One question Bob and I are often asked about Elements of Persuasion is “Aren’t you worried that by teaching the psychological underpinnings of the five story elements that you are helping advertisers manipulate people?”
Leaving aside the fact that manipulative advertisers are doing just fine without our help, we generally say that story elements are value neutral – a story can serve the common good (like biblical parables), or be used to promote the worst kinds of evil (like Hitler’s propaganda posters), but the structure of the successful story remains the same. That answer is not totally satisfying. If story is the root of culture (and it is) then it MUST link to morality and ethics, which are the glue that hold a culture together.
In his book The Happiness Hypothesis, psychologist Jonathan Haidt provides us with one missing link. As part of his research, he identifies five components of morality that extend across all cultures. Not surprisingly his five moral principles relate to our five story elements. They are:
1. Loyalty to the group: Like our story element Passion, his principle Loyalty is the irreducible core of morality. Without loyalty no shared moral code is possible. Ask any teenager about the intensely sexual nature of the peer pressure that Piaget discusses as the first stage in internalizing a moral system and you’ll see the connection between Loyalty to the group, and Passion.
2. Do as you would have done unto you: The same empathy that allows us to see a story through the Hero’s eyes is the basis for this “golden rule” element that Haidt finds in all moral systems. It’s why Heroes act like Heroes.
3. Do no physical harm: Haidt stresses that social moral systems all involve protecting others, especially family members. Protecting them from what? The Antagonist, of course.
4. Respect for authority: Unless an individual is Aware of the social structure they are living in, there is no way that this principle can function. But we are all aware of it. We all know that with age comes wisdom, and with authority, responsibility. When someone says the right thing, sees the way past the obstacle, or the way to achieve victory, we know it like a flash and follow his or her lead.
5. Purity and Sanctity: This is like our story element Transformation in that it literally translates into space – in this case, the sacred space in which common rituals – like story telling – bring the society together and make it unique and different from any other (while still being essentially the same).
Yesterday, the NYT ran a great piece about Haidt, check it out here.
To fully see how the story elements relate to these moral principles you really need to go the philosophical nature of the elements as states of consciousness as developed in the writings of contemporary philosopher Oscar Ichazo. As we said in our book, our understanding of the elements is based on Ichazo’s work. We will be talking more about Ichazo and our debt to him in coming posts. For now it is enough to say our book was dedicated to Professor Ichazo for a very good reason.
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