Made to Stick

An Ethnography of a Modern Job (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,
1996). The dicorotron story is on page 137.
209 “John put on his sweatshirt”: This study is among dozens of studies that sup-
port the importance of mental simulation. For a review, see Rolf A. Zwaan
and Gabriel A. Radvansky, “Situation Models in Language Comprehension
and Memory,” Psychological Bulletin 123 (1998): 162–85. Not only do peo-
ple mentally simulate space, they also simulate time. In a story about people
entering a movie theater, respondents are more likely to recognize a refer-
ence to “the projectionist” if only ten minutes have elapsed in the story than
if six hours have elapsed, even if both references are just a few sentences away
on the page from the line about the movie theater.
210 no such thing as a passive audience: The best overview of the “active reader”
research is provided by Richard Gerrig, a researcher in the field. See Experi-
encing Narrative Worlds: On the Psychological Activities of Reading (New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988). Gerrig says that Samuel Cole-
ridge was wrong to describe our ability to appreciate stories as the “suspension
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of disbelief,” because his quote implies that the default state of humans is skep-
tical disbelief. In fact, the real state is the opposite. It’s easy to get wrapped up
in a story; it’s hard to evaluate arguments skeptically, disbelieving them until
they are proven. One of our favorite illustrations of the power of simulation is
Gerrig’s research on stories with well-known endings. When people are in the
middle of a story, they often get so wrapped up in the simulation that they mo-
mentarily act as though they’d forgotten an obvious ending. Watch out for that
iceberg, Titanic!
212 Why does mental simulation work?: The tapping, Eiffel Tower, lemon
juice, and other examples are from Mark R. Dadds, Dana H. Bovbejerg,
William H. Redd, and Tim R. H. Cutmore, “Imagery in Human Classical
Conditioning,” Psychological Bulletin 122 (1997): 89–103.
213 A review of thirty-five studies: James E. Driskell, Carolyn Copper, and Aidan
Moran, “Does Mental Practice Enhance Performance?” Journal of Applied
Psychology 79 (1994): 481–92.
215 Dealing with Problem Students: Message 1 is from a tip sheet, “Tips for
Dealing with Student Problem Behaviors,” from the Office for Professional
Development, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. See www
.opd.iupui.edu/uploads/library/IDD/IDD6355.doc. Message 2, by Alison
Buckman, was originally posted to http://research.umbc.edu/~korenman/
wmst/disruptive_students2.html.
219 When Fogle registered: Ryan Coleman, “Indiana U. Senior Gains New Per-
spective on Life,” Indiana Daily Student, April 29, 1999.
221 In 1999, Subway’s sales: Performance statistics for Subway, Schlotzky’s, and
Quiznos are from Bob Sperber, “In Search of Fresh Ideas,” Brandweek, Octo-
ber 15, 2001, M54.
225 Blumkin is a Russian woman: Rose Blumkin is described by Warren Buffett
in his 1983 shareholder letter (see www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1983
.html).
226 These three basic plots: These results are from Chip’s research at Stanford.
After studying urban legends for a while—stories that frequently specialize in
creating negative emotions such as fear, anger, or disgust—he asked whether
there were stories that circulated because they produced positive emotions.
The Chicken Soup for the Soul stories were the obvious place to start. The re-
search on the frequencies of the three plots was done by giving raters the clas-
sification system but no other information about the hypotheses of the
research. Even though raters worked independently, pairs of raters who saw
the same stories showed strong agreement on classifications.
274
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Another Stanford study suggests that these three plots are a good way to en-
sure that your stories are more inspiring. Students were given the assignment
of finding a true story that would inspire their classmates, either from their
own lives or from some public source. Later, their fellow students rated the
stories on their ability to inspire—to make them feel proud, excited, and de-
termined. Stories that featured one of the three plots were much more likely
to wind up in the top half of the stories. Of the stories that wound up in the
top 10 percent, all had one or more of the three plots.
Another study showed that each plot drives a specific form of activity. Peo-
ple read through a selection of stories, one per day, and recorded how they
felt after reading each story. Challenge plots made people want to set higher
goals, to take on new challenges, to work harder and persist longer. Connec-
tion plots made people want to work with others, to reach out and help
them, and to be more tolerant. Creativity plots made people want to do
something different, to be creative, to experiment with new approaches.
Thus, the right stories not only tell us how to act, they operate as a kind of
psychological battery pack, giving us the energy to take action. Notably,
none of these stories was more likely to drive “feel good” activity. People
weren’t more likely to was to do something to enjoy themselves—to listen to
good music, watch television, or eat a good meal; instead, they wanted to go
out and accomplish something. Thus these stories drive productive action,
not passive self-involvement.
227 In response, Jesus told a story: The Good Samaritan story is from the New
International Version of the Bible, Luke 10:25–37.
229 Ingersoll-Rand: The story of the Grinder Team is told in Chapter 6 of Tom
Peters, Liberation Management (New York: Knopf, 1992).
231 Stories at the World Bank: This section is based on two excellent books by
Stephen Denning. His first book, about the role of storytelling in organiza-
tions, is The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era