tell the story in a more positive way.  We can literally “re-story” or “re-store” our lives.

So, in a nutshell, the psychology of story is about paying attention the choices we make in our lives, and being intentional about how we describe those choices to ourselves and to other people. There are many different ways to focus attention to create more meaningful lives. Click on the following categories for more information.  I Am Story Studios also offers workshops and classes in each of these areas. For more information, go to Workshops.