The Science of Storytelling

Plus a New Demand-Capacity Model of Curiosity

This is part of a series on curiosity including how this strength changes over the lifespan (click here), enhances creativity (click here), alters social interactions (click here), persuades people (click here), and has hidden costs (click here). If you want full access to 170+ Provoked posts, upgrade to paid.

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A few of us were discussing Breaking Bad at a psychology conference. An eminent psychologist we tried to impress interrupted us, “I don’t do fiction. I don’t waste time with television, movies, or books. But I’m glad it makes you happy.” We quietly shared a bombastic side-eye thinking - there is something elitist about denigrating interests shared by the majority of the world’s population in one breath.

Consider an alternative view by George R. R. Martin:

I have lived a thousand lives and I have loved a thousand loves. I have walked on distant worlds and I have seen the end of time. Because I read.

Or watch the 1959 Twilight Zone episode, 'Time Enough at Last.' Henry Bemis, is a hermit-like bank teller, a man who craves the escape of fiction in a world that doesn't value it. His boss, his wife, they all see his reading as a frivolous diversion from the 'real' world. But for Bemis, these books are his access to a thousand lives he'll never live, a thousand loves he'll never know.

Then, in a twist of fate, he finds himself the sole survivor of a nuclear apocalypse. Amid the ruins of his city, he stumbles upon the remains of a library. Suddenly, he has all the time in the world and a city's worth of books to read. A testament to the power of fiction to provide solace, even in the bleakest of circumstances.

But, in a cruel twist of irony, his glasses shatter, leaving him virtually blind and unable to read. The episode ends with Bemis in despair - surrounded by books that are cruelly snatched away.

Caught between the dismissive stance of an eminent psychologist who deems fiction as trivial, and the perspectives of George R.R. Martin and Bemis, I found myself wanting to know why humans are captivated by a good story.

There happens to be captivating research on why (most) humans love fiction…