4 Ways Good Stories Move Us

Element #1: Good Stories Engage the Senses

Your brain has specific gears for language processing—Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, for example, have long been identified as language-processing regions and Mignon talked about those regions in an episode a few months ago about aphasia.

But more recently, researchers have found that other areas of the brain can be stimulated by language, particularly sensory words. For instance, a 2012 study in the journal Brain and Language found that phrases that include descriptions of texture, like smooth talker, greasy politician, bubbly personality, crusty old man, or slick performance activated both language processing and—surprise!—sensory processing regions.

To get even more specific, according to a study in NeuroImage, reading words that evoke a sense of smell, like cinnamon or jasmine, activates both language-processing regions and scent-processing regions of the brain. Indeed, by using sensory language, compelling stories engage our brains without even a jasmine garland (or bulb of garlic) in sight.

Element #2: Good Stories Move Us Morally

Good stories move us emotionally, to be sure, but they also engage with our moral compass. For example, a study in the uber-prestigious journal Science demonstrated the power of stories on our moral psyches. Participants were asked to hand-copy a story told in the first person that recounted either an ethical act (helping a co-worker) or an unethical act (sabotaging a co-worker). Next, they were asked to rate the appeal of various products. Some of the products were related to cleansing, like toothpaste and soap, but others were unrelated, like batteries and candy bars. Researchers found that participants who transcribed the unethical story rated the cleansing products more highly than those who transcribed the ethical story. What’s more, both groups rated the appeal of the non-cleansing products the same.

What’s the connection between sabotage and soap? It’s called the Macbeth Effect, and shows that Shakespeare’s imaginings of Lady Macbeth’s fixation on washing away her guilty conscience (“Out, damned spot! Out, I say”) weren’t only the result of his literary genius, but also his deep mastery of the human tendency to equate moral and physical purity.

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Element #3: Good Stories Connect Us to Others

Stories that take us to another place or time (or dimension, for that matter) are an adventure, but those that take us to another perspective are even more powerful.

It’s been established that fiction fans tend to have greater empathy and improved Theory of Mind, which is not a theory at all, but a skill—the ability to understand that others can have different beliefs and perspectives from one’s own.

In 2009, a study in the journal Communications expanded this finding by showing that exposure to fiction not only went along with greater empathy, but also greater perceived social support and numbers of friends. Exposure to nonfiction, by contrast, went along with greater loneliness and a low sense of belonging.

The researchers theorized that improved empathy and Theory of Mind due to reading fiction might confer a greater ability to connect socially in the real world, all of which contradicts the image of the lonely, socially disconnected bookworm, lost in a novel or a fantasy. Turns out burying your head in a novel might actually be good for your social life.

Element #4: Good Stories Provide an Escape

Of course, there are times we neither want to connect with ourselves, nor with anyone else, and then, stories allow an escape. Many a child from a chaotic or unpredictable household has coped by escaping into the more orderly world of a good book. Many an adult has used books to cope with a life that’s not going the way they planned. Sometimes, good stories do nothing short of keep us alive.

Sometimes, good stories do nothing short of keep us alive.

We read when we feel good, to be sure, but we also read when we can’t or don’t want to deal with the world around us or the world inside our own head.

But to tell the whole story, perhaps it’s not just the escape that we like, but the person we are when we finish that last page and close the book. Good stories not only engage us, move us, and connect us, but help us re-emerge into reality stronger, calmer, and more prepared to tackle the world.