I am always fascinated by the mind and how it works. And, I love the fact that how it works says something about us. For example, I was reading about some research that suggests that we can accept things that are labelled as fiction easier than we can those labelled as fact. As soon as something is labelled as fact, we are more critical about it.
This has been suggested as one of the reasons why narrative or storytelling is so persuasive to us as humans. We love (need) to experience stories. I love storytelling. We’re hardwired for it (that’s a post for another day) and it is so compelling to us.
One great example of storytelling or fiction and it’s persuasiveness or truth to people is the movie Sideways. In the movie, as part of the story, the main character is a wine snob who dismisses Merlot. He thinks that it is an awful style of wine. After the movie came out, Merlot sales in the States dropped even though it was a very popular wine previously. Now, that’s a wonderfully interesting story.
