group even if no attack occurs.7 But that mechanism of cultural transmission is
imperfect, and the ability to transfer stories with language is uniquely human.
Human narratives’ power in inspiring fear lies in the fact that the information can
be transmitted without any observation of the fear-inducing stimulus. If the
narrative is strong enough to generate a salient emotional response, it can
produce a strong reaction, such as an instinctual fight-or-flight response.
Also universal are norms of polite conversations that facilitate the
transmission of narratives. Basic politeness involves simple actions like looking
at the person with whom one is speaking, and giving some indication of hello at
the beginning of the conversation and good-bye at the end. These norms tend to
flatter the other party. They are so engrained that, as experiments have shown,
people are somewhat polite when conversing with computers too.8 Visitors to
any human society will observe people facing each other, sitting around the
television or the campfire, and talking—and, more recently, tweeting and posting
to other social media—to learn others’ reactions, to seek feedback that will either
confirm or disconfirm their thoughts. It seems that the human mind strives to
reach an enduring understanding of events by forming them into a narrative that
is embedded in social interactions.
It has also been suggested that our species be called Homo musicus, man the
musician, because composed music is found in all human cultures, but in no
nonhuman species.9 Linguist Ray Jackendoff sees many parallels between
mental processing of narrative and of music.10 In his book Music, Language, and
the Brain, Aniruddh Patel concludes there is a “narrative tendency” in music.11
Purely instrumental music does exist, but when it is successful in the
marketplace, it typically merges into program music or symphonic poems whose
titles or movements suggested a story that stimulates the listener’s imagination.
According to musicologist Anthony Newcomb, the classical symphony is in
effect a “composed novel” that at least vaguely, emotionally, suggests a story.12

Conspiracy Theories in Narrative
Popular narratives often have an underlying “us versus them” theme, a
Manichaean tone that reveals the evil or absurdity of certain characters in the
story. Jokes are quite often at somebody else’s expense—members of some other
group. In extreme cases, they may focus on events as evidence of an imagined
conspiracy. According to historian Richard Hofstadter, who offers many
examples of unfounded conspiracy theories in US history, the narratives tend to
show “almost touching concern with factuality,”13 despite often being almost
absurd. Of course, it is rational for people to be alert to conspiracies, because
history is filled with real conspiracies. But the human mind seems to have a
built-in interest in conspiracies, a tendency to form a personal identity and a
loyalty to friends based on the desire to protect oneself from the perceived plots
of others. This disposition appears to be related to human patterns of reciprocity
and of vengeance against presumed enemies, two tendencies that have been
found relevant to economic behavior in terms of willingness to give in
bargaining or eagerness to punish unfair behavior, even if doing so means
economic loss.14

Story and Narrative
The words narrative and story are often used interchangeably. But according to
the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, a narrative is “a way of presenting or
understanding a situation or series of events that reflects and promotes a
particular point of view or set of values.”15 So a narrative is a particular form of a
story, or of stories, suggesting the important elements and their significance to
the receiver. Narratives generally take the form of some recounting of events,
whether actual or fictional, though often the specific events described are little
more than bits of color brightening a concept and making it more contagious.
The human tendency to form simple narratives around even the most complex
chains of events infects even the most analytical minds. Garry Kasparov,
international chess grandmaster, commented from his own experience:
The biggest problem was that even the players would fall into the trap of
seeing each game of chess as a story, a coherent narrative with a beginning
and a middle and a finish, with a few twists and turns along the way. And, of
course, a moral at the end of the story.16
Historian Hayden White has emphasized the distinction between a historical
narrative and a historical chronicle, which merely lists sequences of events:
The demand for closure in the historical story is a demand, I suggest, for
moral meaning, a demand that sequences of real events be assessed as to their
significance as elements of a moral drama.17
Economists have tended to write theories as if a benevolent dictator can
implement a specific plan to achieve the greatest social welfare. But we have no
such planner. We do have people who can be selfish, altruistic, or both. These
people can be influenced by stories.