by Will Storr
As C. S. Lewis implored a young writer in 1956: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/04/c-s-lewis-on-writing.html
Only that way: A final lesson from the model-making brain is that simplicity is also crucial. The human beam of attention is narrow. ‘Everything about our hominin past,’ writes the neurobiologist Professor Robert Sapolsky, ‘has honed us to be responsive to one face at a time.’ We have hunter-gatherer brains, specialised to focus on a single moving prey animal, a single ripe fruit or a single tribal confederate. This narrowness is why stories often begin simply, from the perspective of one person, or are centred around one problem.
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it’s been argued: The Domesticated Brain, Bruce Hood (Pelican, 2014).
their physical strength as much as halving: ‘The Domestication of Human’, Robert G. Bednarik, 2008, Anthropologie XLVI/1 pp. 1–17.
Whereas ape and monkey parents: Evolutionary Psychology, Robin Dunbar, Louise Barrett, & John Lycett (Oneworld, 2007) p. 62.
Newborns are attracted to human faces more than to any other object: On the Origin of Stories, Brian Boyd (Harvard University Press, 2010) p. 96.
One hour from birth, begin imitating them: On the Origin of Stories, Brian Boyd (Harvard University Press, 2010) p. 96.
By two, they’ve learned to control their social worlds by smiling: The Self Illusion, Bruce Hood (Constable and Robinson, 2011) p. 29.
so adept at reading people that they’re making calculations about status and character automatically, in one tenth of a second: ‘Effortless Thinking’, Kate Douglas, New Scientist, 13 December 2017.
‘Our species has conquered the Earth because’: Mindwise, Nicholas Epley (Penguin, 2014) p. xvii.
Studies indicate that those who anthropomorphise: Mindwise, Nicholas Epley (Penguin, 2014) p. 65.
Bankers project human moods: Mindwise, Nicholas Epley (Penguin. 2014) p. 62. It says much about the brain’s natural storytelling instincts that these processes seem especially active when things go wrong. Whether it’s a car or a computer, the more it fails, the more likely its owners are to treat is as if it has ‘a mind of its own’. Epley had such owners undergo brain scans. ‘We found the same neural regions involved in thinking about the minds of other people were also engaged when thinking about these unpredictable gadgets,’ he writes. When trouble strikes, when the brain’s predictions fail, we switch into story mode. Our narrow band of attention turns on. We become aware. And there we are, one mind primed for action in the fairytale realm of others.
Charles Dickens, William Blake and Joseph Conrad all spoke of: ‘Introduction of Writer’s Inner Voices’, Charles Fernyhough, 4 June 2014, http://writersinnervoices.com.
the novelist and psychologist Professor Charles Fernyhough: ‘Fictional characters make “experiential crossings” into real life, study finds’, Richard Lea, Guardian, 14 Feb 2017.
some research suggests strangers read another’s thoughts: Mindwise, Nicholas Epley (Penguin, 2014) p. 9.
Alexander Mackendrick writes, ‘I start by asking’: On Film-Making, Alexander Mackendrick (Faber & Faber, 2004) p. 168.
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recent research suggests we’re more likely to attend to: ‘Meaning-based guidance of attention in scenes as revealed by meaning maps’, John M. Henderson & Taylor R. Hayes, Nature, Human Behaviour, 2017, Vol. 1, pp. 743–747.
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when we drink: Subliminal, Leonard Mlodinow (Penguin, 2012) p. 24.
The way food is described: Subliminal, Leonard Mlodinow (Penguin, 2012) p. 21.
use around one metaphor for every ten seconds of speech: I Is an Other, James Geary (Harper Perennial, 2012) p. 5.
Neuroscientists are building a powerful case: Louder than Words, Benjamin K. Bergen (Basic, 2012) pp. 196–206.
When participants in one study read the words, ‘he had a rough day’: ‘Metaphorically feeling: Comprehending textural metaphors activates somatosensory cortex’, Simon Lacey, Randall Stilla, K. Sathian, Brain and Language, Vol. 120, Issue 3, March 2012, pp. 416–421.
In another, those who read ‘she shouldered the burden’: ‘Engagement of the left extrastriate body area during body-part metaphor comprehension’, Simon Lacey, Randall Stilla, Gopikrishna Deshpande, Sinan Zhao, Careese Stephens, Kelly McCormick, David Kemmerer, K. Sathian, Brain & Language, 2017, 166, 1–18.
It won’t come as much of a surprise to discover: Politics and the English Language, George Orwell (Penguin, 1946).
Researchers recently tested this idea that clichéd metaphors: Louder than Words, Benjamin K. Bergen (Basic, 2012) p. 206.
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In a classic 1932 experiment, the psychologist Frederic Bartlett: Subliminal, Leonard Mlodinow (Penguin, 2012), p. 68.
Estimates vary, but it’s believed the brain processes around 11 million bits: Strangers to Ourselves, Timothy D. Wilson, (Belknap Harvard, 2002), p.24.
no more than forty: The Social Animal, David Brooks (Short Books, 2011) p. x.
the ‘Cosmic Hunt’ myth: ‘The Evolution of Myths’, Julien d’Huy, Scientific American, December 2016.
BANANAS. VOMIT: Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman (Penguin, 2011) p. 50.
the early twentieth century by the Soviet filmmakers: Film Technique and Film Acting, Vsevolod Pudovkin (Grove Press, 1954) p. 140. According to some accounts, the third shot was actually an attractive woman reclining on a chaise longue, with the audience projecting lust into the actor. In the 1954 translation of his book Film Technique and Film Acting, Pudovkin describes the bear.
You want all your scenes to have a ‘because’: Accessed at: https://johnaugust.com/2012/scriptnotes-ep-60-the-black-list-and-a-stack-of-scenes-transcript
Full quote: ‘You want all your scenes to have a “Because” between them and not an “And Then” between them. And it’s something that you learn and get better at which is having everything cause everything, and everything build on everything. But I have noticed, particularly in the action genre, it seems like things have gotten very episodic.’
strongly predicts an interest in poetry and the arts: Personality, Daniel Nettle (Oxford University Press, 2009) p. 190.
CHAPTER TWO
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Mr B … writes the neuroscientist Professor Michael Gazzaniga: The Consciousness Instinct, Michael Gazzaniga (Farrahr, Straus and Giroux, 2018) pp. 136–138.
The brain constructs its hallucinated model: Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast, Lewis Wolpert (Faber & Faber, 2011) pp. 36–38.
The mythologist Joseph Campbell said: The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers (Broadway Books, 1998) p. 3.
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this personality is likely to remain relatively stable: ‘A Coordinated Analysis of Big-Five Trait Change Across 16 Longitudinal Samples’, Elieen Graham et al. PrePrint: https://psyarxiv.com/ryjpc/.
fictional characters. One academic paper: ‘The Five-Factor Model in Fact and Fiction’, Robert R. McCrae, James F. Gaines, Marie A. Wellington, 2012, 10.1002/9781118133880.hop205004.
Different personalities have different go-to tactics: In Personality Psychology, Larsen, Buss & Wisjeimer (McGraw Hill, 2013), a ‘taxonomy of eleven tactics of manipulation’ has been compiled (p. 427).
Charm (‘I try to be loving when I ask her to do it’)
Coercion (‘I yell at him until he does it’)
Silent treatment (‘I don’t respond to her until she does it’)
Reason (‘I will explain why I want him to do it’)
Regression (‘I whine until she does it’)
Self-abasement (‘I act submissive so that he will do it’)
Responsibility invocation (‘I get her to make a commitment to doing it’)
Hardball (‘I hit him so that he will do it’)
Pleasure induction (‘I show her how much fun it will be to do it’)
Social comparison (‘I tell him that everyone else is doing it’)
Monetary reward (‘I offer her money so that she will do it’)
writes the
psychologist Professor Keith Oatley: Such Stuff as Dreams, Keith Oatley (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) p. 95.
Conscientious people tend to: Personality Psychology, Larsen, Buss & Wisjeimer (McGraw Hill, 2013) p. 69.
extraverts are more likely to have affairs: ‘Sextraversion’, Dr David P. Schmidt, Psychology Today, 28 June 2011.
and car accidents: Personality Psychology, Larsen, Buss & Wisjeimer (McGraw Hill, 2013) p. 68.
disagreeable people are better at fighting: Personality, Daniel Nettle (Oxford University Press, 2009) p. 177.
those high in openness are more likely to get tattoos: Personality Psychology, Larsen, Buss & Wisjeimer (McGraw Hill, 2013) p. 70.
be unhealthy: Snoop, Sam Gosling (Basic Books, 2008) p. 99
and vote for left-wing political parties: Personality Psychology, Larsen, Buss & Wisjeimer (McGraw Hill, 2013) p. 70.
while those low in conscientiousness are more likely to end up in prison: Personality Psychology, Larsen, Buss & Wisjeimer (McGraw Hill, 2013) p. 69.
and have a higher risk of dying: Personality, Daniel Nettle (Oxford University Press, 2009) p. 34.
males tend to be more disagreeable than females: Personality, Daniel Nettle (Oxford University Press, 2009) p. 177. Nettle quotes the 70 per cent figure but I was warned by one of my expert proof readers, Dr Stuart Ritchie, that although the study Nettle quotes is robust, other robust studies find less dramatic scores. 60 per cent was agreed to be a safer figure to quote.
A similar personality gap is found for neuroticism: Comments from Dr Stuart Ritchie.
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‘Zaha Hadid’, Lynn Barber, Observer, 9 March 2008.
‘Human personalities are rather like fractals,’: Personality, Daniel Nettle (Oxford University Press, 2009) p. 7.
People make ‘identity claims’: Snoop, Sam Gosling (Basic Books, 2008) pp. 12–19.
The psychologist Professor Sam Gosling advises: Snoop, Sam Gosling (Basic Books, 2008) p. 19.
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Between the ages of zero and two: The Social Animal, David Brooks (Short Books, 2011) p. 47.
It’s the main reason we have such greatly extended childhoods: The Self Illusion, Bruce Hood (Constable and Robinson, 2011) p. 22.
Play, including storytelling, is typically overseen: Brain and Culture, Bruce Wexler (MIT Press, 2008) p. 134. See also: C. M. Walker & T. Lombrozo, ‘Explaining the moral of the story’, Cognition, 2017, 167, 266–281.
One study into the backgrounds of sociopathic: ‘A History of Children’s Play and Play Environments’, Joe L. Frost (Routledge, 2009) p. 208.
It’s in our first seven years: ‘The Construction of the Self’, Susan Harter (Guildford Press, 2012) p. 50.
According to some psychologists: ‘The Geography of Thought’, Richard E. Nisbett (Nicholas Brealey, 2003). A fuller exploration of these ideas features in my book Selfie (Picador, 2017) in Book Two: The Perfectible Self.
Because individual self-reliance was the key to success: These differences remain widespread today. If you show an Asian student a cartoon of a fish tank and track their saccades by the millisecond, they unconsciously scan the entire scene, while their Western counterpart focuses more on the dominant, individual, brightly coloured fish at the front. Ask what they saw and the Asian description is more likely to begin with the context – ‘I saw a tank’ – compared to the Westerner’s individual object – ‘I saw a fish’. Ask what they thought of that singular fish and the Westerner is likely to say ‘it was the leader’ whilst the Easterner assumes it’s done something wrong because it’s excluded from the group.
Such cultural differences create radically different experiences of life, self and story. When asked to draw a ‘sociogram’ of themselves in relation to everyone they know, Westerners tend to draw themselves as a big circle in the middle, while Easterners tend to make themselves small, towards the edge. In China, unlike the West, humble and hardworking students are popular, whilst shyness is considered a leadership quality. Such differences begin in the neural models and therefore control our perception of reality. ‘It isn’t just that Easterners versus Westerners think about the world differently,’ the psychologist Professor Richard Nisbett told me. ‘They’re literally seeing a different world.’ This can trigger serious conflicts, with one side simply not perceiving moral realities that seem obvious to the other. ‘The Chinese are willing to accept the idea of unjustly punishing someone if that makes the group better off,’ Nisbett said. ‘That’s an outrage to Westerners who are so individual-rights orientated. But, to them, the group is everything.’
It ‘changed the way people thought about cause and effect’: ‘Life on Purpose’, Victor Stretcher (Harper One, 2016) p. 24.
one three-year-old girl in the US: The Storytelling Animal, Jonathan Gottschall (HMH, 2012) p. 33.
practically no real autobiography for two thousand years: The Autobiographical Self in Time and Culture, Qi Wang (Oxford University Press, 2013) pp. 46, 52.
according to the psychologist Professor Uichol Kim: Interview with author.
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we endeavour to understand our life as a ‘grand narrative’: The Redemptive Self, Dan P. McAdams (Oxford University Press, 2013) p. xii
the neurobiologist Professor Bruce Wexler describes it: Brain and Culture, Bruce Wexler (MIT Press, 2008) p. 9.
As Wexler writes: Brain and Culture, Bruce Wexler (MIT Press, 2008) p. 9.
the ‘makes sense stopping rule’: The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt (Arrow, 2006) p. 65.
Not only do our neural reward systems spike pleasurably: The Political Brain, Drew Westen (Public Affairs, 2007) pp. x–xiv.
It’s not simply that we ignore or forget evidence: A fuller exploration into confirmation bias features in my book The Heretics (Picador, 2013), in chapter six: ‘The Invisible Actor at the Centre of the World’.
Smart people are mostly better: ‘Myside Bias, Rational Thinking, and Intelligence’, Keith E. Stanovich, Richard F. West, Maggie E. Toplak, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2013, Vol. 22, Issue 4.
‘Cognitive Sophistication Does Not Attenuate the Bias Blind Spot’, Richard F. West, Russell J. Meserve, and Keith E. Stanovich, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4 June 2012.
One compelling theory: This is the thesis of The Enigma of Reason by Hugo Marcier and Dan Sperber (Allen Lane, 2017).
the screenwriter Russell T. Davies’s observation: ‘Has every conversation in history been just a series of meaningless beeps?’, Charlie Brooker, Guardian, 28 April 2013.
Things are experienced as pleasurable: Brain and Culture, Bruce Wexler (MIT Press, 2008) p. 9.
The neuroscientist Sarah Gimbel watched what happened: ‘You Are Not So Smart with David McRaney’, The Neuroscience of Changing Your Mind, Episode 93, 13 Jan 2017.
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Among the most powerful of these beliefs: ‘The Illusion of Moral Superiority’, B. M. Tappin, R. T. McKay, Soc Psychol Personal Sci, 2017, Aug 8(6):623–631.
participants split money with anonymous others: ‘Motivated misremembering: Selfish decisions are more generous in hindsight’, Ryan Carlson, Michel Marechal, Bastiaan Oud, Ernst Fehr, Molly Crockett, 23 July 2018. PrePrint accessed at: https://psyarxiv.com/7ck25/
What is selected as a personal memory: ‘The “real you” is a myth – we constantly create false memories to achieve the identity we want’, Giuliana Mazzoni, The Conversation, 19 Sept 2018.
Work by Mazzoni and others: ‘Changing beliefs and memories through dream interpretation’, Giuliana A. L. Mazzoni, Elizabeth F. Loftus, Aaron Seitz, Steven J. Lynn, Applied Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 13, Issue 2, April 1999, pp. 125–144.
For the psychologists Professors Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson: Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson (Pinter and Martin, 2007) p. 76.
Professor Nicholas Epley catches this hero-maker lie: Mindwise, Nicholas Epley (Penguin, 2014) p. 54.
Moral superiority is thought to be: ‘The Illus
ion of Moral Superiority’, B. M. Tappin, R. T. McKay, Soc Psychol Personal Sci, 2017, Aug;8(6): 623–631.
Maintaining a ‘positive moral self-image’: ‘Motivated misremembering: Selfish decisions are more generous in hindsight’, Ryan Carlson, Michel Marechal, Bastiaan Oud, Ernst Fehr, Molly Crockett, 23 July 2018. PrePrint accessed at: https://psyarxiv.com/7ck25.
Even murderers and domestic abusers: The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt (Heinemann, 2006) p. 73.
When researchers tested prisoners: ‘Behind bars but above the bar: Prisoners consider themselves more prosocial than non-prisoner’, Constantine Sedikides, Rosie Meek, Mark D. Alicke and Sarah Taylor, British Journal of Social Psychology, 2014, 53, 396–403.
as did Hitler, whose last words: Hitler’s World View: A Blueprint for Power, Eberhard Jäckel (Harvard University Press, 1981) p. 65.
One 35-year-old metal worker, remembered: Ordinary Men, Christopher R. Browning (Harper Perennial, 2017) p. 73.
Researchers have found that violence and cruelty: The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt (Heinemann, 2006) p. 75.
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One such real-life hero is the former ‘eco-terrorist’ Mark Lynas: Interview with author.
CHAPTER THREE
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Lisa Bortolotti explains: ‘Confabulation: why telling ourselves stories makes us feel OK’, Lisa Bortolotti, Aeon, 13 February 2018.
series of famous experiments: My account of Gazzaniga’s confabulation experiments is sourced from his books Who’s In Charge? (Robinson, 2011) and Human (Harper Perennial, 2008). Another excellent telling can be found in The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt (Heinemann, 2006).
The job of the narrator, writes Gazzaniga: Who’s in Charge?, Michael Gazzaniga (Robinson, 2011) p. 85.
It’s because of such findings: Mindwise, Nicholas Epley (Penguin, 2014) p. 30.
Leonard Mlodinow said years of psychotherapy: Subliminal, Leonard Mlodinow, (Penguin, 2012) p. 177.
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we’re a riotous democracy of mini-selves: Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, David Eagleman (Canongate, 2011) p. 104.