Homo narrare. Narrative Intelligence 3.0: Managing Reality and Influencing People

Among the many hormones that influence human behavior, oxytocin stands out. Known as the «motherhood hormone,» oxytocin plays an important role in social connections. It increases trust, loyalty, and the ability to recognize familiar faces, which helps build stronger relationships. Oxytocin also calms people, reducing anxiety by signaling to the brain that the person is safe. In animals, oxytocin encourages friendly behavior that strengthens social bonds, and in humans, it works in much the same way.

The traditional roles of men and women in society lasted for thousands of years partly because they were linked to physical differences and hormonal systems. Women’s higher levels of oxytocin make them more social, while men’s lower levels make them more aggressive and cautious. These traits likely helped early humans survive, with women maintaining harmony in the home and men protecting their families. This distinction supported survival: women acted as the keepers of the hearth, filling homes with warmth and calm, while men took on the role of a brutish and wary security service guarding the cave paradise.

Oxytocin also helps people sense the emotions of others. Even a small dose of oxytocin can improve how well someone understands others, leading to better relationships both at home and at work. For example, when men are given oxytocin through a nasal spray, they become better at noticing other people’s feelings, make more eye contact, and show more trust – sometimes even becoming overly trusting. This hormone reduces selfishness and strengthens trust within groups, though it does not necessarily increase distrust of outsiders.

Experiments have shown how powerful oxytocin can be. In one study, men were exposed to oxytocin and then shown images of people while hearing unpleasant news. Despite the negative information, their perception of the people’s attractiveness did not change, and they were more likely to trust the individuals in the images, even sharing personal information with them.

Oxytocin is produced when people feel cared for and trusted. This encourages social interaction and boosts empathy. In fact, to persuade someone, it may be enough to simply inspire their empathy. By modeling emotions effectively, it is possible to motivate others to take specific actions.

Paul Zak, a scientist, explored ways to naturally stimulate the production of oxytocin to encourage cooperative behavior. In one experiment, participants at a charity event watched two videos. One presented facts in a formal and emotionless way, while the other delivered the same information through a dramatic and emotionally engaging story. The viewers of the second video donated significantly more money, proving that emotional storytelling is far more effective in driving action. This ability to evoke empathy and trust often determines whether a panhandler receives money or is ignored. Why do people give money to some beggars and not to others? Because some succeed in evoking sympathy and, as a result, trust in their plight, while others fail to convince. To capture attention, emotion is needed; to inspire belief, empathy is essential. Thus, if you need to persuade someone to do anything – donate money, choose a brand, believe a story, and more – you must evoke sympathy and empathy. To the popular aphorism «No one can be trusted,» one might add, «Not even yourself.»

In 1976, Francis Veber’s film The Toy, starring Pierre Richard, tells the story of a journalist who temporarily becomes the plaything of a media tycoon’s son. In one scene, Pierre Richard’s character invites the spoiled boy to play a game of running a newspaper. The child gets absorbed in the activity, but the journalist is taken aback when young Éric Rambal-Cochet confidently offers advice on headlines: «Instead of stating, „100 died in a US train crash,“ it should read, „100 French people killed in a horrific disaster.“ Dad says the French only care about French corpses.»

In today’s interpretation, it can be said that the boy implied that changing the emotional texture of the phrase can attract attention and elevate cortisol and oxytocin levels in readers.

The more often certain emotions are associated with certain images and phrases, the more stable this connection becomes.

The introduction of functional MRI (fMRI) technology revolutionized the study of brain activity. At Princeton University, neuroscientist Uri Hasson measured the brain activity of a woman as she told a deeply personal story. Her auditory cortex responded to her own voice, and her frontal and parietal lobes – the areas of the brain linked to emotions – were active as she processed her narrative. When others listened to her story, their brains showed similar activity, activating the same emotional areas at the same moments. Hasson concluded that the brain’s patterns, whether triggered by personal experiences, reading, or storytelling, blur the lines between experiencing events firsthand and hearing about them.

The concept of «limbic resonance» helps explain how mothers instinctively «sense» their children. This synchronization of the limbic systems – the brain’s emotional center – of a parent and child relies on nonverbal signals. These same signals are crucial in broader human interactions. The more people share stories, the more likely they are to experience this neural synchronization and emotional connection.

Humans often act based on stories, adopting the experiences of storytellers as if they were their own. For example, someone trying to defuse a fake bomb instinctively looks for red and blue wires, influenced by countless movie scenes. Similarly, when people see a moving light in the night sky, they may think of aliens, as this is the most common narrative about such events.

Raymond Mar studied brain activity during fiction reading and found that sensory and motor regions of the brain activated as if readers were living the events themselves. He concluded that the ability to immerse oneself in a story improves empathy and social understanding. Interestingly, people who read fiction regularly tend to have better social skills and stronger support networks than those who read nonfiction, who report higher stress levels. Mar suggested that the key difference lies in how stories are structured: narratives create stronger engagement than factual explanations.

In the end, presenting information as a story, drama, or another form of narrative becomes much more convincing when it deeply involves the audience. The more engaged people feel, the greater the effect on their understanding and beliefs. This process allows people to identify with the characters in a story, making fictional figures feel as real as close family members. The blurred line between fiction and reality takes on new meaning as scientists study how stories shape people’s views of the world.

Melanie Green and Timothy Brock found that stories can change beliefs by reducing awareness of real-world facts that contradict the story. Emotional narratives encourage people to identify with characters, making the story’s message more persuasive. Anneke de Graaf and Letty Hustinx showed that narratives with emotional tension and logical flow are more effective at aligning beliefs with the storyteller’s message. This highlights the importance of well-constructed storytelling.

Beyond the physiological and logical aspects of how people perceive information, stories also serve as powerful learning tools. Studies show that learning reshapes the brain’s structure, forming new connections through everyday experiences, education, and emotional stories. These changes emphasize how deeply storytelling influences the brain’s development.

Although there is still much to learn about the brain, what we do know shows how stories affect emotions, trust, beliefs, and actions. Just as food nourishes the body, well-structured and meaningful stories nourish the mind. If good food gives energy, helps growth, and brings satisfaction, what might we gain from compelling stories and thoughtful narratives?

Thinking, or the Narrative Fair

Do we think, or do we merely justify ourselves? Why is humanity always enslaved by the story it is told?

My son will be a lawyer like me, and I’m counting on his domain being a prosperous practice.

Pierre Verne, father of Jules Verne. His son became a great writer.

Modern knowledge already enables us to deliberately shape worldviews according to externally imposed meanings and externally pursued goals. We are both perfect and imperfect at the same time. The prevailing imperative of consuming in the here and now, characteristic of us all, already casts doubt on the existence of future generations. One thing can be stated with confidence: the majority of humanity, having managed to survive under dubious regimes and in a toxic environment, will inevitably be enslaved by the stories told to them, no matter the circumstances. And enslaved, dependent people always underestimate their own abilities and potential.

We do not notice changes because we live in a world of stereotypes – stereotypes of perceiving meaning. Our brain and body seize every opportunity to avoid activating consciousness because they do not intend to rely on it. All our lives, we try to train the mammal that we are – or at least explain and justify its behavior to ourselves. A person cannot be understood merely as what they do, say, or think. Behavior can be shaped by entirely different and hidden causes: actions by the instinct to impress or escape, words by the desire to dominate or defend, and thoughts by fear or love – or both at once. But a person is all these things together; they are all these narratives about admiration, submission, fear, and love. Or at least they seem so to us…

The expression «to be, not to seem» carries a paradoxical meaning. We are as we are, and our environment sees us as we are. At the same time, we seem to ourselves as we are, and then we become what we seemed to ourselves. What is fulfilled is what you strive for, not what you avoid. Movement «toward something» differs from movement «away from something.» It is like replacing forecasting with planning. We persistently follow the scripts of our meanings because meanings are what our brain creates to confirm the coherence and identity of our personality, as well as the consistency and causality of our actions. The brain is constantly focused on justifying our existence and deeds. Deep down, we always forgive ourselves our mistakes, viewing them as well-thought-out and wise schemes that simply did not work for various reasons.

But do we truly think? What do we mean by «thinking»? The term «thinking» emerged from an unsuccessful attempt to describe our mental activity. Even today, when we know incomparably more about the source and location of «thinking» than in past millennia, there is still no reliable picture of how we actually think.

There are some facts and assertions. For instance, thinking is influenced by associative memory and prevailing narratives. All our judgments, preferences, tastes, and decision-making systems are based on this memory. Even when we decide what is good or bad, right or wrong, beautiful or not, it is all determined not by our sight, smell, or hearing but by memory and the stories tied to these evaluations that we tell ourselves.

According to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, language determines our thinking. The work of artificial intelligence operates similarly – a system of words, corresponding images, speech constructs, and associated concepts. It is an imitation of mental activity, a game with connections to the real world.

Most children raised in contemporary culture cannot adequately describe the processes happening around them because their vocabulary no longer matches their growing, diversifying experience. To some extent, both language and its established codifications are to blame for our simplified perception of the environment and superficial thinking. With the current pace of development, we need more words to formulate problems. However, the vocabulary used to describe them is catastrophically shrinking, even as new terms accompanying progress emerge.

Every day, we make hundreds of choices and provide hundreds of answers to questions humanity faces. Yet we lack both the time and understanding of the essence of these problems. People involve artificial intelligence, transferring responsibility to machine code. But they forget that in any case, the conclusion to their decisions, choices, answers, and intricate life narratives will ultimately be a stone bearing two dates: the date of entry and the date of exit from the tiresome necessity of choosing. It is worth remembering that after the exit date, there is not only no choice but, strictly speaking, nothing at all. However, there is nothing only for the individual, not for the artificial systems they created to simulate thinking. Where and how does the boundary of trust in such decision-making programs lie – programs indifferent to the lives of specific men and women and bearing no responsibility for them?

The very first question God asked Adam, «Where are you?» has echoed through the air of human civilization for thousands of years. Where are we in relation to God’s plan? Where do we walk, and why? What do we seek, and is it what we find? And while people strive to answer these profound questions, stories with ready-made answers, narratives with meanings and goals, artificial intelligence, and other distractions have already been prepared for them to bypass the tedious moment of philosophical reflection and start entertaining themselves and spending money. Money they will again have to earn «by the sweat of their brow,» as God promised in response to Adam’s timid justification for his transgression.

But not because all these enticing stories about success, struggle, consumption, and power were invented by some greedy members of a secret club of hidden knowledge, worshippers of the cult of capital, and global domination. Of course not. Simply because these club members are also compelled to spend money by other narratives and other secret clubs. Such is the endless carousel of life, commonly referred to as the spiral of development.

How We Decide and Do We Really Decide?

We don’t choose; we just tell ourselves about our choices.

Be careful of your thoughts – they are the beginning of acts.

Lao Tzu

We do not know how we make decisions; we only know what we intend to do. Several decades ago, Daniel Goleman introduced an important thesis: humans actually make decisions emotionally, then use their consciousness to justify and rationalize those decisions. This process unfolds so seamlessly and skillfully that we rarely question the order in which decisions are made.

Living under the illusion of «conscious choice,» people seek to confirm their worldview and maintain the integrity of their personality – or what they perceive as their personality. The process of «self-acknowledgment» involves numerous factors influencing their thinking, actions, and outcomes. Given the multitude of these factors, their combination sometimes results in paradoxical, absurd, or meaningless decisions.

For example, one influencing factor is social desirability – the need to be accepted by one’s peers. Another is the tendency to embrace pleasant information more readily than unpleasant information. By assembling these factors like Lego blocks, people can be subtly and painlessly coerced into doing one thing over another. They may be led to act modestly or submissively, aggressively or in strict adherence to pre-established rituals.

There is much we cannot yet explain but perceive as ordinary, recurring coincidences or random events. For instance, how someone occasionally guesses another’s thoughts, even though no material explanation exists for this phenomenon. Or how the brain constantly seeks reassurance in the possibility of choice, comforting itself with the notion that change or influence is still attainable. The essence of this illusion lies in the brain’s «unconscious» selection of decisions, later framed and explained as conscious choices. It selects from what it already knows, associates with such choices, and can rationalize.

These explanations serve as confirmations of one’s conceptuality, strategy, and behavioral control – but not the behavior itself. This is evident in cases of inexplicable, superstitious, or ritualistic behavior. Consider soccer players kissing the field as they enter, top executives wearing a special tie for important presentations, or mafiosi meeting their end despite their «lucky» coats. These rituals and superstitions effectively signify people enlisting their subconscious in the service of their success.

The recurring narratives of lucky ties and coats increasingly influence individuals and entire generations. Immersion in such narratives leads to overlooking the most important thing – life itself. One might live someone else’s life, pursuing goals that are not their own. At the very least, one should have a general guide – a quick start manual – on how this all works: what captures attention, how memory functions, how decisions are made and based on what, how judgments are formed, and how perceptions of the world are constructed.

Many play video games and expect each subsequent level to be harder than the last. Players are prepared for this. But who said that each subsequent stage of life or history should be easier than the one before? Essentially, this is merely an expectation – a desired picture we have created in our minds. Who promised us such a picture besides ourselves? No one. We told it to ourselves.

The readiness for increasing difficulty in video games stems from the fact that the game and its rules were invented by players. It is merely a model with a predefined scenario and anticipated conclusion. But in real life, the concept of a «game» is different. We create narratives but do not always adhere to the rules of the environment in which they unfold. We demand and expect rewards for each stage of life but fail to do what is necessary to achieve them. We crave peace, stability, prosperity, and well-being simply because it is written into our narrative. But such things are not part of the environment’s rules. Perhaps the chosen narrative does not align with our aspirations and capabilities.

When expectations clash with the emerging reality, a conflict – a drama – arises. What is the purpose of such narratives if we should have better understood the language in which they are written in the first place? We should create a higher-quality game code so we do not have to search for errors and rewrite entire blocks of our lives later.

«Effective» experience is the repeated practice of illusions. The experience of quick results from actions, from pressing buttons and clicking a mouse, lacks meaningful content, leading to the reinforcement of superficial attitudes toward reality. As a result, people today readily accept both scientific and conspiratorial theories of events, backing them up with randomly created but conveniently fitting facts. This is done as quickly as the subsequent disappointment in such constructs sets in. The nature of the processes that create and destroy these assumptions and narratives remains unexamined. The world lives in a constant state of impatience and expectation.

Understanding the driving narratives provides an advantage in controlling and directing events. The paradox is that even when studying their narratives, people rarely attempt to build a system. It all boils down to telling themselves yet another story about the system. Facts mean little to people unless they are arranged into a story. It is not facts but stories that help us plan, predict changes, and survive.

Everything in the world evolves according to its own scale of unpredictability and levels of expectation. It is easy to believe that our expectations are also secretly controlled and, depending on the political situation, steered in a particular direction. The key is that there is some truth to this.

Whoever Controls Attention Controls the World

If the eyes are the organ of vision, then the brain, particularly its cortex, is the organ of insight.

Just as the mode of the rational mind is words, the mode of the emotions is nonverbal.

Daniel Goleman

It has been wittily noted that emotional intelligence comes into play when, unable to sell something, there is at least the possibility of enticing. More seriously, the essence and understanding of emotional intelligence lie within the very definition of emotion. Emotion is a psychological process that reflects our subjective evaluative attitude toward a current or potential situation. The key word in this definition is «subjective.»

The concepts of «feelings» and «emotions» are often conflated. Feeling is the fusion of thought and emotion and even something more profound than their wordless reunion. Emotions, on the other hand, are simpler and quite manageable.

By nature, the use of emotions in active interaction with the environment constitutes an irrational form of influence. However, it is effective and easily understood, as it does not require deep analysis, calculations, or planning. Often, a single glance conveys more information than hundreds of words or thousands of figures.

The work with rationality – reasoning, ideas, and assumptions, accompanied by clarity and logic – has its downsides. These processes, due to their linearity and sequential nature, proceed slowly and are extremely energy-intensive. The quality of results and the level of intelligence depend on many factors, not only innate but also acquired, such as vocabulary, education, and upbringing. Therefore, mental processes and the constructs they create can be compared to the strategy of a general staff, whereas the work of emotional intelligence resembles tactical operations directly on the front line.

There is a belief that to manage something, one must control it. Control implies understanding what is happening and what needs to be done to bring about something different. Humans strive to control everything they can imagine and measure. However, this rational approach to controlling the irrational – in this case, emotions – has its peculiarities.

Igor Grossmann and Ethan Kross observed that people can usually distance themselves from others’ stories. Nevertheless, they struggle to maintain such detachment when dealing with emotionally significant problems in their own lives. Researchers call this the Solomon Paradox.

The task of emotional intelligence is not to engage in control in the conventional sense of the word but to focus on understanding experiences. To comprehend emotions, they must be felt, experienced, and identified – given a name. However, this does not mean blindly following them. One should follow goals and what is necessary, which often diverges from the direction emotions indicate. Either you manage your emotions, or they manage you.

Using emotional intelligence allows for deliberate influence and drawing attention to what is essential. The volume of information entering the brain through all channels in one second amounts to approximately 400 billion bits. Consciousness processes only about 2,000 bits. Given the overwhelming influx of information, people focus on what they perceive as the most important. Simultaneously, many reactions or decisions shift into the brain’s background mode. To create a mental image, the brain filters out most incoming data and uses pre-existing information stored in memory. In this competition of priorities, emotions uniquely highlight what truly deserves attention, aiding in consolidating this «important» information in memory.

Despite this process, honed over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, challenges persist today. Recent studies have shown that the average attention span of people using multiple electronic devices has dropped from twelve seconds to eight seconds – one second less than that of a goldfish.

We are accustomed to thinking that emotions focus attention on events or phenomena prioritized by the individual. Yet, with equal likelihood, emotions can focus attention on priorities presented by the surrounding environment. Through emotions, bypassing the rational filter of consciousness, the environment gains access to older brain structures than the cortex. This enables the management of attention and the emergence of desires. Whoever controls attention controls the world. Emotional influence in economics and business aligns with the well-known mantra: «If you take enough of nothing, you will get something.» Emotions are that intangible «nothing» that can be transformed into tangible «something.»