I read
an interesting article yesterday about the mystery of why Trump supporters
continue to ignore the truth. Yeah I
know - fake news.
The
article hypothesized that Trump is a storyteller and therefore truth is
irrelevant. It made me smile as I have
often commented that my husband never lets the truth get in the way of a good
story. (Bencherki & Basque, 2018)
Research
tells us that storytelling is both key to memory and an extremely effective
sales tool. The seminal study on the
subject, done in 2009/10, was called the "Significant Objects
Project." 200 random items were
bought at an average cost of $1.25 each.
Professional writers added personal stories for each - clearly false as
they were not intending to deceive - and then items were sold on eBay - for nearly
$8,000.
So
yes, storytelling works, and it is likely that the mirror neurons created by
Trump's storytelling, and reinforced through his tweets are creating a bond
with his audience. (2017)
But
the article goes on to mention that Trump is in fact offering a place in his successful/high
status tribe to the disenfranchised.
That
makes more sense to me. In previous
blogs I have discussed how strong the need to belong is and have hypothesized that
there is no such thing as individual thought anymore because the need to belong
to the tribe is simply too overwhelming.
But Trump's
storytelling is the key to making them believe that they do in fact belong, so
it is indeed one of the reasons why people continue to support him and believe
his lies. Denial is a
powerful thing.
Bencherki, N. & Basque, J. (2018, August 7) Why so many Americans continue to believe
that Donald Trump’s lies are facts. rawstory.com Retrieved August 8, 2018, from https://www.rawstory.com/2018/08/many-americans-continue-believe-donald-trumps-lies-facts/?comments=disqus
(2017,
May 8) The Science of Storytelling & Memory and Their Impact on CRO. conversionxl.com Retrieved August 8, 2018, from https://conversionxl.com/blog/the-science-of-storytelling-memory-motivation-and-its-impact-on-cro/
No comments:
Post a Comment