
Good Storytellers Are Happier in Life and in Love - pepy
http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-good-storytellers-are-happier-in-life-and-in-love-1467652052
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dominotw
You know its going to be pure garbage when the title is 'Doing X makes you
happy!! '.

Fuck these studies that can never be reproduced even under the exact
circumstances. These charlatans continue to be allocated funds instead of
going to jail; despite being exposed as frauds countless times.

Just because reading stuff like this gives us good vibes doesn't mean we
should continue wasting money on these "studies". Time to say enough is enough
and put these "professors" behind bars for wasting public money.

This pointless scientific approach to human behavior and society has
distracted us from any genuine discussion about our own internal and external
conflicts . A Human being to these people is a machine which when given input
X produces output Y.

Why do we continue to accept this?

~~~
dcposch
I think "jail the professors" is too extreme. There needs to be a more
constructive solution.

I completely agree with your assessment of the problem.

~~~
nxzero
(Careful, heard this "story" about dcposch, he might send you to jail too.)

On more factual note, it's a known issue that as you move from hard to soft
sciences that positive results increase:

[http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0010068)

Fields studying topics like "happiness" tend to validate their hypothesis over
90% of the time; which means something fishy is going on.

~~~
Ma8ee
Or they just chose to test something fairly obvious, like that people that are
good at things are considered more attractive than people who aren't.

~~~
lsinger
... or negative results are a lot less likely to be accepted for publication.

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Axsuul
So how does one become a good storyteller? Obviously it takes experience but
is there a book that anyone can recommend to get an edge?

~~~
Theodores
Storytelling is learned as a child, think about it - every day child comes
home and tells mummy all about their day. In this circumstance mummy can say
'very good, now play over there!' or they can ask questions about the story,
e.g. ask for details to be explained or parts told again. It is this
storytelling ability learned as a child rather than anything that can be done
as an adult. You could learn and master everything this guy says about writing
a good story:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McKee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McKee)

But it is not about that, it is about simple stories.

A lot of people travel to very nice places on holiday, some people don't get
to do that. But have you noticed people that you work with go somewhere
fantastic and then have nothing to say about it? Bad storytelling!!!

Meanwhile, a good storyteller will be able to walk into town, or maybe just
take their dog for a walk and be able to come back with a story. The story
could be anecdotal, something seen along the way, or it could be about some
other dog and owner met. Bungie jumping in Borneo might not be something that
really helps conversation, people don't relate to it, no matter how outer-
worldly it is. However, meeting a sweet dog and lovely owner, a story can come
out of that, one that can be related to.

Going back to childhood, there are other opportunities - the formal dinner
setting where adults are willing to listen to a child's story. For a child to
hold their own and maybe get laughs, that all has to be learned. If the child
has a reputation for disruption then the invite to the top table will not be a
thing and the opportunity to tell stories in a way that works with an audience
is not there.

If a child is brought up without love then there is no chance for that child
to learn how to tell stories in a social setting, i.e. relevant (beginning,
middle, end), with audience engaged, true rather than fanciful, with
consideration for others that are different and so on. The ability to tell
stories that people want to hear should be an innate thing, developed with
language. But some kids are not loved and therefore do not have that social
engagement where stories are shared. These kids grow up in their own world so
they do have stories but they only make sense in their world, not some broader
happy society context. Hence not good story tellers. The motivation and the
innate ability is not there.

Therefore I suspect that there are reasons why being a good storyteller is a
signifier. Would you want someone that does not do stories to be parenting
your child? No. For men this is not thought of as such a big deal, but why is
this? Men do not have maternal instincts and it is the 'mother's tongue' that
gets learned for a good reason. Women know they can get a more loving partner
by rating the story telling ability of men, men don't always care about that.

It is possible to help someone that is not a good storyteller become better at
it. This involves treating them a little bit like how you might have a
conversation with an 8 year old child, asking lots of basic questions to get
them comfortable sharing the story. I have yet to meet a human being that does
not like talking, even if shy. Just through listening and questions one can
get someone able to do things like stick to the plot and not go rambling off.
Then through normal friendship you can get them to want to share stories. So
far everything is all about them... But, listen, ask the right questions.
Then, as time goes by you can start to get to talk about other stories, e.g.
one's own or the world at large, or involving a shared interest. This sort of
therapy is not available on the NHS, however, people do make friends at work
and those that don't have the childhood wiring for good storytelling can be
brought into the fold, gossip coaxed out of them on tea breaks.

Clearly the internet has created new opportunities for storytelling. If you
are not from that broken home/foster home background where things like
storytelling just do not get learned, then what to do? Write!!! If you get
good feedback on your writing then you will be encouraged to further develop
your storytelling ability. Although there are big books that can tell you how
to do it better, practice is the true teacher.

With respect to the article, I see storytelling as something very much tied
into child development and I don't see how that aspect can't be gone into
properly.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>But have you noticed people that you work with go somewhere fantastic and
then have nothing to say about it? Bad storytelling!!!

I'm not a bad storyteller. I just like to think about the future and discuss
_ideas_ with people, rather than think about the past and discuss events.

~~~
dualogy
Cool story

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bambax
Why do marriages have to be saved, and why are marriage counselors presented
as respectable good guys instead of odious charlatans that prey on the weak
and miserable???

~~~
coldtea
Because marriage, like anything worth its while, is not just instant
gratification, and it often takes effort to make good again.

Or, to answer in another way, because people in falling marriages feel like
it's something worth saving, that they try to find help with achieving that.
Who are you to tell them otherwise, and generalize that to all marriage
counselors and people wanting to save their marriage?

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Kluny
I fully agree that storytelling is an important skill, but boy howdy is that
experiment ridiculous. Every time I read about one of these ridiculous studies
I wish someone would start an organization for reproducing and debunking bad
studies.

~~~
Wilduck
The Open Science Framework has Reproducibility Projects for a number of
different fields. Like this one for Psychology:
[https://osf.io/ezcuj/wiki/home/](https://osf.io/ezcuj/wiki/home/) and are
generally trying to make science more open and reproducible.

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dexwiz
_" Psychologists believe this is because the man is showing that he knows how
to connect, to share emotions and, possibly, to be vulnerable. He also is
indicating that he is interesting and articulate and can gain resources and
provide support."_

Why this disconnect? Isn't storytelling the act of connecting, sharing
emotions, and being vulnerable? The article makes it sound like storytelling
is peacocking. Doing one thing to display a related ability. Like flexing to
show strength. But this is the real act. Of course people who are better at
interpersonal communication are happier because of it.

~~~
amelius
To me it sounds more like the man is indicating he needs other people to
provide support (and motivates them by the story telling techniques he
developed). Most introvert men would probably be able to provide for things
themselves.

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shenanigoat
"The men didn’t care whether the women were good storytellers, the research
showed."

~~~
curiousgal
Men generally have lower standards.

A while ago, I ran two Tinder bots connected to CleverBot; one with a female
account and the other with a male account (Both with attractive pictures).
Female matches did not tolerate the male bot talking gibberish, while male
matches went out of their way to try and make sense of what the female bot was
saying.

Hilarious as it was, I had to cut it because it was immoral.

~~~
a_small_island
How did you account for a woman having many more times the matches of a man?
Wouldn't this influence whether they would be willing to "spend" time on the
match?

~~~
curiousgal
I thought about that and the only thing I could do to address it was by making
the male account _really_ attractive. Couldn't think of a better solution.

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londonfilmgeek
Storytellers are more able to contextualise their misery within an
aspirational framework.

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hackaflocka
Whenever you're not sure whether something is a cause or an effect, look up
Taleb on "Narrative Fallacy."

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likeastone
I know a guy who's an excellent story teller.

He's also a pathological liar who never intends to keep any of his promises.

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vonnik
Matthew Dicks is a great story teller with some good tips:
[http://www.matthewdicks.com/new-page-5/](http://www.matthewdicks.com/new-
page-5/)

[https://themoth.org/storytellers/matthew-
dicks](https://themoth.org/storytellers/matthew-dicks)

