"How many do you have?"

In "The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity," playing through the end of the month at the Woolly Mammoth Theater in Washington, D.C., Chad Deity says:

"Chad Deity has four crispers in his fridge, and he doesn't even use a crisper."

I've never seen a better or more topical wrestling drama. If you're in the area, go! Tickets available.

Mark Trail, gunshot victim.

Mark Trail has been shot. While we will continue to monitor the situation, we take comfort from the popular-entertainment convention that titular characters are never killed. For instance, in the old Batman TV series, when some villain had Batman dangling by a rope over a vat of deadly acid, what would happen if he fell in -- would the show then be renamed "Mourning Becomes Robin"?

____

[With apologies to Eugene O'Neill.]

A metacognitive approach to problem-solving.

"You're a pretty smart fella."

"Not that smart."

"If you're not that smart, how'd you figure it out?"

"I tried to imagine a fellow smarter than myself. Then I tried to think, 'what would he do?' "

- from Heist (2001) by David Mamet

"My feeling about you is just the opposite."

In 1926, Wolfgang Pauli attended a lecture by Paul Ehrenfest. Afterwards, Pauli made many criticisms, and an exasperated Ehrenfest said:

"I like your publications better than I like you."

Pauli responded:

"Strange. My feeling about you is just the opposite."

____

Source: "137: Jung, Pauli, and the pursuit of a scientific obsession" by Arthur I. Miller.

Everyone Loves a Hero

The archetypical narrative of the hero’s journey – protagonist encounters a challenge, overcomes the challenge, and triumphs over negative forces -- has deep roots in the human psyche. As Steven Denning so brilliantly writes in The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling,

All of us tend to see our own life as a journey with goals and obstacles that get in the way of attaining those goals. So when we hear a story in the form of the hero’s journey, we respond from the deepest reaches of the psyche. This familiar way of looking at the world may be an illusion. True life may actually be a muddle, in which we may never get around to formulating clear goals, so we don’t set out on any journey in which, after encountering obstacles along the way, we finally attain our goal.

We become grown-ups only to find that there are no easy answers (and, to further complicate matters, we can’t let the kids see that we don’t have all the answers). The simple, reliable, and comforting structure of the hero’s journey is in fact how we make sense of the muddle of our lives, how we view our experiences in the world and the experiences of those around us, and how we retell it. The hero’s journey is how we comprehend and derive meaning from our messy lives and the vexing world surrounding us.

Story as a Persuasion Tool

ScienceDaily reports, TV Drama Can Be More Persuasive Than News Program.

An excerpt:

Researchers found that college-age women who viewed a televised drama about a teen pregnancy felt more vulnerable two weeks after watching the show, and this led to more support for using birth control.

However, those who watched a news program detailing the difficulties caused by teen pregnancies were unmoved, and had no change in their intentions to use birth control.

The results show the power that narratives like TV shows can have in influencing people, said Emily Moyer-Gusé, co-author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University.

"A message that is hidden inside of a story may overcome some of the resistance people have to being told how to behave," Moyer-Gusé said.

I was asked by a journalist to comment on this study. Specifically, might these
findings may also be applied to other cause-related messages?

Here is my email reply:

This study clearly illustrates the power of story as a persuasive communication tool. When a listener identifies with a protagonist, they can picture themselves in the situation. They have taken the details presented by the narrative and connected them to memories they already hold. They’ve fused the fictional with the real and created a new and personal understanding. What results is a sense of ownership over the situation and the outcome.

Every issue requires multiple stories so that multiple viewers and listeners can find a protagonist with whom they identify. This takes work, and it takes campaign directors who are willing to admit that they don’t possess the single answer; one message does not fit all. Giving up that kind of message control is difficult for many communicators. They believe the message which with they identify is the right message. Or, the message that tested best in a focus group is the best message. Focus groups don’t test internalization and application of a message. Story, whether fictionalized or real, is a powerful persuasion tool.

One problem with educational films and other materials, is that usually they are presented with a “right” and a “wrong” answer. Students are quick to comprehend with which protagonist they are supposed to identify. This stifles authentic discussion about complex issues. Adolescents, especially, are living complex lives and will benefit from being presented with multiple pathways into understanding of an issue.

Teen pregnancy, smoking, HIV infection – these all seem like obvious issues (just say no), but to a teenager, these are complex topics, encompassing issues of health, class, and peer pressure, for example. Story helps to make sense of that complexity. Understanding an issue through the lenses of a protagonist, perhaps a hero to whom the viewer can relate, can place complex issues into an understandable and actionable context.