How Telling Stories Makes Us Human

storytelling is a powerful means of fostering social cooperation and teaching social norms, and it pays valuable dividends to the storytellers themselves, improving their chances of being chosen as social partners, receiving community support and even having healthy offspring.

conducting a literature search of 89 different stories told by seven different forager cultures in Thailand, Malaysia, Africa and elsewhere. All of the tales carried lessons about social cooperation, empathy and justice, and many taught sexual equality

One reason for that is obvious: if you’re popular — and storytellers are — you’re more likely to have a partner. Another potential explanation is that the rest of the community is inclined to look favorably on the storyteller’s family and extend help when needed in the form of childcare, pitching in to look after a sick family member, or even offer... See more

dds are, you’ve never heard the story of the wild pig and the seacow — but if you’d heard it, you’d be unlikely to forget it. The wild pig and seacow were best friends who enjoyed racing each other for sport. One day, however, the seacow hurt his legs and could run no more. So the wild pig carried him down to the sea, where they could race forever,... See more

“Storytelling is a costly behavior,” write the researchers, “requiring an input of time and energy into practice, performance and cognitive processing.” But the payoff for making such an effort is big