Stories exist in every human community, including remote tribes, and in every period of human history. We are a storytelling species but why? Why did our ancestors expend valuable energy sharing stories and why do we still do so today?

Anthropologists at University College London recently found the first real-world evidence that storytelling is an evolutionary adaptation. They studied the Agta people – a group of hunter-gatherers in the Philippines – and found groups with skilled storytellers worked together more effectively. They also discovered the best storytellers had greater reproductive success than the best hunters suggesting nature selects for storytelling.

“Our research suggest storytelling performs an important adaptive function in human societies,” Dr Daniel Smith told StoryCode. “It’s a way of broadcasting social norms, coordinating behaviour and promoting cooperation. It communicates the rules of the tribe and the penalties for breaking them. This helps people work together without conflict to achieve a common goal.”

The study is the latest in a growing body of research that suggests storytelling performs at least six evolutionary functions:–

THE SIX FUNCTIONS OF STORY

1. SENSE-MAKING
There is a psychology experiment from the 1950s in which people are shown two triangles and a circle moving round a screen. Most see the shapes as characters in an unfolding story: some see a love triangle; others a conflict between children or animals. The experiment shows people think in stories. The brain takes in data points and creates a story to join the dots. Story is the brain’s sense-making mechanism.

2. MEANING
We could wake up each morning and contemplate our smallness in an infinite universe but that would result in overwhelm and paralysis so we set goals and embark on journeys to achieve them. Each journey is a story that narrows the world to a manageable scale providing purpose and meaning and protecting us from the existential abyss. If you ever wondered about the meaning of life: it’s story.

3. CONNECTION
We share stories to connect with others. Trust between people is based on the exchange of stories: we have to know something about someone to trust them. One measure of intimacy is the number and nature of stories shared. When someone tells a story, we walk in their shoes and acquire insight into their motives and perspectives. Our brain waves synchronise with theirs activating empathy, fostering understanding and deepening connection.

4. CO-OPERATION
Story is the glue that holds human groups together. The ability to unite around a collective story enabled small tribes to grow into large tribes and eventually into today’s globalised society, suggests the historian Yuval Noah Harari. Nations, cities and companies are stories that unite people around common values and goals and a cultural crisis occurs when one of these unifying stories runs out or falls apart.

5. CHANGE
Thinkers since Aristotle have observed a universal pattern underlying enduring stories. This pattern is the source code of story – story DNA – and it involves change. Life throws down a gauntlet challenging the hero to embark on an adventure. Wary of change, the hero hesitates then commits to the quest enduring trials before emerging transformed. Stories explore the conflict between our need for change and our fear of change helping us evolve.

6. RESILIENCE
Stories provide respite from life’s troubles enhancing resilience. As the hero confronts challenges of mounting difficulty culminating in the story’s climax, the rising tension grips us purging pent-up emotions and activating feel-good chemicals when it is released. The Greeks called this catharsis which means cleansing or renewal. Good stories balance our emotions, increase our insight and help us survive life.

Discover how a scientific understanding of story can help you sell strategy, unite teams and drive change at our Storytelling for Leaders masterclass.