Neuroscience: How Storytelling Can Motivate Us to Help Others

“Hearing personal narratives instead of simply cold, hard facts motivates people to change their behaviors to help protect more vulnerable groups.

In her research, doctoral candidate Mary E. Andrews was particularly concerned with issues of equity. How can we make clear that slowing the spread of the virus impacts not only our own health and safety but also helps higher-risk groups who are less able to protect themselves because of their life circumstances? What kind of messaging would best achieve that goal?

To test the effectiveness of different messaging, the team had participants read first-person narrative messages told from the perspective of either a healthcare worker or incarcerated person, describing the conditions they were in, how they were impacted, and how they were at higher risk for COVID-19. These were adapted from real accounts that Andrews pulled from social media posts or news articles and written in a story-like manner with a clear main character and first-person voice. The non-narrative, expository messages included the same basic information but were told in a more fact-based way with no central character.

Participants who felt more transported were more likely to believe that the group they read about was more vulnerable to COVID-19 and more likely to believe that their own behaviors—staying home when feeling sick, engaging in physical distancing—could impact and protect these groups. These participants were also more likely to say they would donate to charities that could help the group they read about, or engage in behaviors to help other vulnerable groups.

Using narratives, we can help people understand why it’s important to protect everybody in society at this moment, and they can help us humanize other people in valuable ways. As researchers continue learning more about both the short- and longer-term effects of the pandemic on people’s well-being, health, and safety, sharing first-hand stories from members of different communities can help create guidelines to best help vulnerable groups, shift societal attitudes around them, and call more attention to their needs.

Maybe for a lot of us, we can go back to some version of regular day-to-day life. But if we share stories from groups like those who are incarcerated, showing that they are still deeply into this pandemic and don’t have the same kind of freedom as we have now, more can be done to help them.

As this study shows, having real stories from people and groups that are more marginalized or even just reading stories from people who are not like you, can make you more likely to want to engage in behaviors that help others.”As this study shows, having real stories from people and groups that are more marginalized or even just reading stories from people who are not like you, can make you more likely to want to engage in behaviors that help others.”

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💬 What do you think are other things that can motivate us to help more marginalized groups in our society?