Samantha Lyndell Azzopardi (the power of story)

by Jerryh 4 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Jerryh

  
  

  "Propositional thought hinges on logic and formality. Narrative thought is the reverse. It’s concrete, imagistic, personally convincing, and emotional. And it’s strong."

  Interesting magazine article depicting the potency of narrative to persuade.

  Many people who post on the board have been persuaded by a false story.

  I
  

  logic and emotion can contradict but not necessarily. Like they say read the whole thing.
  

  http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/how-stories-deceive?utm_content=bufferd4658&
• 

  cofty

  Very interesting article. Thanks

  We were deceived by an enticing story.
• 

  Anders Andersen

  When a fact is plausible, we still need to test it. When a story is plausible, we often assume it’s true.

  When the psychologists Melanie Green and Timothy Brock decided to test the persuasive power of narrative, they found that the more a story transported us into its world, the more we were likely to believe it—even if some details didn’t quite mesh.

  Azzopardi’s frauds relied on a quirk of human nature: when we become swept up in powerful narrative, our reason often falls by the wayside.

  Cons, both long and short, thrive on in-the-moment arousal. They don’t give us time to think or reconsider.

  Hence the extreme load of prepping for meetings, daily Bible reading, personal study, field service...keep them emotionally involved and give them no time to really think...

  “They are so eager to get their hands on the proffered scam payoff that they fail to pay even rudimentary attention to the details of the proposed transaction and ignore scam cues that may be obvious to others not so overwhelmed by desire,” he wrote in a paper called “Consumer Vulnerability to Scams, Swindles, and Frauds.” The emotional outcome becomes the center of focus, and logic falls away.

  Keep your eye on the Prize. See yourself in Paradise. Stay wanting for the reward, but don't apply logic...

  Nice find Jerry!

  Very interesting article.

  (Of course I just assumed everything it said as true, since there was a powerful narrative in the article :-p ;-))

  
  
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  Simon

  I have to disagree. This is a situation where people of course tend to "believe" someone who appears to be a victim because todo otherwise risks accusing and harassing someone who shouldn't be.

  But the case was investigated and the truth came to light in less than a year. That seems pretty good going.

  Yes, people were "deceived" ... for a period of time. Do we expect the full truth of a situation to be immediately apparent from the second it happens? It just takes time to gather all the evidence and facts and put them together.

  We assume no one would lie about certain things because it seems incredible to do so. I think it's a reasonable stance and assumption to make - cater for the 99.9% of cases, not the extreme crazy ones.
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  Anders Andersen

  Simon,

  True, but still....

  ...people tend to trust other (unknown) people by default (fraude and con men exploit that)

  ...apparently telling a story of some sort (being a victim, selling Paradise, I am a Nigerian prince...) tends to somewhat make our logic thinking be put on the back burner (when compared to stating facts without a narrative)

  This makes me remember I read about a study that found that people are more willing to say yes to a request when there is a narrative or reason stated.

  'Excuse me, can I please go before you at the copier, because I really need to copy this...'

  yields significantly better results than just

  'Excuse me, can I please go before you at the copier?'

  In the first case, no more information is conveyed than in the other case. However, since a reason is explicitly stated (although obvious, why else would you be at the copier), the requestee assumes the asker already thought about it, and his own logic thinking is bypassed.

  (Of course this works within limits)