by Dan Heath
6. Stories
The nurse was working: The story about the blue-black baby is found in Gary Klein, Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998), 178–79.
stories make people act: As in previous chapters, this chapter highlights one virtue of stories—encouraging action—but we could have discussed others. Stories also help people understand and remember. It’s hard to tell an abstract story, so stories inherit all the virtues of the Concrete, but they also serve as Simple (core and compact) ways of integrating lots of information. Research on jury decision-making shows that jurors rely heavily on stories to decide on their verdicts. Jurors confront masses of facts, presented in a scram bled sequence with substantial gaps in the record, filtered through the obvious personal biases of witnesses. How do they deal with this complexity? It turns out they spontaneously construct a story (or stories) to account for this welter of information, then match their personal story with the stories told by the prosecution and the defense and choose whichever side tells a story that best matches their own. In one study in this area, Nancy Pennington and Reid Hastie showed that verdicts shifted depending on how easily jurors were able to construct a story, even when identical information was presented. When the defense presented evidence in the order of an unfolding story but the prosecution presented evidence out of story order, only 31 percent of jurors voted to convict the defendant. When exactly the same information was presented but the defense presented witnesses out of order and the prosecution presented witnesses in story order, 78 percent of the jurors voted to convict. Jurors felt most confident in their decision when both sides presented in story order; people like to understand both stories, to see the evidence clearly in their mind, and then decide. See Nancy Pennington and Reid Hastie, “Explanation-based Decision Making: Effects of Memory Structure on Judgment,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition 14 (1988): 521–33.
Stories also improve credibility. Researchers Melanie Green and Timothy Brock point out that attitudes formed by direct experience are more powerful, and stories give us the feeling of real experience. They show that people are more likely to be persuaded by a story when they are “transported” by it—when they feel more wrapped up in their mental simulation. See Melanie C. Green and Timothy C. Brock, “The Role of Transportation in the Persuasiveness of Public Narratives,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79 (2000): 701–21.
The new XER board configuration: Julian E. Orr, Talking About Machines: An Ethnography of a Modern Job (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996). The dicorotron story is.
“John put on his sweatshirt”: This study is among dozens of studies that support the importance of mental simulation. For a review, see Rolf A. Zwaan and Gabriel A. Radvansky, “Situation Models in Language Comprehension and Memory,” Psychological Bulletin 123 (1998): 162–85. Not only do people mentally simulate space, they also simulate time. In a story about people entering a movie theater, respondents are more likely to recognize a reference to “the projectionist” if only ten minutes have elapsed in the story than if six hours have elapsed, even if both references are just a few sentences away on the page from the line about the movie theater.
210 no such thing as a passive audience: The best overview of the “active reader” research is provided by Richard Gerrig, a researcher in the field. See Experiencing Narrative Worlds: On the Psychological Activities of Reading (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988). Gerrig says that Samuel Coleridge was wrong to describe our ability to appreciate stories as the “suspension of disbelief,” because his quote implies that the default state of humans is skeptical disbelief. In fact, the real state is the opposite. It’s easy to get wrapped up in a story; it’s hard to evaluate arguments skeptically, disbelieving them until they are proven. One of our favorite illustrations of the power of simulation is Gerrig’s research on stories with well-known endings. When people are in the middle of a story, they often get so wrapped up in the simulation that they momentarily act as though they’d forgotten an obvious ending. Watch out for that iceberg, Titanic! The UCLA study is by Inna D. Rivkin and Shelley E. Taylor, “The Effects of Mental Simulation on Coping with Controllable Stressful Events,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 25 (1999): 1451–62.
Why does mental simulation work?: The tapping, Eiffel Tower, lemon juice, and other examples are from Mark R. Dadds, Dana H. Bovbejerg, William H. Redd, and Tim R. H. Cutmore, “Imagery in Human Classical Conditioning,” Psychological Bulletin 122 (1997): 89–103.
A review of thirty-five studies: James E. Driskell, Carolyn Copper, and Aidan Moran, “Does Mental Practice Enhance Performance?” Journal of Applied Psychology 79 (1994): 481–92.
Dealing with Problem Students: Message 1 is from a tip sheet, “Tips for Dealing with Student Problem Behaviors,” from the Office for Professional Development, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. See www.opd.iupui.edu/uploads/library/IDD/IDD6355.doc. Message 2, by Alison Buckman, was originally posted to http://research.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/disruptive_students2.html.
When Fogle registered: Ryan Coleman, “Indiana U. Senior Gains New Perspective on Life,” Indiana Daily Student, April 29, 1999. The Coad quotes are from David Kaplan, “A Losing Proposition: Jared Puts a Face to a Name for Subway Shops,” Houston Chronicle, January 23, 2002, D1.
In 1999, Subway’s sales: Performance statistics for Subway, Schlotzky’s, and Quiznos are from Bob Sperber, “In Search of Fresh Ideas,” Brandweek, October 15, 2001, M54.
Blumkin is a Russian woman: Rose Blumkin is described by Warren Buffett in his 1983 shareholder letter (see www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1983.html).
226 These three basic plots: These results are from Chip’s research at Stanford. After studying urban legends for a while—stories that frequently specialize in creating negative emotions such as fear, anger, or disgust—he asked whether there were stories that circulated because they produced positive emotions. The Chicken Soup for the Soul stories were the obvious place to start. The research on the frequencies of the three plots was done by giving raters the classification system but no other information about the hypotheses of the research. Even though raters worked independently, pairs of raters who saw the same stories showed strong agreement on classifications.
Another Stanford study suggests that these three plots are a good way to ensure that your stories are more inspiring. Students were given the assignment of finding a true story that would inspire their classmates, either from their own lives or from some public source. Later, their fellow students rated the stories on their ability to inspire—to make them feel proud, excited, and determined. Stories that featured one of the three plots were much more likely to wind up in the top half of the stories. Of the stories that wound up in the top 10 percent, all had one or more of the three plots.
Another study showed that each plot drives a specific form of activity. People read through a selection of stories, one per day, and recorded how they felt after reading each story. Challenge plots made people want to set higher goals, to take on new challenges, to work harder and persist longer. Connection plots made people want to work with others, to reach out and help them, and to be more tolerant. Creativity plots made people want to do something different, to be creative, to experiment with new approaches. Thus, the right stories not only tell us how to act, they operate as a kind of psychological battery pack, giving us the energy to take action. Notably, none of these stories was more likely to drive “feel good” activity. People weren’t more likely to was to do something to enjoy themselves—to listen to good music, watch television, or eat a good meal; instead, they wanted to go out and accomplish something. Thus these stories drive productive action, not passive self-involvement.
In response, Jesus told a story: The Good Samaritan story is from the New International Version of the Bible, Luke 10:25–37.
Ingersoll-Rand: The story of the Grinder Team is told in Chapter 6 of To
m Peters, Liberation Management (New York: Knopf, 1992).
Stories at the World Bank: This section is based on two excellent books by Stephen Denning. His first book, about the role of storytelling in organizations, is The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations (Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2001). There are dozens of books available that talk about the role of storytelling in organizations and organizational culture; The Springboard is the best book on the subject, and among the best business books of any kind. A follow-up book that describes a number of story plots other than springboard stories is The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative (San Francisco: Josey-Bass, 2005), The “corporate Siberia” quote is from a talk by Stephen Denning at IDEO, June 9, 2005.
“This is a very strange conversation”: Denning, The Leader’s Guide, 63.
“Why not spell out the message”: Denning, The Springboard, 80.
“little voice inside the head”: Denning, The Leader’s Guide, 62.
Klein tells another story: The story of the failed conference summaries is from Klein, Sources of Power, 195–96.
Epilogue: What Sticks
As recounted by Ralph Keyes: Ralph Keyes, Nice Guys Finish Seventh: False Phrases, Spurious Sayings and Familiar Misquotations (New York: HarperCollins, 1992). This book is filled with interesting examples of how proverbs evolve and change as they spread in society.
Several people gave feedback on our initial proposal, which needed a lot of work. We thank the following people for helping us create a document that was compelling enough to pass the first essential test: Doug Crandall, James Dailey, Ben Ellis, John Lin, Tom Prehn, Chloe Sladden, and Craig Yee.
When we finished the first half of the book, we were very excited and anxious to get some feedback. So we sent it to a bunch of friends and colleagues, who humored us and sent along written feedback. They also saved you, the reader, from lots of unconvincing and uninteresting anecdotes, like the one about the Charm Bracelet Punchline, so you owe them some gratitude as well. Here is the roll call of good people: Daryl Anderson, E. Joseph Arias, Deena Bahri, Amy Bryant, Mark and Chelsea Dinsmore, Julie Balovich, Danny Fitelson, Alfred Edmond, Michael Erisman, Chris Ertel, Erika Faust, Craig Fox, Emmet Gaffney, Lisa Gansky, Liz Gerber, Julio Gonzalez, Eric Guenther, Steven Guerrero, Susanna Hamner and Byron Penstock, Tod and Susan Hays, Fred and Brenda Heath, Ian Hill, Joe Lassiter, Alex Kazaks, Brian Kelly, Paul Marshall, George Miller, Shara Morales, Michael Morris, Derek Newton, Justin Osofsky, Jeff Pfeffer, Bill Sahlman, Andrew and Katie Solomon, Melissa Studzin ski, Mark Schlueter, Paul Schumann, Steven Slon, Amy and Walter Surdacki, Bob Sutton, Mike Sweeney, Anthony Trendl, Ed Uyeshima, Steve and Trae Vassallo, Rachel Ward, Keith Yamashita. Thank you all—you gave us the feedback we needed when it was most useful.
Here is a hodgepodge of thank yous for people who helped us in distinctive ways. Thank you to Noah Weiss, who spent hours combing obsure sources for interesting examples in the early stages, and to Maggie Cong-Huyen, who picked up where he left off. Special thanks to Jeff Saunders for pointing out Commander’s Intent. Thanks to Chip’s students in several years of OB 368 classes, who helped refine and test this framework. Thanks to Chip’s collaborators who helped work out many of these ideas: Adrian Bangerter, Chris Bell, Jonah Berger, Sanford Devoe, Nate Fast, Alison Fragale, Emily Sternberg, Scott Wiltermuth. Thanks to the following people who read the book and helped collect examples for the international editions: Eugine Chong, Hide Doi, Atsuko Jenks, Hyun Kim, Motoki Korenaga, Andreas Kornstaedt, and Noriko Masuda.
Now for the paragraph of people whose work inspired us. You didn’t have anything to do with this book, and yet you had a lot to do with this book. A fan letter to: Edward Tufte, Don Norman, Malcolm Gladwell, James Carville, Stephen Denning, Robert McKee, Andy Goodman, Jim Thompson, Steven Tomlinson, Edward Burger, George Wolfe, David Placek, Keith Yamashita, Jacob Goldenberg, George Loewenstein, Robert Cialdini, Mark Schaller, David Rubin, Jan Brunvand, and many others that we’re going to kick ourselves for not including by press time.
To our agents Don Lamm and Christy Fletcher, we are deeply grateful to you for making this experience possible. And thank you to Mark Fortier, for spreading the word about the book.
It is obligatory to thank your publisher. According to what we’ve heard from other authors, you usually have to say thanks through gritted teeth. This is our first book, and in the process of getting it to mar ket, we were supposed to accumulate a lot of publishing horror stories. We were supposed to feel underappreciated and undersupported. Random House has been an utter failure on this front. The people at Random House have been such a joy to work with, so unexpectedly and unnecessarily nice, that it’s hard to know where to begin. Thanks to: Debbie Aroff, Avideh Bashirrad, Rachel Bernstein, Nicole Bond, Evan Camfield, Gina Centrello, Kristin Fassler, Jennifer Hershey, Stephanie Huntwork, Jennifer Huwer, London King, Sally Marvin, Dan Menaker, Jack Perry, Tom Perry, Kelle Ruden, Robbin Schiff, and Carol Schneider. And Sanyu Dillon, my goodness, how can we adequately express our appreciation for all that you’ve done? Unbelievable.
And a huge, engraved, foil-embossed, calligraphied thank you to our amazing editor, Ben Loehnen. Our parents will read this book once, if we’re lucky. (An aside: Our dad has a Quantity Theory of Literature, which says that it’s not worth reading a book with fewer than four hundred pages. We’re relying purely on connections to get a read out of him.) Meanwhile, Ben has read this thing probably a dozen times without ever breaking down, at least in front of us. Ben, you are endlessly patient, thoughtful, insightful, and supportive. Okay, this is starting to sound like we’re signing your yearbook. (Stay cool!) But, really, we know we gave you a lot to stomach at times. Like our duct tape campaign.
Now to our family, who put up with us. We owe you this heartfelt thank you, which really has nothing to do with this book and everything to do with your support of us in all that we do. This section just gives us a great opportunity to put it in black and white. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for giving us co-authors. Thanks, Susan. Thanks, Emory. Thanks, sister Susan. Thanks, Tod, Hunter, and Darby.
We hope you enjoy the book. We had fun writing it.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
CHIP HEATH is a professor of organizational behavior in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He lives in Los Gatos, California.
DAN HEATH is a consultant to the Policy Programs at the Aspen Institute. A former researcher at Harvard Business School, he is a co-founder of Thinkwell, an innovative new-media textbook company. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Copyright © 2007, 2008 by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Originally published in slightly different form in 2007 by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Heath, Chip.
Made to stick : why some ideas survive and others die /
Chip Heath & Dan Heath
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-58836-596-5
1. Social psychology. 2. Contagion (Social psychology).
3. Context effects (Psychology). I. Heath, Dan. II. Title.
HM1033.H43 2007
302′.13—dc22 2006046467
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