The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human
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“confabulatory genius” who “must literally”: Sacks 1985, p. 110. Italics in original.
When asked to move: Hirstein 2006, pp. 135–36. For an overview of confabulatory syndromes, see Hirstein 2006.
[>] One of the first: Maier 1931.
[>] In a more recent study: Described in Wheatley 2009.
lies, honestly told: For another fascinating example of confabulation in ordinary people, see Johansson et al. 2005.
[>] In his documentary: Jones 2007.
[>] Documentarians . . . recently followed: New World Order, directed by Luke Meyer and Andrew Neel (New York: Disinformation, 2009).
[>] one million listeners: “Angry in America: Inside Alex Jones’ World,” ABC News/Nightline, September 2, 2010, http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/alex-jones-day-life-libertarian-radio-host/story?id=10891854&page=2 (accessed September 18, 2010).
vampiristic extraterrestrial lizard people: Icke 1999.
[>] “a walking compendium”: Olmsted 2009, p. 197.
[>] gunned down by Stephen King: See Lightfoot 2001.
Scripps Howard poll: Hargrove 2006. For debunking of 9/11 conspiracies, see Dunbar and Regan 2006.
Obama is a stealth Muslim: “Growing Number of Americans Say Obama Is a Muslim,” Pew Research Center, August 19, 2010, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1701/poll-obama-muslim-christian-church-out-of-politics-political-leaders-religious (accessed September 18, 2010); “Time Magazine/ABT SRBI—August 16–17, 2010 Survey: Final Data,” http://www.srbi.com/TimePoll5122-Final%20Report-2010-08-18.pdf (accessed September 18, 2010).
Obama was not born: “The President, Congress and Deficit Battles: April 15–20, 2011,” CBS News/NYT Polls, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/04/21/ politics/main20056282.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody (accessed July 21, 2011). Another 25 percent of Republicans had no opinion on the question.
Obama is the Antichrist: “Quarter of Republicans Think Obama May Be the Anti-Christ,” LiveScience, March 25, 2010, http://www.livescience.com/culture/obama-anti-christ-100325.html (accessed September 18, 2010).
“Conspiracy theories originate”: Aaronovitch 2010, p. 338.
6. The Moral of the Story
[>] one writer puts: Jacobs 2008, p. 8.
[>] if you want a message: For an overview of the research, see Haven 2007.
[>] “ungoded”: Quoted in Gardner 1978, p. 9.
world . . . is getting: Johnson 2008.
On Americans getting more religious, see Kagan 2009, p. 86.
[>] an ancient story: Genesis 17:10–14.
[>] most current evolutionary thinkers: See Bulbulia et al. 2008; Voland and Schiefenhovel 2009; Boyer 2002; Dawkins 2006; Dennett 2007.
Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins: See Dennett 2007; Dawkins 2006.
“a virus of the mind”: Dawkins 2004, p. 128.
religion emerged: Wilson 2003. Wilson’s idea is based on the concept of group selection. The idea that natural selection can work at the group level has been, for almost fifty years, among the most controversial ideas in evolutionary biology. For an overview of the controversy and a description of a recent renaissance in group selection theory, see Wilson and Wilson 2007; Wilson 2007.
[>] “Religion is a unified system”: Durkheim 2008, p. 46.
“is to bind people”: Wade 2009, p. 58.
“elements of religion”: Wilson 2008, p. 27. Italics in original.
“a weapon in”: Jager 1869, p. 119.
[>] “They would make”: Quoted in Zinn 2003, p. 1
Revisionist historians: See Zinn 2003; Loewen 1995.
spinners of countermyths: For a critique of historical revisionism and a defense of the basic correctness of traditional American history, see Schweikart and Allen 2007.
[>] exposes people: Haidt 2006, pp. 20–21.
“a dead-but-living”: Stone 2008, p. 181.
[>] the philosopher David Hume: Hume 2010, p. 283.
“imaginative resistance”: Gendler 2000.
[>] “two men kill”: Pinker 2011.
Plato banished poets: Plato 2003, p. 85.
[>] 200,000 violent acts: Linn 2008, p. 158.
“a highly traditionalist”: Ong 1982, p. 41.
On the conservatism of traditional art generally, see Dissanayake 1995, 2000.
“great fiction is subversive”: Bruner 2002, p. 11.
fiction is . . . deeply moral: Tolstoy 1899; Gardner 1978.
[>] “death of the antagonist”: Baxter 1997, p. 176.
[>] “The truth is”: Johnson 2005, pp. 188–89.
William Flesch thinks: Flesch 2007.
In a series of papers: Carroll et al. 2009, 2012. For similar arguments, see Boyd 2009, pp. 196–97.
[>] “moral overtones”: Elkind 2007, p. 162.
collision of evil and good: See Paley 1988.
reviewed dozens: Hakemulder 2000.
[>] “this is patently”: Appel 2008, pp. 65–66.
It choreographs how: Nell 1988.
[>] global village: McLuhan 1962.
“is essentially serious”: Gardner 1978, p. 6.
7. Ink People Change the World
[>] August Kubizek relates: Kubizek 2006, pp. 116–17.
[>] As a young man: Details of Hitler’s early life and his Rienzi epiphany are discussed in Kohler 2000; Kershaw 1998; Fest 1974; Spotts 2003; Kubizek 2006.
[>] “was rejected”: Spotts 2003, p. 138. In 1936, a selection of Hitler’s paintings was published as a coffee-table book titled Adolf Hitler: Bilder aus dem Leben des Führers (Hamburg: Cigaretten Bilderdienst, 1936).
variously spelled: Shirer 1990, pp. 6–7.
“Hitler is one”: Kershaw 1998, p. xx.
the Rienzi episode seems: See Kohler 2000, pp. 25–26; Spotts 2003, pp. 226–27.
[>] “grand solution”: Nicholson 2007, pp. 165–66.
Hitler “‘lived’ Wagner’s work”: Quoted in Kohler 2000, p. 293.
[>] “For the Master”: Fest 1974, p. 56.
“whoever wants to understand”: Quoted in Viereck 1981, p. 132.
[>] “as much effect”: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., s.v. “poetry.”
[>] “blacksmith’s hammer”: Stowe 2007, p. 357.
[>] “So you’re the little”: Quoted in Stowe and Stowe 1911, p. 223.
“exerted a momentous impact”: Weinstein 2004, p. 2.
“In Britain”: Johnson 1997, p. 417.
resurrected the defunct: Clooney 2002, pp. 277–94.
Jaws . . . depressed: Gerrig 1993, pp. 16–17.
[>] “the grisly inheritance”: Hitchens 2010, p. 98.
“Would Alexander”: Richardson 1812, p. 315.
[>] fiction can mislead: Appel and Richter 2007. See also Gerrig and Prentice 1991; Marsh, Meade, and Roediger 2003.
“the stronger the infection”: Tolstoy 1899, p. 133.
have been traumatized: Cantor 2009.
[>] “Researchers have repeatedly”: Mar and Oatley 2008, p. 182. See also Green and Brock 2000.
more effective at changing: Green and onahue 2009; Green, Garst, and Brock 2004.
a single viewing: Eyal and Kunkel 2008.
The effects of violence: For reviews of research on the effects of violent media, see Anderson et al. 2010. For skeptical views, see Jones 2002; Schechter 2005. For the relationship between prosocial behavior and prosocial games, see Greitemeyer and Osswald 2010.
[>] how we view out-groups: For research on fiction influencing racial attitudes, see Mastro 2009; Rosko-Ewoldsen et al. 2009. For research on fiction influencing gender attitudes, see Smith and Granados 2009.
fiction writers mix: Maugham 1969, p. 7.
A related explanation: Green and Brock 2000.
[>] Stories change our beliefs: Djikic et al., 2009. See also Mar, Djikic, and Oatley 2008, p. 133.
[>] “Hitler’s interest in the arts”: Spotts 2003, p. xii
an ecstasy of book burning: United States Holocaust Museum, “Book Burning.”
[>] “the gr
eatest actor”: Quoted in Spotts 2003, p. 43.
“Hitler was one”: Quoted in Spotts 2003, p. 56.
[>] “Where they burn books”: Quoted in Metaxas 2010, p. 162.
8. Life Stories
[>] “How old was I”: Conversation between the old man, Santiago, and his young apprentice, Manolin.
The day before he got fired: Carr 2008, pp. 3–8, 10, 12.
[>] Frey describes: Frey 2008.
a masterpiece of debunking: Smoking Gun 2006.
[>] “will probably be remembered”: Yagoda 2009, p. 246.
“My literary lineage”: Quoted in ibid., p. 22.
[>] Another celebrated: Carter 1991. See also Barra 2001.
“virulent segregationist”: Barra 2001.
[>] a “personal myth”: McAdams 1993. See also McAdams 2001, 2008.
[>] “Memory . . . is never true”: Hemingway 1960, p. 84.
Marie G. reported: Bernheim 1889, pp. 164–66; Lynn, Matthews, and Barnes 2009.
“before God and man”: Bernheim 1889, p. 165.
“flashbulb memories”: Brown and Kulik 1977.
[>] researchers asked people: Neisser and Harsch 1992.
“For a quarter”: French, Garry, and Loftus 2009, pp. 37–38.
[>] The research shows: French, Garry, and Loftus 2009; Greenberg 2004.
“I was in Florida”: CNN 2001.
The headline: Greenberg 2004, p. 364.
[>] 73 percent of research subjects: Greenberg 2005, p. 78.
many British people: Ost et al. 2008.
“an intelligent woman”: Bernheim 1889, p. 164.
[>] “incontestable reality”: Ibid.
Memory continued to be seen: For early work on false memory, see Bartlett 1932.
[>] “the great sex panic”: Crews 2006, p. 154. This book provides a skeptical analysis and history of recovered memory.
In a classic experiment: See Loftus and Pickrell 1995; French, Garry, and Loftus 2009.
This study was among: For overviews of the false-memory research described here, see Brainerd and Reyna 2005; Schachter 1996, 2001; Bernstein, Godfrey, and Loftus 2009.
[>] every bit as confident: Brainerd and Reyna 2005, pp. 20, 409.
For example, in one study: Schachter 2001, p. 3. For another study of ordinary misremembering, see Conway et al. 1996.
[>] Pieces of that memory: See Young and Saver 2001; Schachter 2001, pp. 85–87.
[>] it just doesn’t work: Marcus 2008, chapter 2.
“serve many masters”: Bruner 2002, p. 23.
“unreliable, self-serving historian”: Tavris and Aronson 2007, p. 6.
Even truly awful people: The writer and corrections officer Rory Miller writes that most criminals convince themselves that they are the real good guys and the real victims (Miller 2008, p. 100).
“Annie Wilkes”: King 2000, p. 190.
fold it into a narrative: Baumeister 1997; Kurzban 2010.
For a review of the self-exculpatory bias, see Pinker 2011, chapter 8.
the “Great Hypocrisy”: Ibid.
[>] “I see myself”: Quoted in Baumeister 1997, p. 49.
[>] photographic distortion: Tsai 2007.
“70% thought”: Gilovich 1991, p. 77. Italics in original.
[>] For example: Taylor 1989, p. 10; Gilovich 1991, p. 77.
College students generally believe: Taylor 1989. See also Mele 2001.
Lake Woebegone effect: Pronin, Linn, and Ross 2002.
improving with age: Wilson and Ross 2000.
[>] a “farce” and an “agreeable fiction”: Fine 2006, pp. 6, 25.
Self-aggrandizement starts: Taylor 1989, p. 200.
a healthy mind: Ibid., p. xi.
[>] “The truth is depressing”: Hirstein 2006, p. 237.
depression frequently stems: Crossley 2000, p. 57.
recent review article: Shedler 2010.
a kind of script doctor: See Spence 1984.
9. The Future of Story
[>] who killed poetry: See Epstein 1988; Fenza 2006.
English departments have been: Gottschall 2008.
[>] made more money: Baker 2010.
“I come to”: Shields 2010, p. 175.
love to wallow: For a recent example of wallowing in the novel’s obsolescence, see Shields 2010. James Wood (2008), while not so pessimistic, wallows along similar lines.
numbers trending up: For statistics compiled by R. R. Bowker, the company that creates the Books in Print database and assigns ISBNs to new books, see “New Book Titles and Editions, 2002–2009,” http://www.bowkerinfo.com/bowker/IndustryStats2010.pdf (accessed November 21, 2010).
a new novel is published: Miller 2004. This figure excludes print-on-demand and vanity press novels.
[>] The 2010 release: Bradley and DuBois 2010.
“most widely disseminated”: Bradley 2009, p. xiii.
[>] we are living through: Bissell 2010.
the writer/director: Bland 2010.
[>] Together with teams: William Booth, “Reality Is Only an Illusion, Writers Say,” Washington Post, August 10, 2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53032-2004Aug9.html (accessed March 4, 2011).
[>] This enraged Junk’s friend: The Ultimate Fighter 2009.
[>] “The future looks bleak”: Quoted in Castronova 2007, p. 46.
[>] Ethan and his friends: Gilsdorf 2009, pp. 88, 101, 104, 105.
[>] anthropologists write: For one ambitious example and references to other studies, see Bainbridge 2010.
[>] As one player put it: Kelly 2004, pp. 11, 71.
“tapestry of myths”: Bainbridge 2010, p. 14.
[>] greatest mass migration: Castronova 2007.
[>] twenty to thirty hours: Kelly 2004, p. 13.
most satisfying friendships: Meadows 2008, p. 50.
20 percent consider: Castronova 2007, p. 13.
[>] daily vacation: Quoted in Castronova 2006, p. 75.
“In the lands”: “The Chaos Warhost: The Chosen,” War Vault Wiki, Warhammer Online, http://warhammervault.ign.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chosen&oldid =1997 (accessed July 23, 2011). reality is broken: McGonigal 2011.
[>] “mental diabetes epidemic”: Brian Boyd, personal communication, October 3, 2010.
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