Emotion through Narrative
Description:
Motivator 1: Narrative is the most human motivator of all. Humans naturally love hearing stories. Their brains respond more to a compelling tale than statistics and facts. Stories serve as a tool to establish higher meaning and purpose behind the activity. The better the presentation of the story, the more responsive the target will be.
Motivator 1: Narrative on the motivation map
Strengths:
Produce feel-good hormones
Produce feelings of excitement
Easy to share and achieve viral growth
Weaknesses:
High demand on quality storytelling
Lack of Urgency
Relationship with other Motivators:
Motivator 8: Fear enforces a strong sense of urgency at the cost of leaving a sour taste in the mouth. Narrative can lessen the negative consequences of fear. First use fear to motivate people to take action and then immediately use a compelling story to calm them afterwards.
Motivator 5: Social Connection is enhanced through the use of collective narratives. Stories can be used to encourage millions to come together for a good cause. Strong personal stories keep the group together for as long as possible. In other words, Motivator 1 is perfect for long-term community engagement.
Motivator 2: Progress and accomplishments can be used to increase the emotive force of a story. Humans like to hear success stories of triumph in the face of great adversity due to diligent effort. It is because success stories activate positive feelings of optimism in the brain.
Psychological Techniques:
World Narrative – Use audio logs, video logs, labels, visual design, item descriptions and past newspapers together in a strategic way to establish a world narrative. Allow them to discover these narrative tools on their own to build up the puzzle of the story on their own. They will feel emotionally connected to your business afterwards.
Character Arcs – Humans like to hear stories about individual people. So share the vulnerable memories of accomplishments, failures, embarrassing moments and childhood experiences from the people involved periodically to slowly build up the human connection. Once the connection is established, you can begin the process of influencing them.
Luck – Intentionally introduce luck within the system using probability models. Humans tend to make up stories when they encounter lucky instances. So use that instinct to your advantage.
Music – Ambient music from the performance of an orchestra adds more punch to the stories being told. Always try to put music behind your stories whenever you have enough resources to do so.
Link your stories to a good cause or ideal: An ideal works like a collective narrative that people can subscribe to. Moreover it has the ability to rally like-minded people together. Humans also like to be consistent with their good nature in order to impress their peers. Subscribing to an ideal or cause they care deeply about will compel them to share their views with their friends automatically.