We are hardwired for stories but why do we love them so much?

From Dave in the pub, to your nan, to the literary greats, they are how we communicate and connect. Stories act as a kind of cognitive shortcut. But they also help us understand; humans are rubbish at understanding things without context which is why we were telling stories on cave walls.

The human brain prefers to do as little thinking as possible, because it takes so much effort and energy. We use the rule of thumb and make decisions intuitively. It would be exhausting to think through every decision every day. 

Stories follow patterns we have become wired to recognise. Chunking complex information into a familiar structure — beginning, middle, and end — is far easier to process and remember. 

We have developed a narrative bias: a tendency to favour coherent, cause-and-effect explanations over disjointed or abstract information. 

Dopamine plays a key role in sharpening attention and anticipating reward, while oxytocin is linked to feelings of empathy and social bonding. Together, they help us engage with stories in ways that feel real. We simulate events without physically going through them. From an evolutionary standpoint, it’s a highly efficient way to learn instead of trial and (potentially fatal) error.

Paul Zak’s research shows that character-driven stories can raise oxytocin by 50%, which helps us care about people, and by extension, brands. That emotional resonance acts like cognitive glue, making messages more memorable, and more likely to influence future choices

But the reason we’re all so obsessed with storytelling in marketing is that stories can be used to reshape those biases. A well-crafted narrative can reframe perceptions, introduce new viewpoints, and shift entrenched associations. All by working with the brain’s natural preference for meaning, emotion, and coherence.

Particularly in traditionally functional sectors like property and infrastructure, storytelling is underleveraged as a tool for building memory, meaning, and emotional connection. Places are collections of stories, symbols and tropes that shape our perception. Places that craft emotionally resonant stories bypass our logic filters and take up residence in our memory. When it’s time to choose they’re already there.