How Stories Change Us

How Stories Change Us PDF Author: Elaine Reese
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197747922
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
In recent years, gold-standard experimental evidence on the benefits of reading fiction has exploded. Why do we love stories from books, TV and movies, and videogames? What do fictional stories have to do with stories from real life? How do stories impact our own and our children's brain development, reading skills, social understanding, and well-being? In How Stories Change Us, Elaine Reese integrates the latest scientific research on stories from fiction (books, TV shows and movies, videogames) with stories from real life (our personal experiences, including on social media) across the lifespan. The book offers an authoritative yet accessible overview of the new interdisciplinary science of stories, told by a developmental psychologist and autobiographical memory expert with over thirty years of experience conducting research on stories. Throughout, Reese adopts a developmental perspective by tracing the impact of stories from pre-birth to old age. Drawing upon illustrative examples from her 20-year longitudinal study Origins of Memory as well as from her own life, Reese synthesizes cutting-edge research on the benefits and pitfalls of stories and offers practical tips for parents, teachers, librarians, and policymakers. Reese concludes that people have a preferred fictional story delivery system, whether it's reading, watching, or gaming, and she advocates for a more integrated science of stories to allow us to better choose the stories we consume and tell.

How Stories Change Us

How Stories Change Us PDF Author: Elaine Reese
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197747922
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book Here

Book Description
In recent years, gold-standard experimental evidence on the benefits of reading fiction has exploded. Why do we love stories from books, TV and movies, and videogames? What do fictional stories have to do with stories from real life? How do stories impact our own and our children's brain development, reading skills, social understanding, and well-being? In How Stories Change Us, Elaine Reese integrates the latest scientific research on stories from fiction (books, TV shows and movies, videogames) with stories from real life (our personal experiences, including on social media) across the lifespan. The book offers an authoritative yet accessible overview of the new interdisciplinary science of stories, told by a developmental psychologist and autobiographical memory expert with over thirty years of experience conducting research on stories. Throughout, Reese adopts a developmental perspective by tracing the impact of stories from pre-birth to old age. Drawing upon illustrative examples from her 20-year longitudinal study Origins of Memory as well as from her own life, Reese synthesizes cutting-edge research on the benefits and pitfalls of stories and offers practical tips for parents, teachers, librarians, and policymakers. Reese concludes that people have a preferred fictional story delivery system, whether it's reading, watching, or gaming, and she advocates for a more integrated science of stories to allow us to better choose the stories we consume and tell.

Telling Stories to Change the World

Telling Stories to Change the World PDF Author: Rickie Solinger
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135901260
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 477

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Book Description
Telling Stories to Change the World is a powerful collection of essays about community-based and interest-based projects where storytelling is used as a strategy for speaking out for justice. Contributors from locations across the globe—including Uganda, Darfur, China, Afghanistan, South Africa, New Orleans, and Chicago—describe grassroots projects in which communities use narrative as a way of exploring what a more just society might look like and what civic engagement means. These compelling accounts of resistance, hope, and vision showcase the power of the storytelling form to generate critique and collective action. Together, these projects demonstrate the contemporary power of stories to stimulate engagement, active citizenship, the pride of identity, and the humility of human connectedness.

Stories of Change

Stories of Change PDF Author: Joseph E. Davis
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791489531
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
Despite the amount of storytelling in social movements, little attention has been paid to narrative as a form of movement discourse or as a mode of social interaction. Stories of Change is a systematic study of narrative as well as a demonstration of the power of narrative analysis to illuminate many features of contemporary social movements. Davis includes a wide array of stories of change—stories of having been harmed or wronged, stories of conflict with unjust authorities, stories of liberation and empowerment, and stories of strategic success and failure. By showing how these stories are a powerful vehicle for producing, regulating, and diffusing shared meaning, the contributors explore movement stories, their functions, and the conditions under which they are created and performed. They show how narrative study can illuminate social movement emergence, recruitment, internal dynamics, and identity building.

Smart Talk

Smart Talk PDF Author: Lisa B. Marshall
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 1250029589
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Have you ever lost out on a promotion? Struggled with a difficult conversation? Been put on the spot and blanked? Imagine if... ...you were better at persuading others and negotiating for what you want. ...you were more fluent at introducing yourself, making conversation, and following up. ...you were better at delivering feedback, receiving criticism, and using positive language. ...you were perceived as more diplomatic and charismatic. Smart Talk applies up-to-date communication research to everyday situations and gives smart, practical, step-by-step directions to achieve results. Smart Talk is no ordinary book— it's the Swiss Army Knife of communication—a comprehensive set of tools to build strong relationships and avoid communication breakdowns. With proven strategies and practical action plans, Smart Talk will help you resolve conflicts, strengthen your natural charisma, and master the art of persuasion. Never again will you dread a holiday party or be rendered speechless at a business meeting. Backed by solid research and written in an engaging narrative style with a warm sense of humor, communication expert Lisa B. Marshall translates her wealth of experience into practical, fresh advice to help you navigate any complex situation, and achieve professional success.

Trust Factor

Trust Factor PDF Author: Paul J. Zak
Publisher: HarperChristian + ORM
ISBN: 0814437672
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Why is the culture of a stagnant workplace so difficult to improve? Learn to cultivate a workplace where trust, joy, and commitment compounds naturally by harnessing the power of neurochemistry! For decades, business leaders have been equipping themselves with every book, philosophy, reward, and program, yet companies everywhere continue to struggle with toxic cultures, and the unhappiness and low productivity that go with them. In Trust Factor, neuroscientist Paul Zak shows that innate brain functions hold the answers we’ve been looking for. Put simply, the key to providing an engaging, encouraging, positive culture that keeps your employees energized is trust. When someone shows you trust, a feel-good jolt of oxytocin surges through your brain and triggers you to reciprocate. Within this book, Zak explains topics such as: How brain chemicals affect behavior Why trust gets squashed How to stimulate trust within your employees And much more! This book also incorporates science-based insights for building high-trust organizations with successful examples from The Container Store, Zappos, and Herman Miller. Stop recycling the same ineffective strategies and programs for improving culture. By using the simple mechanisms in Trust Factor, you can create a perpetual trust-building cycle between your management and staff, thus ending stubborn workplace patterns.

The Science of Storytelling

The Science of Storytelling PDF Author: Will Storr
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 168335818X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
The compelling, groundbreaking guide to creative writing that reveals how the brain responds to storytelling Stories shape who we are. They drive us to act out our dreams and ambitions and mold our beliefs. Storytelling is an essential part of what makes us human. So, how do master storytellers compel us? In The Science of Storytelling, award-winning writer and acclaimed teacher of creative writing Will Storr applies dazzling psychological research and cutting-edge neuroscience to our myths and archetypes to show how we can write better stories, revealing, among other things, how storytellers—and also our brains—create worlds by being attuned to moments of unexpected change. Will Storr’s superbly chosen examples range from Harry Potter to Jane Austen to Alice Walker, Greek drama to Russian novels to Native American folk tales, King Lear to Breaking Bad to children’s stories. With sections such as “The Dramatic Question,” “Creating a World,” and “Plot, Endings, and Meaning,” as well as a practical, step-by-step appendix dedicated to “The Sacred Flaw Approach,” The Science of Storytelling reveals just what makes stories work, placing it alongside such creative writing classics as John Yorke’s Into the Woods: A Five-Act Journey into Story and Lajos Egri’s The Art of Dramatic Writing. Enlightening and empowering, The Science of Storytelling is destined to become an invaluable resource for writers of all stripes, whether novelist, screenwriter, playwright, or writer of creative or traditional nonfiction.

The Storytelling Animal

The Storytelling Animal PDF Author: Jonathan Gottschall
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547391404
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
A provocative scholar delivers the first book on the new science of storytelling: the latest thinking on why we tell stories and what stories reveal about human nature.

The Compassionate Instinct: The Science of Human Goodness

The Compassionate Instinct: The Science of Human Goodness PDF Author: Dacher Keltner
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393076857
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Leading scientists and science writers reflect on the life-changing, perspective-changing, new science of human goodness. Where once science painted humans as self-seeking and warlike, today scientists of many disciplines are uncovering the deep roots of human goodness. At the forefront of this revolution in scientific understanding is the Greater Good Science Center, based at the University of California, Berkeley. The center fuses its cutting-edge research with inspiring stories of compassion in action in Greater Good magazine. The best of these writings are collected here, and contributions from Steven Pinker, Robert Sapolsky, Paul Ekman, Michael Pollan, and the Dalai Lama, among others, will make you think not only about what it means to be happy and fulfilled but also what it means to lead an ethical and compassionate life.

The Write to Happiness

The Write to Happiness PDF Author: Samantha Shad
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
ISBN: 164279810X
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
The author of Write Through the Crisis teaches how to craft better stories and how writing can improve the writer’s mind and their life. The Write to Happiness is a miraculous tool that helps writers change their lives in the direction they choose. With this book, author Samantha Shad teaches self-help enthusiasts and writers how to create great stories and how writing can change their life for the better, whether it is the main focal point or not. Samantha shows writers how the process for positively changing the brain and the process for writing a great story are the same. The Write to Happiness teaches story structure from the professionals to help writers understand the power of storytelling, while also teaching them: · why gossiping is central to their existence · how forgetting gives meaning · why memory is a myth · what happens in your brain when you read and when you write Now you will be able to simultaneously change your life and tell your story. Praise for The Write to Happiness “Put Samantha Shad’s book at the top of your reading list. Not just because of the masterfully delivered scientific data that demonstrates how the act of writing can provide solace for heart, body, and soul, but especially for the hard-won wisdom that teaches how we can all manifest the confidence to create conscious choice in our lives.”—Georgia Jeffries, author, screenwriter, and professor, University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts “An intelligent, thoughtful, and thoroughly entertaining presentation of the best strategies and tactics for crafting the best stories.”—Carl Nordgren, author of Becoming a Creative Genius (again)

Story Genius

Story Genius PDF Author: Lisa Cron
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
ISBN: 1607748894
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Following on the heels of Lisa Cron's breakout first book, Wired for Story, this writing guide reveals how to use cognitive storytelling strategies to build a scene-by-scene blueprint for a riveting story. It’s every novelist’s greatest fear: pouring their blood, sweat, and tears into writing hundreds of pages only to realize that their story has no sense of urgency, no internal logic, and so is a page one rewrite. The prevailing wisdom in the writing community is that there are just two ways around this problem: pantsing (winging it) and plotting (focusing on the external plot). Story coach Lisa Cron has spent her career discovering why these methods don’t work and coming up with a powerful alternative, based on the science behind what our brains are wired to crave in every story we read (and it’s not what you think). In Story Genius Cron takes you, step-by-step, through the creation of a novel from the first glimmer of an idea, to a complete multilayered blueprint—including fully realized scenes—that evolves into a first draft with the authority, richness, and command of a riveting sixth or seventh draft.